Performing Rights Groups Aim to Outdo RIAA

Published: August 1, 2007, 4:57 pm

Tags: culture, ascap, bim, copyright, disney, infringement, riaa, sesac, sony, viacom, sne, dis, via, goog

What to do, when royalties from CD sales begin to plunge due to online sharing and shifting revenue models? Should artists attempt to innovate and grow into their new market? Or should they find clever new ways to shake down the existing fan base for royalties? To be fair, artists rarely have an active part in this ongoing argument. Rather, it's acronym-heavy organizations like the RIAA who make it their business to represent companies or groups of artists by practicing large scale intimidation in the courts.The RIAA is our perennial media sweetheart, wielding legions of Washington lobbyists and flashy initiatives like their P2P Lawsuits website. But it seems that lately some of its acronymic cousins have been getting jealous of its center-stage position. Groups known as performing rights associations, namely the ASCAP, BMI and SESAC, represent thousands of artists each differing from the RIAA, which represents large companies like Disney (DIS), Sony (SNE) and Viacom

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