Juha reports that this letter was sent to APRA members.

Dear…

We’re asking you and some other key songwriters and composers for a brief personal statement about what APRA means to you. A selection will be published in the APRA magazine.

We believe it’s timely to remind the public of where the music they love comes from, and why the songwriters and composers who create it should receive fair remuneration for their work.

As artists ourselves we would certainly agree with fair remuneration (and a bit more than that!). However it's safe to assume that a call for "fair remuneration" isn't all that will said in your name if you provide a personal statement to APRA.

APRA, like RIANZ, supported the misguided law Section 92A that removed New Zealander's fundamental right to due process (through a trial) in the name of protecting art and creativity. We agree that those illegally distributing music should get an appropriate punishment, but when the designer of Section 92A, Judith Tizard, could only ensure that it would catch people "who might be breaking the law", and high-rates of false accusations (37% of copyright infringement claims in the US being invalid, 30% within New Zealand fail to prove ownership) we really do need experts to decide.

Shame on any organisation that would support a law without ensuring due process. Prime Minister John Key was quite right to call this law "draconian".

What has been most humbling around the discussion of Section 92A is that that thousands of artists are willing to be so selfless and stand up for these fundamental principles (some of whom have directly told us they're being affected by illegal downloads). It's easy to say something when your paycheck depends on it, but it's much harder to stand up to organisations that pay you your licensing fees.

During recent publicity over the digital provisions of the Copyright Act, a good deal of misinformation about APRA has been circulated, particularly among user groups on the net. Some have made statements questioning APRA members’ rights to their songs or suggesting that APRA is somehow ripping off artists.

This is nonsense. There are no examples provided here by Arthur Baysting who has previously misrepresented an analysis of copyright law with the act of stealing, and we can only assume that he's repeating that baseless argument here.

This is about you; APRA is after all a non-profit body run by its members for its members.

This rings hollow when you recall that APRA members weren't appropriately consulted on the important issue of Section 92A.

There is clear evidence that a campaign is underway to change copyright law in favour of users, diluting creators’ rights and threatening future royalties for APRA members. This is not just in NZ; copyright is also under attack internationally from ISPs and user groups.

It's simplistic to the point of self-defeating to describe any campaign as being artists vs users. While copyright is a balance of rights, no effective campaign would be so single-minded. There are legitimate issues on either side which copyright seeks to addresses. Merely picking sides (as APRA should know by now) is an extremist and untenable position. Here at the CFF we recently announced a public consultation programme that proposes a fair way of protecting artists and users.

Copyright is not under attack. The "clear evidence" of a campaign isn't provided, but it reeks of paranoia as does the rest of their letter. This should be beneath APRA.

The only campaign that we know of in this area relates to New Zealander's fighting to keep their basic fundamental rights and artists who don't want injustices like S92A done in their name.

A few lines about APRA or why your music is important to you would be very useful to us. A sentence or a paragraph is all we need but we have a deadline for the APRAP which looms so we need it as soon as possible.

Cheers all,

Arthur Baysting - APRA Writer/Director
Ant Healey Director NZ Operations, APRA.

In other news, RIANZ recently sent some notices to members about new arrangements with APRA/AMCOS.

Our response to it isn't particularly critical and infact it's good to hear some solid arguments from RIANZ,

for those of you who wish to sell digital content direct to consumers, you must have a mechanical agreement in place with APRA/AMCOS, much like we do with physical sales.

we will shortly be negotiating with APRA/AMCOS for an industry wide agreement for this purpose, but in the interim we have agreed a rate and terms to apply in the short term.

attached is a draft letter from APRA/AMCOS along with a draft agreement. if you would like to sell digital content directly to consumer, let ant healey at APRA/AMCOS know and he will send you a personalised letter in the attached form, along with an attached draft agreement in that form. once you receive those, make sure they match the attached documents, sign and return to APRA/AMCOS.

the letter sets out the basic rate that will apply. if you have any questions, please dont hesitate to email or call me.

The key phrase here is "sell digital content direct to consumers" which means that if you set up your own online store to sell songs directly to customers the standard profit sharing rates still apply. In other words, they're saying that musicians should pay them royalties when selling songs directly to their fans.

The royalty is apparently still under negotiation but they estimate that "a combined APRA/AMCOS rate of 8% will be the rate payable (with minimums of 6.5 cents per track, capped at 65 cents per Album".

Obviously commercial rights to music will be in most contracts, so we're talking about this to help educate musicians. When musicians sell directly to fans on their own website it raises the question of what APRA/RIANZ/AMCOS are doing to earn their cut (which isn't a facetious question, it's something to be evaluated by musicians).

Any musicians who think this is wrong they should check their contracts and perhaps renegotiate.

We'd be interested in hearing from any musicians who are in this situation. Please contact us.

Discuss this news item on the forums