Two Articles on Copyright and Royalties

Found these two articles this past week that seem to show multiple sides of the copyright and royalties debate, especially when it comes to streaming audio. The first is actually on the Politico web site and is titled "The secret policy war at the Grammys" (http://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/policy-war-grammys-114990.html):
 
"A virtually unknown appendage of the Library of Congress – a panel of three unelected judges known as the Copyright Royalty Board – is preparing for the first time in five years to approve new royalty rates that Internet services like Pandora have to pay record labels. At the same time, performing rights organizations are heavily lobbying the Justice Department to update decades-old agreements they say stifle the income of songwriters and music publishers.

"Rarely has so much been at stake for the music world in Washington, where federal copyright law has a much tighter hand on the industry’s business models than is commonly known. The results will dictate how recording artists, songwriters and streaming services make their money — and shape the digital music landscape for years to come."
 
The another article over at TechDirt titled "Yes, Major Record Labels Are Keeping Nearly All The Money They Get From Spotify, Rather Than Giving It To Artists" (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150204/07310329906/yes-major-record-labels-are-keeping-nearly-all-money-they-get-spotify-rather-than-giving-it-to-artists.shtml):
 
"A small group of very vocal musicians has decided that the new target of their anger, after attacking cyberlockers, search engines and torrent sites, should be legal, authorized streaming services. They've decided that the payouts from these services are simply too low, even though almost none of these services are anywhere close to profitable, and most are handing out the vast majority of their revenue to copyright holders.
 

 
"As you can see, the labels get the lion's share (45.6%), with songwriters/publishers splitting 10% and the performers getting less than 7%."