(Hypebot) – Here we look at some of the highlights from Irving Azoff's recent keynote at the NMPA, particularly regarding artist's rights and the importance of what's best for the creators. Azoff's efforts now also includes this campaign signed by 180 major artists.
Guest post from Artist Rights Watch
Irving Azoff highlighted the gridlock on artist rights in Washington in his June 8 keynote at the annual meeting of NMPA, the music publishers trade association.
“The music industry has never been more powerful and popular and we as an industry have never done a shittier job of rallying together as one industry,” Azoff said. “We should work together to solve the root of the problem” — fair compensation.
“I had one artist who was making $450,000 a year between all of his royalties,” Azoff said. Now after the digital revolution, he is down to making “$40,000 a year.”
But he noted that digital services like Youtube, which have very nice executives working for them, say they are not making any money on their ad-supported services, Azoff noted. “How can you sit there and say we can’t afford a couple of hundred millions of dollars for your industry, when their market cap is worth a half a trillion dollars?”
Azoff noted that the industry has been operating under the consent decree since the 1941. “Anyone with sense would ask, why does the DOJ think we still need a consent decree,” he observed. “I think its deplorable.”
Finally, Azoff noted that no matter what role he played in the industry, as a manger, a promoter, a label executive, “If you do what’s right by the creator” — whether that’s the artist or songwriter — “it will eventually be right for your company as well.”
It would be nice if Google learned that lesson.
