Intergroove & MCPS

[TechMouse]

and such is life.. the important thing if you are an artist is to join the relevent collection agency or get a publisher (better).. because MPCS (GEMA in germany/ ASCAP in USA) will take this money from the label whether you are a member or not....

Oh, I quite agree - you should definitely register and get your slice of the pie.

But in this case it seems that the MCPS is going to take money from the labels to cover physical copies that the labels will not be able to recover because they will go to the liquidators handling the Intergroove case.

Sadly there's very little legal precedent here, and since the MCPS is pwn3d by the bigger labels the little guys don't really have much of a chance.

I think Biff is liasing with the MCPS officer who is dealing with the case.

Does this affect anyone? If so, I'll try and pass on information.

[crime]

But in this case it seems that the MCPS is going to take money from the labels to cover physical copies that the labels will not be able to recover because they will go to the liquidators handling the Intergroove case.

The MCPS's argument will be that this money should have been paid before the records were pressed, unfair, I know, but unfortunately this is the way it works with vinyl, you are supposed to have MCPS licences before you press any records, and it has always been on amounts pressed, not sold...

Looking at these tactics by MCPS and other things I've seen GEMA do recently, I'm imagining we're starting to see these organisations responding to falling vinyl sales by coming down really hard about mechanical licencing issues.. Totally unfair to the small labels I know, but the way it is.. in some ways I could see this issue being the real killer for small independant vinyl labels...