Music Industry Wants to Charge for 30-Second Song Previews on iTunes, TV Show Downloads

Those people in the music industry never seem to learn. In fact, they seem intent on deliberately unlearning anything past mistakes have taught them. The music industry has been flailing through the digital age trying to find a way to squeeze us for more money, and their latest idea is a doozy.

The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) and Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI) are demanding royalties for every time you play a 30-second preview clip of any song on iTunes. That’s right, they want to make money off of the very thing designed to entice you into buying the song.

So instead of try before you buy, it’s more like buy a little and then buy the whole thing again.

Granted, you won’t be charged directly for each preview you listen to, but if the music executives are successful at making Apple pay the royalties, the new policy will probably be reflected in raised prices at the iTunes store.

The next great idea the music industry is pushing is forcing music retailers to pay for downloads of TV shows and movies because, you guessed it, those movies and shows contain music. Of course, this would be in addition to the licensing fees any production company pays to put a song into their show or movie in the first place.

Now it’s that time where we take a look at the other side of the argument. The members of the two organizations petitioning for this change say they are actually very low on the totem pole in the music industry and don’t receive the same kind of compensation for their work that the other members of the industry do. They say their livelihoods are threatened.

Rick Carnes, president of the Songwriter’s Guild of America, told CNET, “We make 9.1 cents off a song sale and that means a whole lot of pennies have to add up before it becomes a bunch of money. Yesterday, I received a check for 2 cents. I'm not kidding. People think we're making a fortune off the Web, but it's a tiny amount. We need multiple revenue streams or this isn't going to work.”

Okay, Rick, I don’t doubt that many people get the short end of the stick in the music industry. I’m fully willing to accept that a lot of greedy jerks rake in the dough while you don’t get much. (By the way, there are other people who feel the way you do, namely a lot of internet journalists … ahem.) But I have a hard time believing that your proposals won’t end up lining the pockets of industry executives as the new royalties trickle down to you. And besides, is taxing 30-second previews really the way to go about getting justly rewarded for your work?

ASCAP and BMI haven’t been able to negotiate for the additional fees with Apple and other retailers (big surprise, I’ll bet Steve Jobs was a real dear during that presentation), so they have turned to lobbying in congress to pass legislation.

While the thought of turning to legislation is comforting (it will take years to get anything through congress), it seems inevitable that the music industry will fight for and win rate hikes, which will raise prices on downloads. And then they’ll be surprised when sales go down and more people turn to piracy. There’s got to be a better way, right?

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