When the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) proposed SoundExchange, a new agency they set up to collect royalty fees for digital broadcasts under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), artists were up in arms. They had good reason, as the original plan had the artist’s record label as the conduit to disperse funds. The artist’s, through two trade unions, fought back and an agreement was finally worked out. Musicians and artists will now share equal control of SoundExchange and be paid directly for broadcasts of their work on cable, satellite and Web.
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