Richie Hawtin's message about Aslice closing

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https://www.instagram.com/p/C_cwaYTgRkK/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading

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it was posted in another thread and although I had no idea about this project I did have some thoughts after watching this video and reading their report…

what I wonder is why venues don’t clear the music? why is it on the DJ? what I mean is, let’s say you’re a radio station, you get 12-24 people playing shows a day, you might call them DJ’s as well, so they play all kinds of music but don’t the radio station clears the royalties?
how come the venues or big festivals don’t do same thing? are they not sort of radio stations in the sense that music is what makes the event? I imagine the big ones that pump tons of money require submission of sets or at least set list before the show from the performer, or at least they can know for sure what was played after each slot, so if they would be required to pay royalties wouldn’t it make more sense?

I don’t get how this ā€œtrustā€ thing would work in modern times, you either enforce it or… you know… good luck with that buddy…

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Venues do pay. To PROs, but they don’t seem to work for dance music as they should. They certainly have the infrastructure already in place at least in terms of logistics, maybe they need to up their game and modernize in order to work for us dance music producers? Maybe they can absorb the legwork done by Aslice? But maybe they don’t care about us :man_shrugging:

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Greed will kill the World.

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well, they should, I don’t see any individual-trust based system working for royalties, I suppose the venues want to cut costs as much as anyone but imo they are the ones that should be accountable imo, they are the platform, without venue/festival there’s no performance, and the very basic premises of the show is music, so imo instead of building a system to ask nicely the performer to share - build a system to enforce the venue clear that part.

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I can see the venues crying about having to pay extra when they already pay their local PRO (they already do about paying the currently enforced PRO fees). This is definitely only something the PROs need to fix.

well obviously they won’t be happy about it, but again, they are the platform, in any sense of logic the platform should pay royalties, and they do - but apparently for only certain genres, which is weird af.

for example, twitch announced a huge rethinking of the whole dj thing and this is their take on dj’s that using them as platform:

One of our core values as a company is that we support creators of all types. When DJs use music created by others, it’s important that any revenue generated on Twitch also be shared with those musicians. This is something many DJs have told us they agree with, but until now there has been no easy way to do so. To cover the cost of the music used in DJ live-streams, we will set aside a portion of earnings generated by DJ channels to be paid to musicians via music companies that represent them. These costs will vary based on how a channel monetizes. For most streamers, Twitch will be splitting these costs 50/50 with the streamer, although initially Twitch will absorb more of the cost. Twitch is covering the costs for DJs who aren’t yet monetizing. Non monetizing streamers will not be financially impacted.

It’s crucial that DJs understand the status quo on Twitch was not sustainable, and any viable future for the community required we find a solution. We’ve worked with music partners over the past few years to develop this program. Without it, those who stream DJ content on Twitch without the necessary rights do so at the risk of receiving DMCA notifications and copyright penalties which could restrict their ability to stream on Twitch.

To help existing Twitch DJs adjust to this new program, Twitch will be offering a 1 year subsidy to help cover the difference in revenue that will be paid out to music companies and their musicians. The amount of the subsidy will gradually reduce over time as the service grows.

This program is only applicable to those who live-stream as DJs, and does not apply to other uses of music. DJs will need to opt-in to a new agreement that will apply to all streaming on their channel. For those who only stream DJ content part-time, we recommend creating a second standalone channel dedicated to DJ live-streaming.

unless I’m missing something here, twitch is forcing dj’s that monetize their streams to pay the price per stream:

To cover the cost of the music used in DJ live-streams, we will set aside a portion of earnings generated by DJ channels to be paid to musicians via music companies that represent them.

you play a track, you make money playing the track, you use our platform to do it, you pay for the music. this is what venues should do as well, if they don’t, you can’t expect dj’s to be just ā€œniceā€ about it.

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Its tricky. Maybe Shazam each DJs playlist during their performance and cut some slack to each of the producers off that list and that would have to be per size of an audience. And I do agree this should be done by the promoters. However here is no control mechanism and Aslice thought ā€œwe are just cool DJs and we are in fair play industry and we will voluntary play our cardsā€. This was very naive. Bring this up to a level that it will be a legal must-have and its different discussion. Then to find the mechanism how to control it. Until then, its just wishful thinking.

I remember watching a documentary years back of an audiophile in NY sitting in front of 2mil dollar sound system with cracking vinyl recording in bliss , when he said, that around 1975 he was invited to Amsterodam to PHILIPS where some kind of a laser based music device - CD …was introduced. .And he said something like ā€œā€¦then we knew, we are f"ckedā€.

So it looks like killing vinyl and replacing it with ones and zeros have another implication / victim almost 50 years later. If DJs played off vinyl, we would not have this discussion and producers would be happy…

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radio stations still play cds and pay royalties, and they do for digital media.
many dj’s play vinyl in clubs or stages and don’t pay royalties, don’t think the media has anything to do with royalty share…

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I agree, even restaurants with radios have to pay royalties. There is a law for this in my country. But its based on playlists - controllable, measurable. The point was, that digital streaming and YT etc is endless source of music ripping. DJs do rip songs of other DJs performances on YT etc.

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yep, that’s why twitch started enforcing it, and that’s why every platform should be accountable.

so should be playing a dj set in a festival, just submit your playlist to the venue, also, a lot of them post these on youtube anyway, the tracklists are there but no one enforcing the revenue share

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Is the PROs. They are collecting the money already and if they have playlists they should be paying the artists.

Are all djs providing playlists?
Are all artists registered with their local PRO?

Moreover, what about a promo track or unreleased?

There are intricacies that only apply to dance music. I don’t know much about the subject. But I do know it’s in the PROs hands to make changes in order to serve the artists they work for.

Pretty sure musicans would be fine being their own entity and accepting direct payments rather than being forced to have to depend on a ā€œrepresentative.ā€ Funny how you can only be considered a legitimate entity as long as you already have someone taking at least 15% off the top.

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I assume not, but they should is what I’m saying…

that’s a whole another subject but what would you rather have, 75% of something or 100% of nothing?
if platform requires some sort of organized body to represent your music and the cost is 15%, I think it’s way better then getting absolutely nothing…

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I mean, I get that’s how it is. I just don’t think that’s how it should be. But I guess we should just shut up and eat our happy meal lol

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Hate to say it, but this is the music industry in a nutshell since forever.

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Yup!

No. It works really well for other genres of music though. It’s just the djs bit which doesn’t work, so, no, that’s not the music industry in a nutshell since forever mate