@ MAC. Yep...HFA and NMPA did a joint licensing deal with YouTube. I'm sure that's what you are referring to.

But it is as big a JOKE as the Itunes licenses. My publishing companies have been lucky enough to place songs on albums that have sold 60 million units including several #1s and a Song of the Year. But trust me, I couldn't buy an iPad with the total royalties we've ever received from iTunes...and if I had a nickel for every penny I've received via the YouTube licensing agreement....I'd have a nickel from that source.

Why don't I sue Apple? Because an "adverse audit" under court order would cost at least $20k and the legal fees...through an inevitable appeal would cost at least $150k...to recover a few stinking dollars??? THAT is why no one sues Apple...or YouTube which is now GOOGLE!!!

I would hazard an educated estimate that less than 1% of infringements are ever even KNOWN about...let alone prosecuted.

Famously, some dude was selling pirated Warner Bros music on the sidwalk in front of Warner's offices on 52nd St. in NYC!!!! HUNDREDS of Warner executives and employees passed the guy every single day but nothing happend...until some TV station found out about it and did a live shoot there!!!

The FACT is that the vast majority of music infringements are accomplished by members of the general public...most of whom aren't worth filing suit against and therefore, aren't sued except in RARE instances when...as I said...the publisher wants to make an example of some kid and send him/her into bankruptcy which gets in the media and supposedly deters other infringers.

Trouble is...it does NOT deter hardly anyone. The general public has come to believe that it is their birthright to load thousands of songs on their electronic devices for free.

And it isn't just broke college students. Wanna make some fast money? Go to the richest person you know and ask him to give you $100.00 for every song he has acquired for his electronic library that he didn't pay royalties on.

You could make a bundle on the proceeds!!! (To which one wag told me..."How do you think those folks got rich in the first place????)

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Now ask me if I've ever DLd a BIAB file with a melody on it.

I plead the 5th...so I'm not the pot calling the kettle black. I'm just sayin'.

But if I caught someone SELLING any kind of files with one of my songs on it...I would sue 'em in a hearbeat...and such is the way of the business world.

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Best,

Jim