I’m not actually Gareth from cpu.ie, I thought you might be actually that’s why I threw it in. I was on cpu however back in the day and noticed it started to stop being maintained around the same time downloadmusic was starting up. Thought there might have been a link. Obviously not then.

Also I was not saying I think that you are a blood sucking conglomerate, I was just saying that IMRO could view downloadmusic.ie as a commercial venture (like a hairdresser) for those reasons, it wasn’t an attack, just maybe an explanation of their actions. OK.

I just don’t like corporate attempts to get into the music industry of that type, eircom music, coke music, nokia trends, artist themed meteor phones. That just my personal preference, as a musician it doesn’t sit well with me and I know I’m not alone in that. I was genuinely disappointed when downloadmusic.ie went that route but as I said it’s just personal preference. Not a slur or an attack so don’t take it that way.

We reject that totally. I don’t know how exactly we could have communicated this information in any other way.

“I believe the reason you guys were targeted was prob the fact that
1) You say you are specifically an authorised digital music download site
2) You have corporate backing.
3) Your sales are recognised in the official chart.”

Your efforts to portray us as some sort of corporate stooge compared to what appears to be your own site, cpu.ie, are fairly transparent.

Firstly, we are an authorised digital site. It is not illegal to use our site, that’s all that means.

Secondly, we do not have corporate backing. We are a company and we sold services to another company. That’s sort of how companies work.

Furthermore, IMRO are also looking for fees from outersounds.ie, who have no dealings with eircom, and would be looking for fees from cpu.ie, if it still operated.

Thirdly, I don’t know what your reference to the Irish chart has to do with anything. IMRO look for fees from Hairdressors, and to the best of my knowledge, Hairdressors don’t have any input into the Irish chart.

Like I say, we don’t appreciate your efforts to position us as some sort of bloodsucking conglomerate because we sold some services to eircom. I’ve been working day and night on dm.ie for 2 years now, and to date, the total amount of income I’ve received personally is less than I’d receive for 1 weeks free lance development work.

You may begrudge me that, but that’s up to you.

The original post was in part scaremongering to highlight your situation, and I do see your point but the references did have the desired effect in instilling doubt and distrust in the minds of you members regarding IMRO and it’s users having their music online. You tired to tell me that I was in breach of my contract also. I do see you’re now doing your best to clear this up and that is welcome.

It is my opinion that free streams should not generate royalties so in my opinion they should and prob will back off on this one. The artists will waive their rights on this one also.

I believe the reason you guys were targeted was prob the fact that
1) You say you are specifically an authorised digital music download site
2) You have corporate backing.
3) Your sales are recognised in the official chart.

I would imagine they would see this as a commercial site and would move to collect revenue. If they didn’t they wouldn’t be doing their jobs.

And I have no quams with downloadmusic or IMRO, but when artists got worried about joining a body that collects their royalties because of something like myspace streams, it did get my goat a bit. Artists have enough trouble finding out about the industry and getting their stuff out there without letting that kind of information get a foothold.

Hope it works out,

IMRO do not ‘govern the industry in Ireland’. They are a license collection agency. Anyone can set up a license collection agency as long as they register with the Office for Patents.

“A lot of cpu.ie artists tracks were also covered by IMRO rights. IMRO never asked a >penny from them. That was a community service however. Downloads were free.”

Did cpu.ie pay license fees to IMRO?

“believe downloadmusic.ie have been in a lot of “text this number to to *whatever* to >get *whoever* to number one campaigns” for some god awful tv shows I’d rather not mention. If you’re attracting that kind of mainstream attention, people notice. You have >to have your ship in order long before you start stuff like that.”

dm.ie have never run any campaigns and have never had an association with any television show. We provide an SMS payment service because a lot of people who use our site don’t have credit cards.

Furthermore, only 1 download per user per day is counted in the IRMA chart. Purchases that are not downloaded are not counted, so there isn’t any point in running an SMS campaign for the purposes of getting into the chart.

“The terms and conditions say the are allowed to use the track. It offers no protection for the artist.”

No they don’t. They say this:

“You agree that your material can made made available to Eircom for sale on their music website.”

“I for one and I assume every downloadmusic.ie artist recieved an email from downloadmusic.ie asking me to donate a track to Eircom.

I didn’t opt in but I was disgusted to be asked, again if it was for a promotion compilation >album then it would have been a lot more tasteful, I really I liked the idea of the USB key, >for instance.”

Fair enough. I’m still not sure how this amounts to exploitation by corporates.

“Look I do hope this gets sorted out for ye and I’m sure it will, but there’s a lot more going >on in independent music in Ireland than downloadmusic.ie and IMRO provide an integral >part of royalty collection for those artists which wouldn’t be possible without them, yes >they should get in line with other groups on the streaming situation but encouraging >artists to break ties with IMRO because of downloadmusic.ie, bebo or myspace >streams is not really on.”

We have never, and never will, encourage artists to break ties with IMRO. For you to suggest that we are, is totally disingenuous.

There is no link between IFPI and IMRO. IFPI’s members are primarily record companies, not licence collection bodies.

http://www.ifpi.org/content/section_links/member_sites.html

>I know who issue the codes, there’s no link but you can’t expect to be calling yourself >an “Authorised Digital Download Service” while not dealing with all the bodies which >govern the industry in Ireland

“It’s my opinion that dm.ie got themselves into this by claiming to be an authorised digital music service, the corporate linkup probably didn’t help, if it was an independent service for the artists then I doubt they would have gotten
into trouble.”

We’ve already pointed out that we have never made any secret of our dealings with eircom, and yes, IMRO would have sought license fees from us, regardless of who else we deal with, because rights that they control are being used on our site.

> A lot of cpu.ie artists tracks were also covered by IMRO rights. IMRO never asked a >penny from them. That was a community service however. Downloads were free.
>I believe downloadmusic.ie have been in a lot of “text this number to to *whatever* to >get *whoever* to number one campaigns” for some god awful tv shows I’d rather not
> mention. If you’re attracting that kind of mainstream attention, people notice. You have >to have your ship in order long before you start stuff like that.

___________________________

“As for me selling my own music, I have no problem paying myself royalties at all. I have tracks on iTunes, online shops selling physical media and downloads in many countries that sell. I’m registered and will continue to be registered with IMRO for this reason.”

If you want to email us, we’ll send you the solicitors letter than outlines the way in which you are in breach of your IMRO agreement by paying yourself royalties.

> I am not in breach of my IMRO agreement, the tracks are being sold by a record >company. Any plays I get are collected by IMRO which are given back to me if my >tracks has been submitted to them. Any sales revenue is between my record company >and me. I was just letting you know how independent artists all over the world promote >themselves.

_________________________________

“What if Eircom uses one of those tracks in a high profile advertising campaign what would the artist get ? Nothing that’s what.

Unless they had the track registered with IMRO of course, if they had then IMRO would be able to pick up a token.”

eircom are not permitted to do this.

> The terms and conditions say the are allowed to use the track. It offers no protection for the artist.

_______________________________________

“Also asking emerging artists to give the rights of a track to the biggest telecoms company in the country for nothing was well out of order and with that action, dm.ie went down a lot in my book. If it was for an independent dm.ie compilation then it would have fair enough by me but that was well out of order.”

We do not ask anyone to give any rights to anyone for nothing. If a track is sold through DX3 on eircoms website, we pay the artist all proceeds we receive.

“Groups who help independent artists get exploited my corporates don’t sit well with me either.”

Can you explain in what way artists are being exploited by corporates?”

> I for one and I assume every downloadmusic.ie artist recieved an email from >downloadmusic.ie asking me to donate a track to Eircom,

>”2. You agree that the new single you send to Eircom will be available for FREE as part >of their promotion.”

>”Do not send a single you are currently selling. Send a quality single that represents >your material that you don’t mind giving away.”

>I didn’t opt in but I was disgusted to be asked, again if it was for a promotion compilation >album then it would have been a lot more tasteful, I really I liked the idea of the USB key, >for instance.

_________________________________________________

>Look I do hope this gets sorted out for ye and I’m sure it will, but there’s a lot more going >on in independent music in Ireland than downloadmusic.ie and IMRO provide an integral >part of royalty collection for those artists which wouldn’t be possible without them, yes >they should get in line with other groups on the streaming situation but encouraging >artists to break ties with IMRO because of downloadmusic.ie, bebo or myspace >streams is not really on.

>IMO IMRO should not be persuing streams as a source revenue for artists, it’s pitance, >not worth it. If I were you I’d look into niallers suggestion.

Even if we did, you still have to pay for the LOEL, so we’d still have to deduct fees from sales made by artists.

Does downloadmusic.ie not qualify for such a licence ?

If so why have they not applied for such a licence ?

“The MCPS-IMRO Limited Online Exploitation Licence (LOEL) covers the use of music online by small-scale/non-commercial companies and individuals, providing services in Ireland, whose gross revenue is less then €4,000 per year.”

It’s quite a confusing system but for the sake of a few hundred quid and a lot of bother, worth it in our case.

“Come on guys, lets be real about this. You have been actively encouraging downloadmusic.ie members to submit IRSC codes so they are eligible for the Irish charts from the beginning. You’ve set yourselves up as an “Authorised Digital Music Service” (your words, not mine). In full knowledge that most artists with IRSC codes will also be registered with IMRO. You have to have seen this coming.”

IRSC codes have nothing to do with IMRO. They are issued by IFPI (http://www.ifpi.org/content/section_resources/isrc.html) for the purpose of providing systematic identification of music.

“You can’t expect to be authorised with the body who compiles the charts and not authorised with a the body who collects the royalties for artists.”

There is no link between IFPI and IMRO. IFPI’s members are primarily record companies, not licence collection bodies.

http://www.ifpi.org/content/section_links/member_sites.html

“It’s my opinion that dm.ie got themselves into this by claiming to be an authorised digital music service, the corporate linkup probably didn’t help, if it was an independent service for the artists then I doubt they would have gotten
into trouble.”

We’ve already pointed out that we have never made any secret of our dealings with eircom, and yes, IMRO would have sought license fees from us, regardless of who else we deal with, because rights that they control are being used on our site.

“Also asking emerging artists to give the rights of a track to the biggest telecoms company in the country for nothing was well out of order and with that action, dm.ie went down a lot in my book. If it was for an independent dm.ie compilation then it would have fair enough by me but that was well out of order.”

We do not ask anyone to give any rights to anyone for nothing. If a track is sold through DX3 on eircoms website, we pay the artist all proceeds we receive.

“What if Eircom uses one of those tracks in a high profile advertising campaign what would the artist get ? Nothing that’s what. Unless they had the track registered with IMRO of course, if they had then IMRO would be able to pick up a token.”

eircom are not permitted to do this.

“As for me selling my own music, I have no problem paying myself royalties at all. I have tracks on iTunes, online shops selling physical media and downloads in many countries that sell. I’m registered and will continue to be registered with IMRO for this reason.”

If you want to email us, we’ll send you the solicitors letter than outlines the way in which you are in breach of your IMRO agreement by paying yourself royalties.

“Look IMRO are not the RIAA, DM.ie trying to set artists against IMRO is a bad standpoint, it’s the best way to have your music protected from exploitation in Ireland. Giving the rights of your music away to Eircom for nothing however is not the best option.”

We are not trying to set artists against IMRO. We are pointing out to artists that we have to deduct fees from their revenue because IMRO controls their right to make music available on the Internet.

“The new model for distribution of music lies with the artists themselves and independent labels, not a corporate tie-in music download service.”

It doesn’t for as long as artist are required to assign exclusive rights to their music to IMRO.

“Groups who help independent artists get exploited my corporates don’t sit well with me either.”

Can you explain in what way artists are being exploited by corporates?

“IMRO are not the only big bad wolf in this story, that’s all I’m saying, despite what DM.ie may want you to believe.”

dm.ie have never described IMRO as the big bad wolf. We fully acknowledge their role in the music industry. They just need to update their agreement to recognise the potential of the Internet, as PRS-MCPS did several years ago in the UK.