This week saw a revelation that i dont think anyone in the music industry was expecting but it seems that IMRO, the Irish Music Rights Organisation have begun issuing certain music blogging site with notice that they are now required to pay for a license if they are to continue streaming / allowing download of MP3’s of acts that IMRO represents and obtains money for royalties for.

It began with Nialler9 receiving the letter initially.  The Torture Garden and Asleep on a Compost Heap have also been contacted. This is an excert from Nialler 9’s post on the issue

The MCPSI-IMRO (LOEL) covers the use of music online by small-scale/non-commercial companies and individuals, providing services to the Irish public, whose gross revenue is less then €7,000 per year.

The LOEL covers the making available and mechanical rights in musical works for most types of Limited online and mobile music services. This includes services which offer: Permanent downloads, On-demand streaming and limited downloads, Premium and Interactive Webcasting, Pure Webcasting, Music Podcasting.

The LOEL also covers the following types of audio-visual usage: ‘Promo’ music videos, Live concert performances, Combination of a musical work with images relating to the performer or composer of the work, Use of a musical work with an interview with an artist, composer, producer or other person involved in the creation of music, where the work used is associated with the interviewee.

Now im unsure if Goldenplec will recieve such contact or not. We’ve never been massively contacted by PR/Bands asking us to post their MP3. There are a few blogs out there that will have a large amount of their content that is reviews of bands music with a streaming MP3 often provided to the blog BY THE BAND.

Now the crux of this matter is, that a band signs up to IMRO, they in turn will track plays of the bands music to calculate royalty fee’s. These for most small irish bands can be very small sums until they make it in some form or another. However by signing up for IMRO’s financial service it appears that every band is giving up the rights to all their music to IMRO. In fact should a band decide to start their own blog, put their music on the blog and stream it, they would have to buy a licence from IMRO to PLAY THEIR OWN MUSIC.

IMRO have also stated that they will be contacting all sites/blogs that are making Irish bands/artists that are under IMROs licence that are viewable from Ireland (i.e. any music site that uses an Irish bands track with or without permission) and will be required to purchase a licence to continue allowing such music on their sites.

The Licence itself is for websites who have under 7,000 euro revenue per year. Its a blanket fee regardless of whether there is 1 stream of the song or 40,000 streams of it. The licence doesnt take into account that most of these blogs earn absolutely zero euro a year and thus would then make a loss of 150 – 300 a year for a basic license fee.

According to IMRO’s License page they have a license to stream at 150 euro for less than 45,000 streams per year, 150 euro for a license to allow download of songs permanently for less than 5000 downloads and anther 150 euro per year if you run a podcast containing any music for less than 165,000 streams of the podcast per year.

So effectively a site like Nialler9.com could get hit for 450 euro a year to continue to provide the promotion and positive push he gives every band he features on his site. Other bloggers might only get charged 150 to just stream some songs but still this licence fee could indeed force sites smaller than nialler into closing down or severly restricting their method of blogging.  Indeed the other two named above other than Nialler9 have said that they dont earn a penny from their blogs and having to pay such a licence would be impossible.

Lets not forget that these sites provide FREE promotion to bands and artists normally at the request of the band or PR agency behind them to get a review of the content up on the site. Unfortunately most of these seem completely unaware or oblivious of the fact that IMRO doesnt let them do this. So what do bands make of this revelation, well Jim Carroll or On the Record and Nialler9 have been seeking feedback from bands represented by IMRO but with next to no responces from bands around the place.

What will this licence chase end up causing. Will sites like Nialler9 have to charge a band to review its material? I mean as a guy who runs Goldenplec as a hobby and personal enthusiasm for music is what keeps me going i cant imagine being told “In order to provide this band with promotion for free you must pay us” Goldenplec’s ads don’t even cover the cost of Hosting and Domain Renewal. Should we recieve the same mail as the others we would have to consider our position. Im not saying Goldenplec would close, but reviews would become word only. The concept of reviewing and band and allowing the person reading a review to sample the music we are talking about will disappear into the night. Multimedia blogs will disappear into the night because IMRO says so.

Again referencing Nialler9’s post linked above, this is IMRO’s current stance in responce to the guys already contacted.

A Band does not have the right to give permission for full download of the track on a blog/site

A Website streaming/allowing download of content music have a license from IMRO. Youtube has one, any other sites like soundcloud etc must obtain one. Presumably Myspace/Facebook/Bebo and all social networks must obtain one too

Hosting your site outside of Ireland has no bearing on the requirement to get a license

A site does not have to be making money to be required to have a licence. IMRO points out that many current licencee’s do not many a profit.

I had contacted IMRO 2 days ago to ask their stance on a number of items. Although their marketing person replied saying it would be forwarded to the relevant person. I have received no statement or reply. If i get anything back i will try add to the article but im sure that the other guys will have similar if not the same information.

If your a band and are represented by IMRO or a blogger who feels he will be affected by this why not drop a comment either here or over on Nialler9’s post which is pretty comprehensive and definitely worth a read.