Musicians unhappy with download share
Eight Mile Style and Martin Affiliated, the publishing units of the hip-hop star Eminem, last month filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Apple’s iTunes music store. There are currently two similar suits running but as Greg Sandoval reports on ZDNet, that this isn’t about Apple or copyright infringement: “What the musicians and writers really want is to challenge the claim by record labels that they have the right to negotiate Internet sales on their behalf.” As CD sales go down and royalties get squeezed, more and more artists are growing dissatisfied with their share for digital downloads. “A growing number of performers, publishers and songwriters want a bigger share of that download revenue and want to see an overhaul of recording and publishing contracts”, writes Greg Sandoval.
