Merlin, an international rights group representing about 12,000 members of the independent music community has issued a notice to their membership cautioning them not to accept Last.fm’s program to pay unsigned and independent artists royalties for each time their song is streamed.

Merlin wants to strike a deal with Last.fm directly that will cover all its members, and if members strike out on their own and take Last.fm’s royalty deal, that basically destroys Merlin’s negotiating position. Last.fm says about 70,000 indie labels have joined the royalty program, collectively uploading more than 450,000 tracks since January.

Merlin claims that Last.fm allows users to stream "numerous" tracks of music on demand that are not properly licensed and wants any licensing agreement to retroactively compensate its past infringement.

I suppose we’ll see what will happen. There seem to be enough indie acts looking for exposure (the next Colbie Caillat?) that Last.fm isn’t going to have much of a problem.
(image source, Colbie Caillat)

Post from: EveryJoe