In the latest effort to legitimize the distribution of music online, e-tailer GoodNoise will team up with a major music publisher to help songwriters get a piece of the pie when their work is sold over the Internet.
As part of the agreement, GoodNoise will embed a digital signature, called a multimedia identifier, or MMI, in all of its music. MMI registers the song and its author with a licensing number.
"You need to make sure that copyright owners get paid for their work," said Steve Grady, vice president of communications at GoodNoise. "We want artists to know we're playing by the rules and make sure they get their fees. This is nothing different from what happens in the physical world."
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GoodNoise will regularly report the number of downloads for each song from its site and pay the Harry Fox Agency a lump sum –- about 7 cents apiece -- for the songs. The Harry Fox Agency is a subsidiary of the National Music Publishers' Association, which represents more than 20,000 music publishers and monitors the distribution of their music worldwide. Grady said that GoodNoise is the pilot for this system and expects to see other sites sign similar deals soon.
In a statement, Edward P. Murphy, CEO of the Harry Fox Agency, said, "As customer demand for music distributed in downloadable formats continues to expand, music publishers need to feel comfortable that they will be appropriately compensated."
Palo Alto, California-based GoodNoise is an MP3 music distributor that sells songs at 99 cents apiece and albums at US$8.99, splitting profits down the middle with the labels. Grady said GoodNoise will start selling songs with the signatures by the end of the year.
