Just read an article from CNET News where now the music publishing industry wants royalties for online music purchases.  Here’s a nice deceiving statement by an music industry rep:

“In the U.S. while we do get paid a mechanical (licensing fee) from ITunes, we are not getting any performance income from Apple yet,” David Renzer, chairman and CEO of Universal Music Publishing Group, said in interview late last month with entertainment-industry publication, Encore. “(On iTunes) you can stream radio, and you can preview (tracks), things that we should be getting paid performance income for.”

You have to be kidding me.  It doesn’t sound like this person understands how iTunes works.  Apple does not stream the radio themselves – they just keep a directory of stations that broadcast online via Shoutcast.  Those stations, in turn, should be paying both the publishing royalties (ASCAP, BMI, etc) and streaming royalties (SoundExchange).  iTunes is just a directory for those stations.  And let’s not get started on why someone should have to pay royalties for previews.  Do they expect Borders, Newbury Comics to be paying royalties for those CD preview stations as well?

Anyway, if you want to read more of this bull, here is the URL:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10355448-93.html?tag=newsLeadStoriesArea.1

Hopefully Congress can see through the double-dipping industry bull shit.