{"id":4129,"date":"2014-02-28T08:16:14","date_gmt":"2014-02-28T08:16:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/skylight.gr\/administrator_wordpress\/index.php\/2014\/02\/28\/dear-congress-please-make-pandora-stop-screwing-us-signed-songwriters\/"},"modified":"2014-02-28T08:16:14","modified_gmt":"2014-02-28T08:16:14","slug":"dear-congress-please-make-pandora-stop-screwing-us-signed-songwriters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/2014\/02\/28\/dear-congress-please-make-pandora-stop-screwing-us-signed-songwriters\/","title":{"rendered":"Dear Congress, Please Make Pandora Stop Screwing Us. Signed, Songwriters\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.digitalmusicnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/pandoraproblem2.jpg\" border=\"0\" width=\"220\" height=\"124\" \/><br \/>Songwriters understandably hate this, but they have almost no power to stop it.\u00a0 The reason is that despite incredibly low payouts, it\u2019s nearly impossible for songwriters to remove their catalogs from Pandora, or even negotiate better terms.\u00a0 The complicated explanation has to do with a century of antiquated laws that basically force songwriters to license their content at fractional rates, and like it.  <!--more-->  <br \/>Last year, a number of prominent songwriters protested on Capitol Hill, with emotional performances designed to combat lower royalty rates.\u00a0 This year, they\u2019re exercising the nuclear option by introducing legislation to change the laws.\u00a0 This bill, introduced this morning, is called the Songwriter Equity Act, with Congressman Doug Collins sponsoring.<\/p>\n<p>Essentially, the bill attempts to plug two massive loopholes in copyright law that greatly benefit Pandora but essentially screw songwriters.\u00a0 \u201dRoughly two-thirds of a songwriter\u2019s income is heavily regulated by law or through outdated government oversight,\u201d National Music Publishers\u2019 Association CEO David Israelite told Digital Music News.\u00a0 \u201dThis legislation addresses two significant inequities under current copyright law that prevent songwriters and music publishers from receiving compensation that reflects the fair market value of their work.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI fear that without the Songwriter Equity Act, songwriting as a profession will give to way songwriting as a hobby, and an important American treasure will be in jeopardy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.digitalmusicnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/pandoraproblem1.jpg\" border=\"0\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.digitalmusicnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/pandoraproblem5.jpg\" border=\"0\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.digitalmusicnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/pandoraproblem2.jpg\" border=\"0\" width=\"498\" height=\"280\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Source: Digital Music News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Songwriters understandably hate this, but they have almost no power to stop it.\u00a0 The reason&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4129\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}