Faastwalker wrote:
Okay. So if it's a release to release basis he can pretty much do whatever he wants outside of that contract? Also this stuff is uploaded as
user48736353001 and mostly tagged with his AFX pseudonym. So nothing actually bears the name Aphex Twin. So is that a way around any contractual / legal obligations as well - just release your material under a pseudonym to dissolve all official responsibility?
...maybe? Again, it depends on the deal. If he's only made a deal for his Aphex Twin alias, that's one situation, but if he's made a deal for everything Richard D. James does, that's another.
Faastwalker wrote:So getting back to Discover - The legal obligations to users, as depicted by Propellerhead, is really all about personal circumstance as to how you should approach the services. I've read things like, 'if your signed up to the PRO then you shouldn't be using services like Discover'. But that might not be the case depending on the nature of the deal you have with your music publisher?
First off, it's not "the PRO", it's
a PRO. Performance Rights Organization. BMI, ASCAP, SESAC, and so on, there are several. These are the organizations that get paid by places like radio stations and concert halls for the right to perform music. They basically make it convenient, so that a radio station doesn't have to cut a billion checks to each individual artist to play records. They gather these royalties and then through their individual formulas, divide that money between their songwriting members.
That's somewhat different than a music publisher, which is really a legal entity designed to take in money from royalties. These can be large corporate organizations, or they can be some guy with a business license and a P.O. Box. Some songwriters handle their own music publishing, some prefer to let other companies do it. Some have had to share their music publishing rights with the larger companies as a condition of signing to a record label.
Any difficulty one might face with regards to Discover is in whether any organization they belong to or are contracted with will feel obliged to pursue royalties on their behalf. A PRO is going to have a "one size fits all" style of operation, and to be frank I don't really know how they would view something like Discover. A music publisher could have different policies from organization to organization, but as a general rule the larger and more corporate they are, the more likely they'll be willing to be hardasses about pursuing revenues from people publishing "their" music.
This is something that a musician
ought to be aware of before they ever upload anything to Discover, or SoundCloud or anything. They should be aware of how their business partners will want to handle things, and conduct themselves accordingly.