Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Monday, March 29, 2010
CD Royalties - An Interview with Jonathan Segel of Camper Van Beethoven
Posted by Metachemical on MySpace EDM Forum
Monday, March 29, 2010 6:15 AM Here is a fantastic article I read on the subject. I'm sure it will generate quite a few "tl:dr."
An Interview with Jonathan Segel of Camper Van Beethoven
by David Harrell
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I thought the most informative comment about my recent post on Camper Van Beethoven's song sponsorship drive to fund its 2010 SXSW appearance came from CVB founding member Jonathan Segel. So I sent Segel, who in addition to his work with Camper Van Beethoven, has released many recordings under his own name and with his bands Hieronymus Firebrain and Jack and Jill, some questions for an e-mail interview, asking him to expand on the original comments he left. As he said in his response, he really "went to town" with his answers -- read on for his thoughts on the economics of releasing CDs, the patronage model, free music, broadcast and performance royalties, and why so many "professional" musicians are actually hobbyists.
Congratulations -- it looks like you've sold all 35 sponsorship slots. Is this something you'd do again for future performances or tours and/or would you consider a fan-funded recording? (CVB clearly has a passionate fan base, it seems likely you'd be able to raise funds for future projects.)
As it turned out, 90% were fans that purchased these spots. I was hoping it would be more actual companies doing real advertising, but the campaign worked out to get us to the shows! I don't think we'd want to do this for future performances, this was really just a way to fund our travel to this particular festival that expects bands to play but doesn't pay them, while charging immense amounts of money to the conference participants. I think a fan-funded recording would be a good, idea. I like the way, for example, that Einsturzende Neubauten did their subscription service where the fans could look in on the studio via web cam! Of course, it seems highly unlikely that we could afford that much studio time, nor be able to have such a concentrated work period (given that we must actually work our "real" jobs as well) so if we do this it will more likely be a fan sponsored CD product, with perhaps some extras available on the web.
Your comments about CVB's income stream from your recordings were something of an eye opener. While I obviously didn't think the band was living Sting-style in Italian villas, given your impressive back catalog, coupled with the fact that your early albums were released on your own Pitch-A-Tent label, I had assumed you might be earning a modest annual income from CD and digital download sales. A four-figure amount at least, but you said it's three figures at best. Are you in a situation (due to releases that haven't their recouped recording/promotional costs or publishing advances -- the two Virgin albums?) where you don't receive royalties on some of your music? Or is it just that the total sales of your entire catalog are modest enough to preclude any real income?
There are several things here. One is that in the past decade, any income from cd/record sales has basically disappeared. The cost of making a cd is not a very easily recoupable investment these days, especially if you want it to sound decent. Many recording studios have folded in that past decade, as nobody makes enough in sales to justify spending hundreds-to-thousands of dollars per day to record for several weeks and expect that it can be recouped. This means of course that more people record on home systems, but there is a real audio quality difference between home recording and studio recording -- but would that matter when the audio quality is reduced to MP3 compression? Are there even listeners who care to listen to higher quality audio anymore?
Back 20 years ago, when we signed to Virgin, the advances were like $100,000. In those days they sold LPs, CDs and Cassettes, each at like $10-15 retail. We spent a week at $1000 per day to do basic tracks, do overdubs at a smaller studio for two months, then another week or so at $1000 a day to mix it later. Plus the "producer" and other engineers get paid many thousand dollars from this budget. Plus you buy some equipment to play on (why didn't I buy that 1959 Les Paul back then...?) Then you get some tour support to rent a bus to tour, etc... it pretty much eats the advance, all of which must be paid back out of company profits before the band gets money (see Steve Albini's famous article in "Commodify Your Dissent") I believe the band broke up in 1990 owing Virgin some ridiculous amount of future royalties, so, no, we've never really seen much money from those sales! So even if Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart has sold 150,000 copies, it's still not enough to get to the point where the band gets paid artistic royalties.
Any advances we have received on cds or cd packages made in the past decade have been small, on the order or $5-10k at maximum! We will spend at least half of that or more on recording the cd. Then of course you have to provide the band with food and lodging while recording, while they aren't working at their other jobs that actually pay them. The most we can expect as individuals from this sort of process is maybe 10% of an advance, and that will pretty much get eaten the next month by mortgage or rent, especially when we haven't been at home working to make that money! And on the cds we have put out ourselves ("Camper Van Beethoven is Dead...", for example) we also have to pay for the manufacturing of the thing.
So if a company like Vanguard or Cooking Vinyl spends $10k on us to record a cd or set, they also have to spend money on manufacturing and promotion and marketing to sell some copies not to mention the human beings that they pay to do all that work. How many do they sell before they pay us any money? Let's say they are selling at wholesale in general, $6 or so per (physical) CD. Theoretically they must pay mechanical royalties per cd pressed right off the bat, about $1 of that which gets paid to the rightsholders of the songs (us!)... uh, at some point...
So even if they only spend $1 or 2 to manufacture each cd, that's going to add $1-2000 per 1000 cds manufactured… let's be cheap and say $1.50 per. our cost per CD is up to about $2.50 now. Then they have to pay for the people who worked the CD in it's pre-release stages, and then the people who work it in post release stages. That's several thousand dollars of labor. They probably want to send out promo copies, maybe $500 in postage. (we're just gonna forget about the cocaine and hookers for radio personalities, i guess...?) So lets imagine an initial pressing of 5000 copies. that has cost $12500 in manufacturing costs, probably another $5000 in human labor, another $1000 in postage and office supplies, another $10k that was the recording advance, we're up to about $28500, and then there's advertising -- small magazine ads are $500 - 2000 for one month's issue per magazine. Before we get there, let's regroup. Imagine we could sell 4500 of the 5000 (some have to be promotional!), we're still short of the initial investment by a bit. Publicists? Oh I forgot about mastering costs, another thousand dollars. So we'd have to go in for a larger pressing… but in this digital age, once 5000 cds are out there, the music is available digitally already... and copied. We're still dealing with this generation of folks who are under the impression that it comes from nowhere and doesn't need monetary support to spring fully formed from the head of Zeus. But you get what you pay for, really. If you like crappy sounding recordings, they're easy to come by. Especially made by people who have just learned how to play.
So the band is still waiting for our additional $5000 in mechanicals, which get divided up 50/50 between the publishing company and the rightsholders, and the publishing company uses its portion to keep itself in business (it's our company: we figured that one out pretty early) and the remaining $2500 can be sent out to the writers. So each of 5 members gets $500 for 5000 cds pressed. The recording advance is of course against artistic royalties, we won't see those until all of the expenses are recouped and the company is showing profit.
So yeah. on our level there's not much money in cds. So then we use whatever we make to make more cds on an even lower level -- In my own case as a solo artist the finances are even worse -- in the last 20 years I've made numerous cds under my own name or my various bands' names, but as I have to record, press, promo (meagerly), etc., myself, my investment has to be manageable on a small income -- it's basically a hobby. I press 100-1000 of any cd, sell maybe half of any pressing. They'll never actually *make* money! I almost had a "real" label last year for a few months, they were gonna put out a compilation of my older stuff, but they backed out later... I guess they figured it out!
So, what are the other ways to make money from recordings? Digital sales, for us, really don't amount to much. I realize that there is the promise of iTunes paying $0.60 per track sold, $6.00 per record. I believe that this is paid to the companies that place them there (like those that put out our physical cds). I don't actually keep track of CVB income, I think it would just make me angry. I'll just accept my few hundred dollars when it comes. For my own boutique label, Magnetic, where Victor and I "release" our own cds, I can tell you that we get it digitally placed via CDBaby, and those reports are looking like $20-50 a month for about 15 releases through Rhapsody, iTunes, etc...
Broadcast royalties, again, are not very high. I believe they are up to 9 or 10 cents per spin on terrestrial radio? The companies like BMI pay MORE to people that get played more, too, as if that were some sort of inspiration to us all. I personally am offended when I read how radio plays above 1 million spins will make them more than 10cents per spin, that just eats money smaller artists could make.
Additionally, please read Tim Quirk's blog about Too Much Joy's royalty distribution. I think this is very enlightening. It sort of points out that the high end gets paid, and anybody below $10k can fuck themselves. I think that similarly, the legacy of the digital revolution will prove to be economically the same as the legacy of the last 30 years' Republican administrations: a very small percentage of people with a lot of money, and a very large amount of people with very little money; there will be little or no artistic middle class.
What's your take on the music industry today vs. 20 years ago, in terms of a non-platinum act being able to earn money from music sales? Is the ready availability of free music -- both authorized and unauthorized (file sharing, etc.) -- the main reason for declining sales?
During the initial throes of the music business' movement into digital realms, I heard a lot of people trying to pep-talk to musicians about the changes to the political economy of music wherein they saw it as a movement back to a patronage model.
To recap recent history briefly, 200+ years ago the luckier composers were kept alive by patrons, who at the time were either the Church or Royalty. Their compositions were written mostly at the request of these patrons, but then ultimately disseminated to a larger non-paying audience.
The beginnings of ubiquitous physical media duplication started an era where composers had some control over the actual physical sales of their music -- first by paper (Beethoven sold/pre-sold pieces to publishers!) and later by analog duplication of the sound -- shellac, records, tapes, cassettes, cds, etc. That was certainly a high time for control of dissemination of music. As the release of the musical information from the physical medium took place, composers and artists began losing control of the dissemination of their music, hence a loss of what is referred to as Value Exchange.
I think we've all heard many pro and con argument regarding the vast potentials of digital distribution of music, or even that music is information and it should be free!* ...but the real outcome for musicians and most music-based business has been lowered income. Among the pundits there were many who proclaimed that this was a return to the patronage system, in that composers themselves now had the ability to sell directly to a vast number of patrons directly, i.e. a thousand fans buying one digital download directly was the equivalent of one Duke paying for the composer's room and board for a month.
In some cases this is true. But generally, and finally to my point, people don't pay; the vast populace waits around to hear what the Duke and Duchess have already paid for. In the case of what we are experiencing now, we are indeed in a patronage system: our patrons are the people who buy the ads. In many cases it's the same with respect to music worldwide, television or radio ads that use music are paying for it to be made and heard. To a certain extent, we could say that record labels were paying for the bands to advertise the label itself!
My second point is, the advertisers are not only the patrons of the composers, but by proxy the patrons of the internet (last.fm, pandora, lala, rhapsody, etc.). They pay room and board to various services while "the internet" disseminates the music "for free" to the greater populace. But who is getting paid? The middle man, yet again. Does he make any money? Hardly. The actual business costs of streaming or serving music are heavy, server time is heavily monetized. Somebody is paying for this (you, to your ISP, an internet radio station to their ISP).
So far, where terrestrial radio has had to pay broadcast royalties, those royalties have been very low (<$0.10 per song played). With the final wrangling of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, internet radio has to pay a bit of this and a bit in performance royalties (not to "rights holders", or whoever owns the copyright, as the terrestrial radio does, but actual royalties to the performers of the music. Note that most other countries pay performance royalties on terrestrial radio as well, just not the US, China, North Korea, the Congo, for example.) Performance royalties are like $0.001 per song per listener. The DMCA has some interesting ways around an on-demand performance royalty thing, they make rules for internet streaming radio about number of skips allowed, no back and forth in the stream, trying to deter predictability in the music stream. Song-on-demand royalty rates are higher, so most streaming sites try for unpredictability. The Performance Rights Act in congress recently is trying to get regular radio to pay performance royalties also, the big complaints are about how much this will cost small radio stations, but the actual cost will be flat fees of $500-1000 per year, which is way less than the NAB is charging those same stations to broadcast at all! Note also that most people (like the techdirt.com writers and commentary, it seems?) seem to think this is a "tax", completely misunderstanding the difference between fees and taxes. It would be great if taxes paid for music, don't you think? I'd be in favor of moving all the money spent on guns and bombs to pay for shovels and fertilizer so the army could go in and make sewers and vegetable gardens in Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan... Then we could probably have enough left over to fund ubiquitous music! One graphic artist friend of mine who grew up in Soviet East Germany lamented the state of an artist's economy once the wall came down. No more state sponsorship.
Most of the musicians I read about who are in favor of "freedom of information" are either already wealthy due to hard-copy sales or never made a dollar ever. That's sort of classic supply-and-demand. Once again, capitalism rears it growth-oriented head: there is no such thing as sustenance level capitalism, it can only exist in a growth oriented market.
To say that merchandising or concert ticket sales should pay for the creation and distribution of music is asinine. Take a quick look at the actual money made from these things -- it virtually precludes anybody from making money unless they are assured of having 300+ people per night for extended tour (and that the club is paying them!) How many bands can do that and how long can they do that? Rock music is ghettoized the same way jazz was. Imagine jazz musicians trying to monetize the music by means of merchandise. How could an act playing at nightclubs where ~50 people listen support a tour, much less further CD recording. The financial breakdown of time, equipment, musicians, travel, merchandise manufacturing, etc. means that almost all "professional" musicians you see, have seen or will see are basically hobbyists; their time and materials are almost never paid for by listeners. like 98% of them. I recently heard an interview on KALX, one of our local college radio stations, with Jon Vanderslice, a musician I know from SF who seems to be doing pretty well these days. One of the things he talked about was the pressure to write the next record while still touring the last so as to stay in the stream of currency (I paraphrase here) and the fact that, especially as a solo artist, everybody involved in making a record gets paid before he does. He's in debt as much as I am despite the exponential difference in numbers of CDs sold or concertgoers. That's the way it seems to be to continue.
The idea of recording is whole different ballgame as well. Despite the DIY wave of home recording, do we really want mid-fi? Ok, a musician can make a record for the cost of equipment (still several hundred dollars or more..) but then there's the time, the instruments (or not), paying the other musicians, etc. Well-made recordings sound better. A decent studio costs many hundreds of dollars a day. Decent microphones, preamps, compression, all these things cost thousands of dollars. To say nothing of manufacturing, if they choose to make cds. Or artwork.
The "leveling of the playing field" produces a level field, that is to say: mediocrity.
If you take a look at Jaron Lanier's new book "You Are Not a Gadget" you can see that there seems to be a point of view developing wherein even the earlier free-internet pundits (such as Mr Lanier) are regretting the way that mob psychology has anonymized human presence on the internet, releasing most user's inner criminals -- where they can get things without paying, they will. In Sweden, the home of Pirate Bay (and idiotically a "Pirate" political party! -- but they are open minded...) they did a study of the people who were pirating media by downloading songs and movies, and it turned out that for the most part, they did so simply because they could: they were anonymous, they had 8MBps-100MBps download speeds (yes, we are way behind here in the US) and they could find the media. But did they actually watch or listen to it? No, not really. In fact, most of the greatest piracy offenders had drives full of media that they had never listened to or watched. It was useless, essentially. They refer to this behavior as "Hamstering".
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*Does it? Does information want anything? Information exists in a stone, a great deal of it, but what makes it information at all is a human being cogitating and deciphering it. That is where its value come into being, in the mind of a human. Information is valuable to people, and people for the most part should have to pay for information -- if it were all free, hence valueless, it would not be interesting to the human mind. You essentially pay with brain usage!
I'm not necessarily advocating free music (and realize of course that you can't flip the switch and give away all of your back catalog). But if your sales are modest enough, at some point can you make the case for giving away digital downloads of your music?
Actually I do give away a lot of music. http://jsegel.bandcamp.com, for example, holds many hours of music that I have made for films or dance companies, of which I already essentially got paid the $200 for making it for an ephemeral performance (in the case of the dance company music! never been paid for those films!). Now, as a recorded medium, I have chosen to put it up with a user-declared price (including $0). But again, most of this has been paid for, on some level. Its value was ephemeral.
So I guess what you mean is, if we make so little money from it, why not give it away? Perhaps. We are a "taper" band (as are all of our side projects) in that if it's an ephemeral performance of music, you are welcome to tape it and listen to it later, or give it away: but of course you cannot sell it. Take a look at http://www.archive.org, do a search for Camper Van Beethoven or my name, or Cracker, or Victor Krummenacher, you'll find an awful lot of free music to listen to!
I still believe that the recordings of songs one makes for an album collection are different - it's a process of sculpting. Playing, recording, editing, mixing, these skills are learned skills and we get better at them as we do it more and more. The time put into a good recording is multiple times the length of the track itself, the refinement of a recording is an art in itself. This is highly skilled labor (not to mention the time we've taken to learn to play!) Should that be free as well? I'm not in favor of that any more than a surgeon would be in favor of performing surgery for free (at least all the time! of course charity work is good...!)
This reminds me of something that was asked in the comments of the internet posts about our SxSW sponsored shows: Why is an "established" band even playing at SxSW? I think they have always had relatively big bands of various sorts play at the conference there, partly for fun for the attendees to see their old favorites, but also there's another aspect. Listening to a band that's been playing together for a long time is different than listening to a young band that has recently come together or even learned to play. There is a completely different musicality to seasoned musicians (or actors, or other artists), in any genre. We don't tend to value that very much in our culture. Having a band like Camper or Cracker at SxSW can be a reminder of that. The fetishization of youth brings a cult of assholes, unfortunately. Look at Hollywood! People even drive badly to emulate teenagers! (...that's what they're doing, right?)
You mentioned SoundExchange in your comment to the original post. While the organization is paying out millions in performance royalties for streams, that's not translating into a lot at the individual artist level. If you're not making much from music sales, performance rights payments, or merchandise sales, is earning income from touring all that's left? You referred to the inclusion of "Take the Skinheads Bowling" in the Bowling for Columbine movie. Is music licensing an area you've actively pursued?
Again, see Tim's Too Much Joy blog. Working for Pandora.com, I am acutely aware of how much we are obligated to pay to SoundExchange and BMI/ASCAP - it's millions. I've actually never seen anything from SoundExchange. I do know, for example, that Camper Van Beethoven has many songs spinning on Pandora, some of which have topped 100,000 spins, (nowhere the millions of spins for some other bands' tracks, of course) which should have meant $100 somewhere along the line (for that one song) but like I say...
Oh yeah, licensing nowadays is probably the only way to make money from a recording! We've licensed a couple things, one or two TV commercials. They pay a couple thousand dollars per. The market is notoriously tough, and like the major label world of the late 80s and 90s it's ruled by people who think they themselves are cool and want to use the hippest, coolest stuff, gleaning ideas from other ideas that have previously worked without ever trying to extend their world by making an actual statement. So there are now these pay services like SonicBids and SongPlacements.com that prey off the desperation of poor musicians and the gambler's mentality that one placed track will net them a couple thousand dollars so they pay into it, either bit by bit ($5-10 at time like SonicBids) or in subscription sums ($250 per year for SongPlacements) and musicians with little or no income pay like a slot machine hoping it pays off one day. I'd love to see more Camper Van Beethoven on TV, or in movies. I'm all for it. "We'd sell out if someone would buy in!"
Anything else you'd care to add about the challenges of making/selling music in 2010?
Here's what I think:
1) the royalty rates should be higher, like 100x higher. or more.
2) advertisers should be charged way more so that radio stations can pay the higher royalty rates and these rates should be offset by the federal government (yes, I'm talking arts grants)
3) subscription services should be included in internet service fees, ISPs themselves should pay these royalties. There is no reason why aac/mp3/flac/wav/aiff file tracking can't be done when in transit.
I think further on: nobody should own music in any uploadable or downloadable format. It should be available on demand for subscription fees Whatever device you listen on should connect to the source at the moment. No ownership of soft copy.
Hard copy might be better off in an analog format. Vinyl?
So none of that is probably gonna happen.
I know everything I wrote here sounds crabby or cynical, but it's not like I'm gonna quit playing music. Like that guy who cleans up after the elephant at the circus and hates the sheer amount of shit but won't quit? "What, and leave show business!?" I mean, I love music and sound, and my instruments, and recording. I'll do it til I die. I've made how many records now? (I don't even know) and I'll do it for my own entertainment if nothing else. Really there have only been a few years of my life that I've actually made a living as a musician and didn't have to rely on other jobs -- there were two years at the end of the 80s where Camper was touring or recording constantly, and another year and a half in the late 90s when I was playing in Sparklehorse and getting paid $800 a week by Capitol/EMI when we were on tour (money that no doubt came out of Mark Linkous' future artistic royalties!) The rest of the last 25 years I've worked other jobs to support my habit! I presently work full time for Pandora and also teach at community colleges in the bay area. Even with all that work, it's hard to have enough "extra" money to record and make new records (or the time or energy! dang.)
Thanks Jonathan!
One last note: just to clarify, Segel sent his responses to me before he heard the sad news about the death of Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse. As he noted on his Facebook page, where he cross-posted this interview, the reference to Linkous's future royalties was not meant as a comment on his passing.
Monday, March 29, 2010 6:15 AM Here is a fantastic article I read on the subject. I'm sure it will generate quite a few "tl:dr."
An Interview with Jonathan Segel of Camper Van Beethoven
by David Harrell
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I thought the most informative comment about my recent post on Camper Van Beethoven's song sponsorship drive to fund its 2010 SXSW appearance came from CVB founding member Jonathan Segel. So I sent Segel, who in addition to his work with Camper Van Beethoven, has released many recordings under his own name and with his bands Hieronymus Firebrain and Jack and Jill, some questions for an e-mail interview, asking him to expand on the original comments he left. As he said in his response, he really "went to town" with his answers -- read on for his thoughts on the economics of releasing CDs, the patronage model, free music, broadcast and performance royalties, and why so many "professional" musicians are actually hobbyists.
Congratulations -- it looks like you've sold all 35 sponsorship slots. Is this something you'd do again for future performances or tours and/or would you consider a fan-funded recording? (CVB clearly has a passionate fan base, it seems likely you'd be able to raise funds for future projects.)
As it turned out, 90% were fans that purchased these spots. I was hoping it would be more actual companies doing real advertising, but the campaign worked out to get us to the shows! I don't think we'd want to do this for future performances, this was really just a way to fund our travel to this particular festival that expects bands to play but doesn't pay them, while charging immense amounts of money to the conference participants. I think a fan-funded recording would be a good, idea. I like the way, for example, that Einsturzende Neubauten did their subscription service where the fans could look in on the studio via web cam! Of course, it seems highly unlikely that we could afford that much studio time, nor be able to have such a concentrated work period (given that we must actually work our "real" jobs as well) so if we do this it will more likely be a fan sponsored CD product, with perhaps some extras available on the web.
Your comments about CVB's income stream from your recordings were something of an eye opener. While I obviously didn't think the band was living Sting-style in Italian villas, given your impressive back catalog, coupled with the fact that your early albums were released on your own Pitch-A-Tent label, I had assumed you might be earning a modest annual income from CD and digital download sales. A four-figure amount at least, but you said it's three figures at best. Are you in a situation (due to releases that haven't their recouped recording/promotional costs or publishing advances -- the two Virgin albums?) where you don't receive royalties on some of your music? Or is it just that the total sales of your entire catalog are modest enough to preclude any real income?
There are several things here. One is that in the past decade, any income from cd/record sales has basically disappeared. The cost of making a cd is not a very easily recoupable investment these days, especially if you want it to sound decent. Many recording studios have folded in that past decade, as nobody makes enough in sales to justify spending hundreds-to-thousands of dollars per day to record for several weeks and expect that it can be recouped. This means of course that more people record on home systems, but there is a real audio quality difference between home recording and studio recording -- but would that matter when the audio quality is reduced to MP3 compression? Are there even listeners who care to listen to higher quality audio anymore?
Back 20 years ago, when we signed to Virgin, the advances were like $100,000. In those days they sold LPs, CDs and Cassettes, each at like $10-15 retail. We spent a week at $1000 per day to do basic tracks, do overdubs at a smaller studio for two months, then another week or so at $1000 a day to mix it later. Plus the "producer" and other engineers get paid many thousand dollars from this budget. Plus you buy some equipment to play on (why didn't I buy that 1959 Les Paul back then...?) Then you get some tour support to rent a bus to tour, etc... it pretty much eats the advance, all of which must be paid back out of company profits before the band gets money (see Steve Albini's famous article in "Commodify Your Dissent") I believe the band broke up in 1990 owing Virgin some ridiculous amount of future royalties, so, no, we've never really seen much money from those sales! So even if Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart has sold 150,000 copies, it's still not enough to get to the point where the band gets paid artistic royalties.
Any advances we have received on cds or cd packages made in the past decade have been small, on the order or $5-10k at maximum! We will spend at least half of that or more on recording the cd. Then of course you have to provide the band with food and lodging while recording, while they aren't working at their other jobs that actually pay them. The most we can expect as individuals from this sort of process is maybe 10% of an advance, and that will pretty much get eaten the next month by mortgage or rent, especially when we haven't been at home working to make that money! And on the cds we have put out ourselves ("Camper Van Beethoven is Dead...", for example) we also have to pay for the manufacturing of the thing.
So if a company like Vanguard or Cooking Vinyl spends $10k on us to record a cd or set, they also have to spend money on manufacturing and promotion and marketing to sell some copies not to mention the human beings that they pay to do all that work. How many do they sell before they pay us any money? Let's say they are selling at wholesale in general, $6 or so per (physical) CD. Theoretically they must pay mechanical royalties per cd pressed right off the bat, about $1 of that which gets paid to the rightsholders of the songs (us!)... uh, at some point...
So even if they only spend $1 or 2 to manufacture each cd, that's going to add $1-2000 per 1000 cds manufactured… let's be cheap and say $1.50 per. our cost per CD is up to about $2.50 now. Then they have to pay for the people who worked the CD in it's pre-release stages, and then the people who work it in post release stages. That's several thousand dollars of labor. They probably want to send out promo copies, maybe $500 in postage. (we're just gonna forget about the cocaine and hookers for radio personalities, i guess...?) So lets imagine an initial pressing of 5000 copies. that has cost $12500 in manufacturing costs, probably another $5000 in human labor, another $1000 in postage and office supplies, another $10k that was the recording advance, we're up to about $28500, and then there's advertising -- small magazine ads are $500 - 2000 for one month's issue per magazine. Before we get there, let's regroup. Imagine we could sell 4500 of the 5000 (some have to be promotional!), we're still short of the initial investment by a bit. Publicists? Oh I forgot about mastering costs, another thousand dollars. So we'd have to go in for a larger pressing… but in this digital age, once 5000 cds are out there, the music is available digitally already... and copied. We're still dealing with this generation of folks who are under the impression that it comes from nowhere and doesn't need monetary support to spring fully formed from the head of Zeus. But you get what you pay for, really. If you like crappy sounding recordings, they're easy to come by. Especially made by people who have just learned how to play.
So the band is still waiting for our additional $5000 in mechanicals, which get divided up 50/50 between the publishing company and the rightsholders, and the publishing company uses its portion to keep itself in business (it's our company: we figured that one out pretty early) and the remaining $2500 can be sent out to the writers. So each of 5 members gets $500 for 5000 cds pressed. The recording advance is of course against artistic royalties, we won't see those until all of the expenses are recouped and the company is showing profit.
So yeah. on our level there's not much money in cds. So then we use whatever we make to make more cds on an even lower level -- In my own case as a solo artist the finances are even worse -- in the last 20 years I've made numerous cds under my own name or my various bands' names, but as I have to record, press, promo (meagerly), etc., myself, my investment has to be manageable on a small income -- it's basically a hobby. I press 100-1000 of any cd, sell maybe half of any pressing. They'll never actually *make* money! I almost had a "real" label last year for a few months, they were gonna put out a compilation of my older stuff, but they backed out later... I guess they figured it out!
So, what are the other ways to make money from recordings? Digital sales, for us, really don't amount to much. I realize that there is the promise of iTunes paying $0.60 per track sold, $6.00 per record. I believe that this is paid to the companies that place them there (like those that put out our physical cds). I don't actually keep track of CVB income, I think it would just make me angry. I'll just accept my few hundred dollars when it comes. For my own boutique label, Magnetic, where Victor and I "release" our own cds, I can tell you that we get it digitally placed via CDBaby, and those reports are looking like $20-50 a month for about 15 releases through Rhapsody, iTunes, etc...
Broadcast royalties, again, are not very high. I believe they are up to 9 or 10 cents per spin on terrestrial radio? The companies like BMI pay MORE to people that get played more, too, as if that were some sort of inspiration to us all. I personally am offended when I read how radio plays above 1 million spins will make them more than 10cents per spin, that just eats money smaller artists could make.
Additionally, please read Tim Quirk's blog about Too Much Joy's royalty distribution. I think this is very enlightening. It sort of points out that the high end gets paid, and anybody below $10k can fuck themselves. I think that similarly, the legacy of the digital revolution will prove to be economically the same as the legacy of the last 30 years' Republican administrations: a very small percentage of people with a lot of money, and a very large amount of people with very little money; there will be little or no artistic middle class.
What's your take on the music industry today vs. 20 years ago, in terms of a non-platinum act being able to earn money from music sales? Is the ready availability of free music -- both authorized and unauthorized (file sharing, etc.) -- the main reason for declining sales?
During the initial throes of the music business' movement into digital realms, I heard a lot of people trying to pep-talk to musicians about the changes to the political economy of music wherein they saw it as a movement back to a patronage model.
To recap recent history briefly, 200+ years ago the luckier composers were kept alive by patrons, who at the time were either the Church or Royalty. Their compositions were written mostly at the request of these patrons, but then ultimately disseminated to a larger non-paying audience.
The beginnings of ubiquitous physical media duplication started an era where composers had some control over the actual physical sales of their music -- first by paper (Beethoven sold/pre-sold pieces to publishers!) and later by analog duplication of the sound -- shellac, records, tapes, cassettes, cds, etc. That was certainly a high time for control of dissemination of music. As the release of the musical information from the physical medium took place, composers and artists began losing control of the dissemination of their music, hence a loss of what is referred to as Value Exchange.
I think we've all heard many pro and con argument regarding the vast potentials of digital distribution of music, or even that music is information and it should be free!* ...but the real outcome for musicians and most music-based business has been lowered income. Among the pundits there were many who proclaimed that this was a return to the patronage system, in that composers themselves now had the ability to sell directly to a vast number of patrons directly, i.e. a thousand fans buying one digital download directly was the equivalent of one Duke paying for the composer's room and board for a month.
In some cases this is true. But generally, and finally to my point, people don't pay; the vast populace waits around to hear what the Duke and Duchess have already paid for. In the case of what we are experiencing now, we are indeed in a patronage system: our patrons are the people who buy the ads. In many cases it's the same with respect to music worldwide, television or radio ads that use music are paying for it to be made and heard. To a certain extent, we could say that record labels were paying for the bands to advertise the label itself!
My second point is, the advertisers are not only the patrons of the composers, but by proxy the patrons of the internet (last.fm, pandora, lala, rhapsody, etc.). They pay room and board to various services while "the internet" disseminates the music "for free" to the greater populace. But who is getting paid? The middle man, yet again. Does he make any money? Hardly. The actual business costs of streaming or serving music are heavy, server time is heavily monetized. Somebody is paying for this (you, to your ISP, an internet radio station to their ISP).
So far, where terrestrial radio has had to pay broadcast royalties, those royalties have been very low (<$0.10 per song played). With the final wrangling of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, internet radio has to pay a bit of this and a bit in performance royalties (not to "rights holders", or whoever owns the copyright, as the terrestrial radio does, but actual royalties to the performers of the music. Note that most other countries pay performance royalties on terrestrial radio as well, just not the US, China, North Korea, the Congo, for example.) Performance royalties are like $0.001 per song per listener. The DMCA has some interesting ways around an on-demand performance royalty thing, they make rules for internet streaming radio about number of skips allowed, no back and forth in the stream, trying to deter predictability in the music stream. Song-on-demand royalty rates are higher, so most streaming sites try for unpredictability. The Performance Rights Act in congress recently is trying to get regular radio to pay performance royalties also, the big complaints are about how much this will cost small radio stations, but the actual cost will be flat fees of $500-1000 per year, which is way less than the NAB is charging those same stations to broadcast at all! Note also that most people (like the techdirt.com writers and commentary, it seems?) seem to think this is a "tax", completely misunderstanding the difference between fees and taxes. It would be great if taxes paid for music, don't you think? I'd be in favor of moving all the money spent on guns and bombs to pay for shovels and fertilizer so the army could go in and make sewers and vegetable gardens in Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan... Then we could probably have enough left over to fund ubiquitous music! One graphic artist friend of mine who grew up in Soviet East Germany lamented the state of an artist's economy once the wall came down. No more state sponsorship.
Most of the musicians I read about who are in favor of "freedom of information" are either already wealthy due to hard-copy sales or never made a dollar ever. That's sort of classic supply-and-demand. Once again, capitalism rears it growth-oriented head: there is no such thing as sustenance level capitalism, it can only exist in a growth oriented market.
To say that merchandising or concert ticket sales should pay for the creation and distribution of music is asinine. Take a quick look at the actual money made from these things -- it virtually precludes anybody from making money unless they are assured of having 300+ people per night for extended tour (and that the club is paying them!) How many bands can do that and how long can they do that? Rock music is ghettoized the same way jazz was. Imagine jazz musicians trying to monetize the music by means of merchandise. How could an act playing at nightclubs where ~50 people listen support a tour, much less further CD recording. The financial breakdown of time, equipment, musicians, travel, merchandise manufacturing, etc. means that almost all "professional" musicians you see, have seen or will see are basically hobbyists; their time and materials are almost never paid for by listeners. like 98% of them. I recently heard an interview on KALX, one of our local college radio stations, with Jon Vanderslice, a musician I know from SF who seems to be doing pretty well these days. One of the things he talked about was the pressure to write the next record while still touring the last so as to stay in the stream of currency (I paraphrase here) and the fact that, especially as a solo artist, everybody involved in making a record gets paid before he does. He's in debt as much as I am despite the exponential difference in numbers of CDs sold or concertgoers. That's the way it seems to be to continue.
The idea of recording is whole different ballgame as well. Despite the DIY wave of home recording, do we really want mid-fi? Ok, a musician can make a record for the cost of equipment (still several hundred dollars or more..) but then there's the time, the instruments (or not), paying the other musicians, etc. Well-made recordings sound better. A decent studio costs many hundreds of dollars a day. Decent microphones, preamps, compression, all these things cost thousands of dollars. To say nothing of manufacturing, if they choose to make cds. Or artwork.
The "leveling of the playing field" produces a level field, that is to say: mediocrity.
If you take a look at Jaron Lanier's new book "You Are Not a Gadget" you can see that there seems to be a point of view developing wherein even the earlier free-internet pundits (such as Mr Lanier) are regretting the way that mob psychology has anonymized human presence on the internet, releasing most user's inner criminals -- where they can get things without paying, they will. In Sweden, the home of Pirate Bay (and idiotically a "Pirate" political party! -- but they are open minded...) they did a study of the people who were pirating media by downloading songs and movies, and it turned out that for the most part, they did so simply because they could: they were anonymous, they had 8MBps-100MBps download speeds (yes, we are way behind here in the US) and they could find the media. But did they actually watch or listen to it? No, not really. In fact, most of the greatest piracy offenders had drives full of media that they had never listened to or watched. It was useless, essentially. They refer to this behavior as "Hamstering".
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*Does it? Does information want anything? Information exists in a stone, a great deal of it, but what makes it information at all is a human being cogitating and deciphering it. That is where its value come into being, in the mind of a human. Information is valuable to people, and people for the most part should have to pay for information -- if it were all free, hence valueless, it would not be interesting to the human mind. You essentially pay with brain usage!
I'm not necessarily advocating free music (and realize of course that you can't flip the switch and give away all of your back catalog). But if your sales are modest enough, at some point can you make the case for giving away digital downloads of your music?
Actually I do give away a lot of music. http://jsegel.bandcamp.com, for example, holds many hours of music that I have made for films or dance companies, of which I already essentially got paid the $200 for making it for an ephemeral performance (in the case of the dance company music! never been paid for those films!). Now, as a recorded medium, I have chosen to put it up with a user-declared price (including $0). But again, most of this has been paid for, on some level. Its value was ephemeral.
So I guess what you mean is, if we make so little money from it, why not give it away? Perhaps. We are a "taper" band (as are all of our side projects) in that if it's an ephemeral performance of music, you are welcome to tape it and listen to it later, or give it away: but of course you cannot sell it. Take a look at http://www.archive.org, do a search for Camper Van Beethoven or my name, or Cracker, or Victor Krummenacher, you'll find an awful lot of free music to listen to!
I still believe that the recordings of songs one makes for an album collection are different - it's a process of sculpting. Playing, recording, editing, mixing, these skills are learned skills and we get better at them as we do it more and more. The time put into a good recording is multiple times the length of the track itself, the refinement of a recording is an art in itself. This is highly skilled labor (not to mention the time we've taken to learn to play!) Should that be free as well? I'm not in favor of that any more than a surgeon would be in favor of performing surgery for free (at least all the time! of course charity work is good...!)
This reminds me of something that was asked in the comments of the internet posts about our SxSW sponsored shows: Why is an "established" band even playing at SxSW? I think they have always had relatively big bands of various sorts play at the conference there, partly for fun for the attendees to see their old favorites, but also there's another aspect. Listening to a band that's been playing together for a long time is different than listening to a young band that has recently come together or even learned to play. There is a completely different musicality to seasoned musicians (or actors, or other artists), in any genre. We don't tend to value that very much in our culture. Having a band like Camper or Cracker at SxSW can be a reminder of that. The fetishization of youth brings a cult of assholes, unfortunately. Look at Hollywood! People even drive badly to emulate teenagers! (...that's what they're doing, right?)
You mentioned SoundExchange in your comment to the original post. While the organization is paying out millions in performance royalties for streams, that's not translating into a lot at the individual artist level. If you're not making much from music sales, performance rights payments, or merchandise sales, is earning income from touring all that's left? You referred to the inclusion of "Take the Skinheads Bowling" in the Bowling for Columbine movie. Is music licensing an area you've actively pursued?
Again, see Tim's Too Much Joy blog. Working for Pandora.com, I am acutely aware of how much we are obligated to pay to SoundExchange and BMI/ASCAP - it's millions. I've actually never seen anything from SoundExchange. I do know, for example, that Camper Van Beethoven has many songs spinning on Pandora, some of which have topped 100,000 spins, (nowhere the millions of spins for some other bands' tracks, of course) which should have meant $100 somewhere along the line (for that one song) but like I say...
Oh yeah, licensing nowadays is probably the only way to make money from a recording! We've licensed a couple things, one or two TV commercials. They pay a couple thousand dollars per. The market is notoriously tough, and like the major label world of the late 80s and 90s it's ruled by people who think they themselves are cool and want to use the hippest, coolest stuff, gleaning ideas from other ideas that have previously worked without ever trying to extend their world by making an actual statement. So there are now these pay services like SonicBids and SongPlacements.com that prey off the desperation of poor musicians and the gambler's mentality that one placed track will net them a couple thousand dollars so they pay into it, either bit by bit ($5-10 at time like SonicBids) or in subscription sums ($250 per year for SongPlacements) and musicians with little or no income pay like a slot machine hoping it pays off one day. I'd love to see more Camper Van Beethoven on TV, or in movies. I'm all for it. "We'd sell out if someone would buy in!"
Anything else you'd care to add about the challenges of making/selling music in 2010?
Here's what I think:
1) the royalty rates should be higher, like 100x higher. or more.
2) advertisers should be charged way more so that radio stations can pay the higher royalty rates and these rates should be offset by the federal government (yes, I'm talking arts grants)
3) subscription services should be included in internet service fees, ISPs themselves should pay these royalties. There is no reason why aac/mp3/flac/wav/aiff file tracking can't be done when in transit.
I think further on: nobody should own music in any uploadable or downloadable format. It should be available on demand for subscription fees Whatever device you listen on should connect to the source at the moment. No ownership of soft copy.
Hard copy might be better off in an analog format. Vinyl?
So none of that is probably gonna happen.
I know everything I wrote here sounds crabby or cynical, but it's not like I'm gonna quit playing music. Like that guy who cleans up after the elephant at the circus and hates the sheer amount of shit but won't quit? "What, and leave show business!?" I mean, I love music and sound, and my instruments, and recording. I'll do it til I die. I've made how many records now? (I don't even know) and I'll do it for my own entertainment if nothing else. Really there have only been a few years of my life that I've actually made a living as a musician and didn't have to rely on other jobs -- there were two years at the end of the 80s where Camper was touring or recording constantly, and another year and a half in the late 90s when I was playing in Sparklehorse and getting paid $800 a week by Capitol/EMI when we were on tour (money that no doubt came out of Mark Linkous' future artistic royalties!) The rest of the last 25 years I've worked other jobs to support my habit! I presently work full time for Pandora and also teach at community colleges in the bay area. Even with all that work, it's hard to have enough "extra" money to record and make new records (or the time or energy! dang.)
Thanks Jonathan!
One last note: just to clarify, Segel sent his responses to me before he heard the sad news about the death of Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse. As he noted on his Facebook page, where he cross-posted this interview, the reference to Linkous's future royalties was not meant as a comment on his passing.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Celebs shell out big bucks for security
Celebs shell out big bucks for security
November 6, 2009 6:03 p.m. EST
50 Cent (Curtis Jackson) recently said he spends $20,000 a week for security.
(CNN) -- Celebrities are always trying to build walls around themselves, literally and figuratively, and those walls cost money.
This week, rapper 50 Cent, whose real name is Curtis Jackson, admitted that he spends $20,000 a week on security at his Farmington, Connecticut, mansion.
"My home is surrounded by cameras. I need surveillance not only to look out for me but also to protect me. You get all these crazy lawsuits, and I need cameras to check on things," the 33-year-old told the entertainment news service WENN.
Jackson's security costs work out to a little over $1 million a year.
Although spending more on security in two weeks than the average American's yearly income may seem excessive, Jackson's expenditures are in the lower end of what most high-profile individuals pay to protect themselves, their families and their property.
New York-based security expert and retired New York Police Detective Thomas Werther owns Sector Mike Security systems and spends his days protecting musicians, actors, actresses and sports stars. He explained the breakdown of expenses for a day of security for the average high-profile individual.
"For one day, if you need one truck with a driver and three security agents, you are looking at $4,000 a day, and use that four days a week, then you can easily see spending $20,000 a week. For a guy like 50 Cent, that seems like a modest expense, especially if you are factoring in home security," Werther explained.
Aaron Cohen, a former member of Israel's counterterrorist special forces unit and now the director of IMS Security in Hollywood, works with numerous high-profile individuals and families, including supermodel Kate Moss. Cohen says security is one of the highest single expenditures a celebrity will make in a year.
"If you are looking to protect a celebrity family like Brad [Pitt] and Angelina [Jolie] or Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony, for instance, the price tag for job like that is going to be around $1 [million] to $1.4 million a year," Cohen said. "When you have kids, you need separate security, because everyone is going off in different directions."
Those costs, according to Cohen, break down to half a million dollars just for residential protection and surveillance that would include 24-hour security monitoring with a constantly streaming network of cameras. An additional half-million in costs can be incurred as a celebrity travels, paying each security guard between $500 and $1,000 a day while away from home.
That cost can rise by a premium of $20,000 a month the second a celebrity stalker enters the equation.
"It is at least a $20,000 retainer in order to boost security and add a proactive investigation to stop a stalker," Cohen said. "You will also spend that if you are the kind of celebrity who is constantly dogged by paparazzi."
One such celebrity is Britney Spears, who spends nearly half a million dollars a year for security, according to accounting information filed with the Los Angeles Superior Court by Spears' father, Jamie Spears, who manages her estate.
Over the course of 11 months in 2008, the singer spent $447,633 on security measures. That breaks down to about half what Jackson spends a month.
Monday, March 22, 2010
AG's from at least 12 states say they will challenge the constitutionality of HCR
Attorneys general from at least 12 states say they will challenge the constitutionality of the healthcare reform bill passed by the House of Representatives Sunday night.
Skip to next paragraph The threatened action suggests the controversial measure is about to move from the legislative realm into what could become a protracted and messy fight in the courts. The attorneys general say they will sue once President Obama signs the bill into law. They are pledging to take their battle all the way to the US Supreme Court.
“The health care legislation Congress passed tonight is an assault against the Constitution,” said South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster. “A legal challenge by the states appears to be the only hope of protecting the American people from this unprecedented attack on our system of government,” he said in a statement.
Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum issued a similar statement late Sunday. “If the president signs this bill into law, we will file a lawsuit to protect the rights and interests of American citizens,” he said.
In addition, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli announced that he will file a lawsuit on behalf of his state challenging what he called the “unconstitutional overreach” of the healthcare law.
“Virginia is in a unique situation that allows it the standing to file such a suit since Virginia is the only state so far to pass a law protecting its citizens from a government-imposed mandate to buy health insurance,” he said. “The health care reform bill, with its insurance mandate, creates a conflict of laws between the federal government and Virginia,” Attorney General Cuccinelli said.
“Normally, such conflicts are decided in favor of the federal government, but because we believe the federal law is unconstitutional, Virginia’s law should prevail.”
Attorneys general and other opponents of the bill had threatened legal challenges for months. Most recently, they objected to the proposed “deem and pass” legislative maneuver that had been the suggested route to passage of the bill. But congressional leaders jettisoned the maneuver on Saturday and relied instead on traditional up or down votes on Sunday. That decision eliminated potential grounds for a lawsuit.
“With this law, the federal government will force citizens to buy health insurance, claiming it has the authority to do so because of its power to regulate interstate commerce,” Cuccinelli said. “We contend that if a person decides not to buy health insurance, that person – by definition – is not engaging in commerce, and therefore, is not subject to a federal mandate.”
The Virginia attorney general added: “Just being alive is not interstate commerce. If it were, there would be no limit to the US Constitution’s commerce clause and to Congress’s authority to regulate everything we do.”
In addition to challenging the individual mandate to buy health insurance, opponents had threatened to sue to block favorable concessions to the states of Nebraska and Louisiana that were designed to entice senators from those states to vote in favor of the healthcare bill.
Skip to next paragraph
Related Stories
“The health care legislation Congress passed tonight is an assault against the Constitution,” said South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster. “A legal challenge by the states appears to be the only hope of protecting the American people from this unprecedented attack on our system of government,” he said in a statement.
Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum issued a similar statement late Sunday. “If the president signs this bill into law, we will file a lawsuit to protect the rights and interests of American citizens,” he said.
Which states are moving to block healthcare law?
The comments came after a Sunday night conference call in which attorneys general from 11 states expressed support for legal action to block the law. In addition to Florida and South Carolina, the participating attorneys general were from Alabama, Nebraska, Texas, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Washington, Utah, North Dakota, and South Dakota.In addition, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli announced that he will file a lawsuit on behalf of his state challenging what he called the “unconstitutional overreach” of the healthcare law.
“Virginia is in a unique situation that allows it the standing to file such a suit since Virginia is the only state so far to pass a law protecting its citizens from a government-imposed mandate to buy health insurance,” he said. “The health care reform bill, with its insurance mandate, creates a conflict of laws between the federal government and Virginia,” Attorney General Cuccinelli said.
“Normally, such conflicts are decided in favor of the federal government, but because we believe the federal law is unconstitutional, Virginia’s law should prevail.”
Attorneys general and other opponents of the bill had threatened legal challenges for months. Most recently, they objected to the proposed “deem and pass” legislative maneuver that had been the suggested route to passage of the bill. But congressional leaders jettisoned the maneuver on Saturday and relied instead on traditional up or down votes on Sunday. That decision eliminated potential grounds for a lawsuit.
Has Congress overstepped its authority?
At the center of the controversy is the bill's inclusion of a federal mandate requiring all Americans to purchase health insurance or face penalties. Opponents say this measure stretches Congress’s constitutional power to “regulate commerce … among the several states” beyond any meaningful limits on federal authority. They say Congress is authorized to regulate behavior to protect public safety or welfare, but federal lawmakers overstep the constitutional limits of their power when they begin ordering Americans to purchase certain products.“With this law, the federal government will force citizens to buy health insurance, claiming it has the authority to do so because of its power to regulate interstate commerce,” Cuccinelli said. “We contend that if a person decides not to buy health insurance, that person – by definition – is not engaging in commerce, and therefore, is not subject to a federal mandate.”
The Virginia attorney general added: “Just being alive is not interstate commerce. If it were, there would be no limit to the US Constitution’s commerce clause and to Congress’s authority to regulate everything we do.”
In addition to challenging the individual mandate to buy health insurance, opponents had threatened to sue to block favorable concessions to the states of Nebraska and Louisiana that were designed to entice senators from those states to vote in favor of the healthcare bill.
How the Health Care Overhaul Could Affect You
Published: March 21, 2010
How the Health Care Overhaul Could Affect You
Major ways the overhaul will affect those who currently have health insurance and those who do not.
If you are insured and pay on your own
You can keep your current plan— or —you can buy coverage through new state-run insurance marketplaces, called “exchanges,” starting in 2014.
If you keep your current plan
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Within six months, the plans will have to stop some practices, like setting lifetime limits on coverage and canceling policy holders who get sick. They will also have to allow children to stay on their parents’ policies through age 26 and cover children with pre-existing conditions, but can still deny adults with medical problems until 2014.
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Premiums for individual policies will be 10 to 13 percent higher by 2016 than the average premium that year under current law, according to Congressional estimates. But most people would qualify for subsidies, meaning they might pay less than they do now.
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High-income earners — families making more than $250,000 — will pay several thousand dollars more in Medicare payroll taxes starting in 2018. Their unearned income, now exempt from the payroll tax, would also be subject to a 3.8 percent levy.
Or you may be eligible for subsidized coverage
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A family of four with an income less than about $88,000 can get tax credits, on a sliding scale, to help them pay insurance premiums and deductibles.
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Health plans on exchanges can offer abortion coverage. But if they do, subscribers who get federal subsidies will have to make separate premium payments for the abortion coverage. States can also ban this coverage.
If you are insured through your employer
You can keep your current plan — or — you can buy coverage through new state-run insurance marketplaces, called “exchanges,” starting in 2014.
If you keep your current plan
*
Within six months, the plans will have to stop some practices, like setting lifetime limits on coverage and canceling policy holders who get sick. They will also have to allow children to stay on their parents’ policies through age 26 and cover children with pre-existing conditions, but can still deny adults with medical problems until 2014.
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High-value group plans — those in which premiums for families are $27,500 or more, for instance — will have to pay a 40 percent excise tax in 2014.
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Starting in 2013, flexible spending accounts, which allow users to escape taxes on many medical expenses now, will be limited. There will be a $2,500 maximum on accounts that typically carry $4,000 or $5,000 limits now, and you will no longer be able to use the accounts for over-the-counter medicines.
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High-income earners — families making more than $250,000 – would pay several thousand dollars more in Medicare payroll taxes starting in 2018. Their unearned income, now exempt from the payroll tax, would also be subject to a 3.8 percent levy.
Or you may be eligible for eligible to buy insurance through the exchanges
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If your employer’s policy covers less than 60 percent of costs, or you are paying more than 9.5 percent of your income to get it, you can buy subsidized coverage on the exchanges.
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If you receive subsidies and enroll in a health plan that covers abortion, you will have to pay a separate premium for that coverage. And states could prohibit abortion coverage by these plans.
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You can get a voucher from your employer to buy insurance on the exchanges if your income is below $88,000 for a family of four, and your premiums cost between 8 and 9.8 percent of your income.
If you are insured and receive coverage from Medicare
You will pay less for preventive care and prescription drugs. Your benefits might change if you are insured through a private Medicare Advantage plan.
Preventive care
Medicare will pay for an annual checkup. And deductibles and co-payments for many preventive services and screenings will be eliminated.
Prescription drug coverage
The gap in coverage of prescription drugs, known as the “doughnut hole,” will be gradually filled by 2020. This year, consumers who hit the doughnut hole will receive a $250 rebate. Subsidies would be reduced for individuals making more than $85,000 or couples making more than $170,000.
Enrolled in Medicare Advantage
Subsidies for these plans run by insurance companies under contract with the government will be slashed substantially, leaving their 10 million beneficiaries with the prospect of higher premiums or reduced benefits.
If you are insured and receive coverage from Medicaid
You and your children can maintain eligibility and receive free preventive services.
Adults
States cannot cut people from Medicaid until the exchanges start operating in 2014, unless a state faces a budget shortfall. Many preventive services would be offered without cost.
Children
States cannot cut children from Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program until 2019.
If you are uninsured, you can get coverage from a high-risk pool
If you are refused coverage because of your health, you can get insurance from a new high-risk pool.
The pool will be established within six months and will operate until 2014, when insurance companies can no longer refuse applicants with pre-existing health problems. Annual out-of-pocket medical costs will be capped at $5,950 for individuals and $11,900 for families.
If you are uninsured, you can get coverage through Medicaid
You can obtain coverage through Medicaid
Starting in 2014, anyone with an income below 133 percent of the poverty level — or about $29,327 in 2009 for a family of four — will be eligible for a rejuvenated Medicaid program. Medicaid’s often anemic reimbursements will be increased to the same level as Medicare, making more doctors willing to accept it.
If you are uninsured, you can get coverage from exchange
If your employer does not cover you, and you make too much to qualify for Medicaid, you can buy from private insurers through exchanges starting in 2014.
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Coverage for those making up to four times the poverty threshold — $88,200 for a family of four in 2009 — will get subsidies on a sliding scale. That means you will pay somewhere between 3 percent and 9.5 percent of your income for insurance, and the government will cover the rest.
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Health plans will cover at least 60 percent of medical costs. Insurers will also have to offer more tiers that cover up to 90 percent of costs for additional premiums.
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Premiums of older people can be no more than three times as expensive as those of younger people.
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There will also be limits on overhead and profit. Insurers will be required to spend between 80 cents and 85 cents of every premium dollar on health care. They have been paying about 74 cents on average.
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Health plans on exchanges can offer abortion coverage. But if they do, subscribers who get federal subsidies will have to make separate premium payments for the coverage. States can prohibit abortion coverage.
If you do not buy insurance
Starting in 2014, most Americans will be required to buy health insurance or pay a penalty.
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The penalty will be phased in, starting at 1 percent of income in 2014, and rising to the maximum of $2,085 for a family in 2016.
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American Indians don’t have to buy insurance. Those with religious objections or a financial hardship can also avoid the requirement. And if you would pay more than 8 percent of your income for the cheapest available plan, you will not be penalized for failing to buy coverage.
*
Those who are exempt, or under 30, can buy a policy that only pays for catastrophic medical costs. It must allow for three primary care visits a year as well.
By FARHANA HOSSSAIN and KEVIN QUEALY
NYT Link
How the Health Care Overhaul Could Affect You
Major ways the overhaul will affect those who currently have health insurance and those who do not.
If you are insured and pay on your own
You can keep your current plan— or —you can buy coverage through new state-run insurance marketplaces, called “exchanges,” starting in 2014.
If you keep your current plan
*
Within six months, the plans will have to stop some practices, like setting lifetime limits on coverage and canceling policy holders who get sick. They will also have to allow children to stay on their parents’ policies through age 26 and cover children with pre-existing conditions, but can still deny adults with medical problems until 2014.
*
Premiums for individual policies will be 10 to 13 percent higher by 2016 than the average premium that year under current law, according to Congressional estimates. But most people would qualify for subsidies, meaning they might pay less than they do now.
*
High-income earners — families making more than $250,000 — will pay several thousand dollars more in Medicare payroll taxes starting in 2018. Their unearned income, now exempt from the payroll tax, would also be subject to a 3.8 percent levy.
Or you may be eligible for subsidized coverage
*
A family of four with an income less than about $88,000 can get tax credits, on a sliding scale, to help them pay insurance premiums and deductibles.
*
Health plans on exchanges can offer abortion coverage. But if they do, subscribers who get federal subsidies will have to make separate premium payments for the abortion coverage. States can also ban this coverage.
If you are insured through your employer
You can keep your current plan — or — you can buy coverage through new state-run insurance marketplaces, called “exchanges,” starting in 2014.
If you keep your current plan
*
Within six months, the plans will have to stop some practices, like setting lifetime limits on coverage and canceling policy holders who get sick. They will also have to allow children to stay on their parents’ policies through age 26 and cover children with pre-existing conditions, but can still deny adults with medical problems until 2014.
*
High-value group plans — those in which premiums for families are $27,500 or more, for instance — will have to pay a 40 percent excise tax in 2014.
*
Starting in 2013, flexible spending accounts, which allow users to escape taxes on many medical expenses now, will be limited. There will be a $2,500 maximum on accounts that typically carry $4,000 or $5,000 limits now, and you will no longer be able to use the accounts for over-the-counter medicines.
*
High-income earners — families making more than $250,000 – would pay several thousand dollars more in Medicare payroll taxes starting in 2018. Their unearned income, now exempt from the payroll tax, would also be subject to a 3.8 percent levy.
Or you may be eligible for eligible to buy insurance through the exchanges
*
If your employer’s policy covers less than 60 percent of costs, or you are paying more than 9.5 percent of your income to get it, you can buy subsidized coverage on the exchanges.
*
If you receive subsidies and enroll in a health plan that covers abortion, you will have to pay a separate premium for that coverage. And states could prohibit abortion coverage by these plans.
*
You can get a voucher from your employer to buy insurance on the exchanges if your income is below $88,000 for a family of four, and your premiums cost between 8 and 9.8 percent of your income.
If you are insured and receive coverage from Medicare
You will pay less for preventive care and prescription drugs. Your benefits might change if you are insured through a private Medicare Advantage plan.
Preventive care
Medicare will pay for an annual checkup. And deductibles and co-payments for many preventive services and screenings will be eliminated.
Prescription drug coverage
The gap in coverage of prescription drugs, known as the “doughnut hole,” will be gradually filled by 2020. This year, consumers who hit the doughnut hole will receive a $250 rebate. Subsidies would be reduced for individuals making more than $85,000 or couples making more than $170,000.
Enrolled in Medicare Advantage
Subsidies for these plans run by insurance companies under contract with the government will be slashed substantially, leaving their 10 million beneficiaries with the prospect of higher premiums or reduced benefits.
If you are insured and receive coverage from Medicaid
You and your children can maintain eligibility and receive free preventive services.
Adults
States cannot cut people from Medicaid until the exchanges start operating in 2014, unless a state faces a budget shortfall. Many preventive services would be offered without cost.
Children
States cannot cut children from Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program until 2019.
If you are uninsured, you can get coverage from a high-risk pool
If you are refused coverage because of your health, you can get insurance from a new high-risk pool.
The pool will be established within six months and will operate until 2014, when insurance companies can no longer refuse applicants with pre-existing health problems. Annual out-of-pocket medical costs will be capped at $5,950 for individuals and $11,900 for families.
If you are uninsured, you can get coverage through Medicaid
You can obtain coverage through Medicaid
Starting in 2014, anyone with an income below 133 percent of the poverty level — or about $29,327 in 2009 for a family of four — will be eligible for a rejuvenated Medicaid program. Medicaid’s often anemic reimbursements will be increased to the same level as Medicare, making more doctors willing to accept it.
If you are uninsured, you can get coverage from exchange
If your employer does not cover you, and you make too much to qualify for Medicaid, you can buy from private insurers through exchanges starting in 2014.
*
Coverage for those making up to four times the poverty threshold — $88,200 for a family of four in 2009 — will get subsidies on a sliding scale. That means you will pay somewhere between 3 percent and 9.5 percent of your income for insurance, and the government will cover the rest.
*
Health plans will cover at least 60 percent of medical costs. Insurers will also have to offer more tiers that cover up to 90 percent of costs for additional premiums.
*
Premiums of older people can be no more than three times as expensive as those of younger people.
*
There will also be limits on overhead and profit. Insurers will be required to spend between 80 cents and 85 cents of every premium dollar on health care. They have been paying about 74 cents on average.
*
Health plans on exchanges can offer abortion coverage. But if they do, subscribers who get federal subsidies will have to make separate premium payments for the coverage. States can prohibit abortion coverage.
If you do not buy insurance
Starting in 2014, most Americans will be required to buy health insurance or pay a penalty.
*
The penalty will be phased in, starting at 1 percent of income in 2014, and rising to the maximum of $2,085 for a family in 2016.
*
American Indians don’t have to buy insurance. Those with religious objections or a financial hardship can also avoid the requirement. And if you would pay more than 8 percent of your income for the cheapest available plan, you will not be penalized for failing to buy coverage.
*
Those who are exempt, or under 30, can buy a policy that only pays for catastrophic medical costs. It must allow for three primary care visits a year as well.
By FARHANA HOSSSAIN and KEVIN QUEALY
NYT Link
Friday, March 19, 2010
State of the health care debate: Talk radio attacks an 11-year old
McClatchy Washington Bureau
Posted on Thu, Mar. 18, 2010
Marcelas Owens, whose mother got sick, lost her job, lost her health insurance and died, said Thursday he's taking the attacks from Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Michelle Malkin in stride.
"My mother always taught me they can have their own opinion but that doesn't mean they are right," Owens, who lives in Seattle, said in an interview.
Owens' grandmother, Gina, who watched her daughter die, isn't quite so generous.
"These are adults, and he is an 11-year-old boy who lost his mother," Gina Owens said. "They should be ashamed."
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., told Marcelas Owens' story to President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden at the White House health care summit last month. Murray also has spoken about it on the Senate floor. Last week, Owens was in the nation's capital to speak at a health care rally and to meet with Senate Democratic leadership.
Limbaugh, Beck and Malkin are skeptical about the story, saying there were other forms of medical help available after Owens' mother, Tifanny, lost her health insurance. They lambasted Democrats for using the story.
"Now this is unseemly, exploitative, an 11-year-old boy being forced to tell his story all over just to benefit the Democrat Party and Barack Obama," Limbaugh said on March 12, according to a transcript his show. "And, I would say this to Marcelas Owens: 'Well, your mom would still have died, because Obamacare doesn't kick in until 2014.'"
Beck, according to a transcript of his March 15 show, pointed out that Owens' recent trip to Washington was paid for by Healthcare of America, a group that has been lobbying for a health care overhaul.
"That's the George Soros-funded Obama-approved group fighting for health care," Beck said. "Since all of the groups are so concerned and involved now, may I ask where were you when Marcelas' mother was vomiting blood?"
Beck, who's from Mount Vernon, Wash., said there were plenty of programs in Washington state that could have helped Tifanny Owens.
Malkin dismissed Marcelas Owens as "one of Obama's youngest lobbyists" who has been "goaded by a left-wing activist grandmother," promoted by Murray and has become a regular on the "pro-Obamacare circuit."
Malkin also suggested there were other programs that could have helped Tifanny Owens, adding, "It's not clear that additional doctors' visits in the subsequent months would have prevented her death."
Tifanny Owens died in June 2007 of pulmonary hypertension, which is described as high blood pressure in the arteries of the lungs that can lead to heart failure. The disease is considered rare. While there's no cure, it can be treated.
The treatments can cost as much as $100,000 a year and must be "consistent and constant," said Katie Kroner, the director of advocacy and awareness for the Pulmonary Hypertension Association.
"It's extremely important to have health coverage," she said.
Owens was an assistant manager at a fast food restaurant when she became sick in September 2006. As she became sicker, she missed work and was eventually fired, leaving her without health insurance. She was treated twice in an emergency room and died at age 27 after a week of unconsciousness. Gina Owens has custody of Marcelas and his two younger sisters.
Gina Owens said her daughter didn't qualify for Medicaid. State officials said that without knowing the details, it was impossible to speculate on whether Tifanny Owens would have qualified.
Tifanny Owens might have been eligible for Washington state's basic health care plan, which is aimed at the working poor. The plan has had a long waiting list for some time, said Sharon Michael of the Washington state Health Care Authority.
"Right now, we have 100,000 people on the wait list," Michael said.
Limbaugh has gone after young people before. In 2007, he told listeners that Democrats were exploiting an 18-year-old Yup'ik Eskimo and that her congressional testimony of global warming made him want to "puke."
Murray said she was appalled at how vicious the health care debate has become.
"The mom in me is getting really mad," she said. "You don't tear apart an 11-year-old because his mom died."
Marcelas Owens said he'll never know if his mother might have lived if she had health insurance.
"At least if she had it she would've had a fighting chance," he said.
Posted on Thu, Mar. 18, 2010
Les Blumenthal | McClatchy Newspapers
last updated: March 18, 2010 08:28:46 PM
WASHINGTON — Conservative talk show hosts and columnists have ridiculed an 11-year-old Washington state boy's account of his mother's death as a "sob story" exploited by the White House and congressional Democrats like a "kiddie shield" to defend their health care legislation.Marcelas Owens, whose mother got sick, lost her job, lost her health insurance and died, said Thursday he's taking the attacks from Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Michelle Malkin in stride.
"My mother always taught me they can have their own opinion but that doesn't mean they are right," Owens, who lives in Seattle, said in an interview.
Owens' grandmother, Gina, who watched her daughter die, isn't quite so generous.
"These are adults, and he is an 11-year-old boy who lost his mother," Gina Owens said. "They should be ashamed."
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., told Marcelas Owens' story to President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden at the White House health care summit last month. Murray also has spoken about it on the Senate floor. Last week, Owens was in the nation's capital to speak at a health care rally and to meet with Senate Democratic leadership.
Limbaugh, Beck and Malkin are skeptical about the story, saying there were other forms of medical help available after Owens' mother, Tifanny, lost her health insurance. They lambasted Democrats for using the story.
"Now this is unseemly, exploitative, an 11-year-old boy being forced to tell his story all over just to benefit the Democrat Party and Barack Obama," Limbaugh said on March 12, according to a transcript his show. "And, I would say this to Marcelas Owens: 'Well, your mom would still have died, because Obamacare doesn't kick in until 2014.'"
Beck, according to a transcript of his March 15 show, pointed out that Owens' recent trip to Washington was paid for by Healthcare of America, a group that has been lobbying for a health care overhaul.
"That's the George Soros-funded Obama-approved group fighting for health care," Beck said. "Since all of the groups are so concerned and involved now, may I ask where were you when Marcelas' mother was vomiting blood?"
Beck, who's from Mount Vernon, Wash., said there were plenty of programs in Washington state that could have helped Tifanny Owens.
Malkin dismissed Marcelas Owens as "one of Obama's youngest lobbyists" who has been "goaded by a left-wing activist grandmother," promoted by Murray and has become a regular on the "pro-Obamacare circuit."
Malkin also suggested there were other programs that could have helped Tifanny Owens, adding, "It's not clear that additional doctors' visits in the subsequent months would have prevented her death."
Tifanny Owens died in June 2007 of pulmonary hypertension, which is described as high blood pressure in the arteries of the lungs that can lead to heart failure. The disease is considered rare. While there's no cure, it can be treated.
The treatments can cost as much as $100,000 a year and must be "consistent and constant," said Katie Kroner, the director of advocacy and awareness for the Pulmonary Hypertension Association.
"It's extremely important to have health coverage," she said.
Owens was an assistant manager at a fast food restaurant when she became sick in September 2006. As she became sicker, she missed work and was eventually fired, leaving her without health insurance. She was treated twice in an emergency room and died at age 27 after a week of unconsciousness. Gina Owens has custody of Marcelas and his two younger sisters.
Gina Owens said her daughter didn't qualify for Medicaid. State officials said that without knowing the details, it was impossible to speculate on whether Tifanny Owens would have qualified.
Tifanny Owens might have been eligible for Washington state's basic health care plan, which is aimed at the working poor. The plan has had a long waiting list for some time, said Sharon Michael of the Washington state Health Care Authority.
"Right now, we have 100,000 people on the wait list," Michael said.
Limbaugh has gone after young people before. In 2007, he told listeners that Democrats were exploiting an 18-year-old Yup'ik Eskimo and that her congressional testimony of global warming made him want to "puke."
Murray said she was appalled at how vicious the health care debate has become.
"The mom in me is getting really mad," she said. "You don't tear apart an 11-year-old because his mom died."
Marcelas Owens said he'll never know if his mother might have lived if she had health insurance.
"At least if she had it she would've had a fighting chance," he said.
Lady Gaga Sued For $30.5 Million By Producer
Lady Gaga Sued For $30.5 Million By Producer
Rob Fusari claims he hasn't been compensated for co-writing songs, coming up with her stage name and helping her get a record deal.
A songwriter and music producer who claims he helped launch Lady Gaga's career filed a $30.5 million lawsuit against the pop superstar, The Associated Press reported Thursday (March 18).
Rob Fusari says he was squeezed out of Gaga's lucrative career after he co-wrote some of her songs, came up with her stage name and helped her get a record deal. Fusari's lawyer hadn't returned MTV News' calls for comment by press time; Gaga's rep also hadn't commented on the suit.
The producer said Gaga is his protégé and former girlfriend, and she ditched him as her career took off. "All business is personal," said the lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Manhattan.
Fusari, who had worked on Will Smith's "Wild, Wild West" and Destiny's Child's "Bootylicious" when he teamed up with the singer back in March 2006, said he persuaded her to trade in her rock music for dance beats.
As they co-wrote songs such as "Paparazzi" and "Beautiful, Dirty, Rich," which would appear on her debut album, The Fame, he transformed Stefani Germanotta into Lady Gaga, a name adapted from Queen's "Radio Ga Ga," the lawsuit claimed.
Lady Gaga told the AP in a 2009 interview that her "realization of Gaga was five years ago, but Gaga's always been who I am."
"I was Gaga from the time that I was 19 through my first record deal," the 23-year-old said of her over-the-top style. "I always dressed like that before people knew me as Lady Gaga. I was always that way. ... I stuck out like a sore thumb."
Per the lawsuit, Lady Gaga and Fusari's relationship turned romantic and then became a business partnership in May 2006, when they created a joint venture called Team Love Child LLC to promote her career. Fusari's share was 20 percent, it said.
Fusari says he introduced Lady Gaga to a record executive who ultimately shepherded her to Universal Music Group's Interscope Records, which released The Fame in 2008. While Fusari has a producing credit on the album, he said he has been denied a 20 percent song-royalties share and 15 percent of merchandising revenue. He acknowledges getting checks for about $611,000 but said that isn't his full share.
Arizona Drops Children’s Health Program & 310,000 adults from Medicaid
Arizona Drops Children’s Health Program
By KEVIN SACK
The Arizona budget is a vivid reflection of how the fiscal crisis afflicting state governments is cutting deeply into health care. The state also will roll back Medicaid coverage for childless adults in a move that is expected to eventually drop 310,000 people from the rolls.
State leaders said they were left with few choices because of a $2.6 billion projected shortfall next year. But hospital officials and advocates for low-income people said they were worried that emergency rooms would be overrun by patients who had few other options for care, and that children might suffer enduring developmental problems because of inadequate medical attention.
The cuts also mean the state will forgo hundreds of millions of dollars in federal matching aid, and could lose far more if Congress passes a health bill that requires states to maintain eligibility levels for the two programs.
Ms. Brewer, a Republican, has warned that more cuts will be needed if voters do not approve a referendum in May to raise the sales tax by a penny for three years, to 6.6 cents per dollar.
“Arizona is navigating its way through the largest state budget deficit in its long history,” said Ms. Brewer, a staunch conservative who said she had never previously supported a tax increase. “With my signature on this budget, the first major step to recovery has been taken.”
The Republican-controlled Legislature passed the budget last week, based largely on a proposal from the governor that included deep cuts to both health care and education. With state revenues down a third since 2007, the $8.9 billion budget reduced spending by about $1.1 billion.
Three states, including Arizona, had in the last year capped enrollment in the Children’s Health Insurance Program, financed jointly by states and the federal government. But two of those states — California and Tennessee — quickly removed their caps, said Jocelyn Guyer, co-executive director of the Center for Children and Families at Georgetown University.
“They really are standing alone in cutting children off during the downturn,” Ms. Guyer said. “It’s going to have long-term consequences that will be there for kids long after Arizona’s budget situation gets better.”
The 12-year-old program, which enjoys bipartisan support in Congress, covers an estimated 7.7 million children whose parents typically make too much to qualify for Medicaid but too little to afford private insurance.
Krista K. Long, 35, a social worker near Phoenix whose son, Aidan, 12, is covered by the program, said she decided after the budget passed to marry her boyfriend so that Aidan might be covered under her new husband’s policy.
“I can’t risk having my child without health insurance,” said Ms. Long, who is uninsured. “It would just take one fall off his bike and having to get an X-ray to really put us over the edge.”
The Medicaid reduction for childless adults rolls back an expansion approved by voters in 2000 and cuts enrollment about 25 percent. The expansion was to be paid for with tobacco settlement dollars, a revenue source that quickly proved inadequate.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Monday, March 15, 2010
Patients Abandoned as Medicaid Payments Shrink
Patients Abandoned as Medicaid Payments Shrink
By KEVIN SACK
FLINT, Mich. — Carol Y. Vliet’s cancer returned with a fury last summer, the tumors metastasizing to her brain, liver, kidneys and throat.
As she began a punishing regimen of chemotherapy and radiation, Mrs. Vliet found a measure of comfort in her monthly appointments with her primary care physician, Dr. Saed J. Sahouri, who had been monitoring her health for nearly two years.
She was devastated, therefore, when Dr. Sahouri informed her a few months later that he could no longer see her because, like a growing number of doctors, he had stopped taking patients with Medicaid.
Dr. Sahouri said that his reimbursements from Medicaid were so low — often no more than $25 per office visit — that he was losing money every time a patient walked in his exam room.
The final insult, he said, came when Michigan cut those payments by 8 percent last year to help close a gaping budget shortfall.
“My office manager was telling me to do this for a long time, and I resisted,” Dr. Sahouri said. “But after a while you realize that we’re really losing money on seeing those patients, not even breaking even. We were starting to lose more and more money, month after month.”
It has not taken long for communities like Flint to feel the downstream effects of a nationwide torrent of state cuts to Medicaid, the government insurance program for the poor and disabled. With states squeezing payments to providers even as the economy fuels explosive growth in enrollment, patients are finding it increasingly difficult to find doctors and dentists who will accept their coverage. Inevitably, many defer care or wind up in hospital emergency rooms, which are required to take anyone in an urgent condition.
Mrs. Vliet, 53, who lives just outside Flint, has yet to find a replacement for Dr. Sahouri. “When you build a relationship, you want to stay with that doctor,” she said recently, her face gaunt from disease, and her head wrapped in a floral bandanna. “You don’t want to go from doctor to doctor to doctor and have strangers looking at you that don’t have a clue who you are.”
The inadequacy of Medicaid payments is severe enough that it has become a rare point of agreement in the health care debate between President Obama and Congressional Republicans. In a letter to Congress after their February health care meeting, Mr. Obama wrote that rates might need to rise if Democrats achieved their goal of extending Medicaid eligibility to 15 million uninsured Americans.
In 2008, Medicaid reimbursements averaged only 72 percent of the rates paid by Medicare, which are themselves typically well below those of commercial insurers, according to the Urban Institute, a research group. At 63 percent, Michigan had the sixth-lowest rate in the country, even before the recent cuts.
In Flint, Dr. Nita M. Kulkarni, an obstetrician, receives $29.42 from Medicaid for a visit that would bill $69.63 from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. She receives $842.16 from Medicaid for a Caesarean delivery, compared with $1,393.31 from Blue Cross.
If she takes too many Medicaid patients, she said, she cannot afford overhead expenses like staff salaries, the office mortgage and malpractice insurance that will run $42,800 this year. She also said she feared being sued by Medicaid patients because they might be at higher risk for problem pregnancies, because of underlying health problems.
As a result, she takes new Medicaid patients only if they are relatives or friends of existing patients. It makes her feel better, she said, that her husband, who is also her office mate, Dr. Bobby B. Mukkamala, an ear, nose and throat specialist, is able to take Medicaid because only a modest share of his patients have it.
The states and the federal government share the cost of Medicaid, which saw a record enrollment increase of 3.3 million people last year. The program now benefits 47 million people, primarily children, pregnant women, disabled adults and nursing home residents. It falls to the states to control spending by setting limits on eligibility, benefits and provider payments within broad federal guidelines.
Michigan, like many other states, did just that last year, packaging the 8 percent reimbursement cut with the elimination of dental, vision, podiatry, hearing and chiropractic services for adults.
When Randy C. Smith showed up recently at a Hamilton Community Health Network clinic near Flint, complaining of a throbbing molar, Dr. Miriam L. Parker had to inform him that Medicaid no longer covered the root canal and crown he needed.
A landscaper who has been without work for 15 months, Mr. Smith, 46, said he could not afford the $2,000 cost. “I guess I’ll just take Tylenol or Motrin,” he said before leaving.
This year, Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm, a Democrat, has revived a proposal to impose a 3 percent tax on physician revenues. Without the tax, she has warned, the state may have to reduce payments to health care providers by a 11 percent.
In Flint, the birthplace of General Motors, the collapse of automobile manufacturing has melded with the recession to drive unemployment to a staggering 27 percent. About one in four non-elderly residents of Genesee County are uninsured, and one in five depends on Medicaid. The county’s Medicaid rolls have grown by 37 percent since 2001, and the program now pays for half of all childbirths.
But surveys show the share of doctors accepting new Medicaid patients is declining. Waits for an appointment at the city’s federally subsidized health clinic, where most patients have Medicaid, have lengthened to four months from six weeks in 2008. Parents like Rebecca and Jeoffrey Curtis, who had brought their 2-year-old son to the clinic, say they have struggled to find a pediatrician.
“I called four or five doctors and asked if they accepted our Medicaid plan,” said Ms. Curtis, a 21-year-old waitress. “It would always be, ‘No, I’m sorry.’ It kind of makes us feel like second-class citizens.”
As physicians limit their Medicaid practices, emergency rooms are seeing more patients who do not need acute care.
At Genesys Regional Medical Center, one of three area hospitals, Medicaid volume is up 14 percent over last year. At Hurley Medical Center, the city’s safety net hospital, Dr. Michael Jaggi detects the difference when advising emergency room patients to seek follow-up treatment.
“We get met with the blank stare of ‘Where do I go from here?’ ” said Dr. Jaggi, the chief of emergency medicine.
New doctors, with their mountains of medical school debt, are fleeing the state because of payment cuts and proposed taxes. Dr. Kiet A. Doan, a surgeon in Flint, said that of 72 residents he had trained at local hospitals only two had stayed in the area, and both are natives.
Access to care can be even more challenging in remote parts of the state. The MidMichigan Medical Center in Clare, about 90 miles northwest of Flint, closed its obstetrics unit last year because Medicaid reimbursements covered only 65 percent of actual costs. Two other hospitals in the region might follow suit, potentially leaving 16 contiguous counties without obstetrics.
Medicaid enrollees in Michigan’s midsection have grown accustomed to long journeys for care. This month, Shannon M. Brown of Winn skipped work to drive her 8-year-old son more than two hours for a five-minute consultation with Dr. Mukkamala. Her pediatrician could not find a specialist any closer who would take Medicaid, she said.
Later this month, she will take the predawn drive again so Dr. Mukkamala can remove her son’s tonsils and adenoids. “He’s going to have to sit in the car for three hours after his surgery,” Mrs. Brown said. “I’m not looking forward to that one.”
By KEVIN SACK
FLINT, Mich. — Carol Y. Vliet’s cancer returned with a fury last summer, the tumors metastasizing to her brain, liver, kidneys and throat.
As she began a punishing regimen of chemotherapy and radiation, Mrs. Vliet found a measure of comfort in her monthly appointments with her primary care physician, Dr. Saed J. Sahouri, who had been monitoring her health for nearly two years.
She was devastated, therefore, when Dr. Sahouri informed her a few months later that he could no longer see her because, like a growing number of doctors, he had stopped taking patients with Medicaid.
Dr. Sahouri said that his reimbursements from Medicaid were so low — often no more than $25 per office visit — that he was losing money every time a patient walked in his exam room.
The final insult, he said, came when Michigan cut those payments by 8 percent last year to help close a gaping budget shortfall.
“My office manager was telling me to do this for a long time, and I resisted,” Dr. Sahouri said. “But after a while you realize that we’re really losing money on seeing those patients, not even breaking even. We were starting to lose more and more money, month after month.”
It has not taken long for communities like Flint to feel the downstream effects of a nationwide torrent of state cuts to Medicaid, the government insurance program for the poor and disabled. With states squeezing payments to providers even as the economy fuels explosive growth in enrollment, patients are finding it increasingly difficult to find doctors and dentists who will accept their coverage. Inevitably, many defer care or wind up in hospital emergency rooms, which are required to take anyone in an urgent condition.
Mrs. Vliet, 53, who lives just outside Flint, has yet to find a replacement for Dr. Sahouri. “When you build a relationship, you want to stay with that doctor,” she said recently, her face gaunt from disease, and her head wrapped in a floral bandanna. “You don’t want to go from doctor to doctor to doctor and have strangers looking at you that don’t have a clue who you are.”
The inadequacy of Medicaid payments is severe enough that it has become a rare point of agreement in the health care debate between President Obama and Congressional Republicans. In a letter to Congress after their February health care meeting, Mr. Obama wrote that rates might need to rise if Democrats achieved their goal of extending Medicaid eligibility to 15 million uninsured Americans.
In 2008, Medicaid reimbursements averaged only 72 percent of the rates paid by Medicare, which are themselves typically well below those of commercial insurers, according to the Urban Institute, a research group. At 63 percent, Michigan had the sixth-lowest rate in the country, even before the recent cuts.
In Flint, Dr. Nita M. Kulkarni, an obstetrician, receives $29.42 from Medicaid for a visit that would bill $69.63 from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. She receives $842.16 from Medicaid for a Caesarean delivery, compared with $1,393.31 from Blue Cross.
If she takes too many Medicaid patients, she said, she cannot afford overhead expenses like staff salaries, the office mortgage and malpractice insurance that will run $42,800 this year. She also said she feared being sued by Medicaid patients because they might be at higher risk for problem pregnancies, because of underlying health problems.
As a result, she takes new Medicaid patients only if they are relatives or friends of existing patients. It makes her feel better, she said, that her husband, who is also her office mate, Dr. Bobby B. Mukkamala, an ear, nose and throat specialist, is able to take Medicaid because only a modest share of his patients have it.
The states and the federal government share the cost of Medicaid, which saw a record enrollment increase of 3.3 million people last year. The program now benefits 47 million people, primarily children, pregnant women, disabled adults and nursing home residents. It falls to the states to control spending by setting limits on eligibility, benefits and provider payments within broad federal guidelines.
Michigan, like many other states, did just that last year, packaging the 8 percent reimbursement cut with the elimination of dental, vision, podiatry, hearing and chiropractic services for adults.
When Randy C. Smith showed up recently at a Hamilton Community Health Network clinic near Flint, complaining of a throbbing molar, Dr. Miriam L. Parker had to inform him that Medicaid no longer covered the root canal and crown he needed.
A landscaper who has been without work for 15 months, Mr. Smith, 46, said he could not afford the $2,000 cost. “I guess I’ll just take Tylenol or Motrin,” he said before leaving.
This year, Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm, a Democrat, has revived a proposal to impose a 3 percent tax on physician revenues. Without the tax, she has warned, the state may have to reduce payments to health care providers by a 11 percent.
In Flint, the birthplace of General Motors, the collapse of automobile manufacturing has melded with the recession to drive unemployment to a staggering 27 percent. About one in four non-elderly residents of Genesee County are uninsured, and one in five depends on Medicaid. The county’s Medicaid rolls have grown by 37 percent since 2001, and the program now pays for half of all childbirths.
But surveys show the share of doctors accepting new Medicaid patients is declining. Waits for an appointment at the city’s federally subsidized health clinic, where most patients have Medicaid, have lengthened to four months from six weeks in 2008. Parents like Rebecca and Jeoffrey Curtis, who had brought their 2-year-old son to the clinic, say they have struggled to find a pediatrician.
“I called four or five doctors and asked if they accepted our Medicaid plan,” said Ms. Curtis, a 21-year-old waitress. “It would always be, ‘No, I’m sorry.’ It kind of makes us feel like second-class citizens.”
As physicians limit their Medicaid practices, emergency rooms are seeing more patients who do not need acute care.
At Genesys Regional Medical Center, one of three area hospitals, Medicaid volume is up 14 percent over last year. At Hurley Medical Center, the city’s safety net hospital, Dr. Michael Jaggi detects the difference when advising emergency room patients to seek follow-up treatment.
“We get met with the blank stare of ‘Where do I go from here?’ ” said Dr. Jaggi, the chief of emergency medicine.
New doctors, with their mountains of medical school debt, are fleeing the state because of payment cuts and proposed taxes. Dr. Kiet A. Doan, a surgeon in Flint, said that of 72 residents he had trained at local hospitals only two had stayed in the area, and both are natives.
Access to care can be even more challenging in remote parts of the state. The MidMichigan Medical Center in Clare, about 90 miles northwest of Flint, closed its obstetrics unit last year because Medicaid reimbursements covered only 65 percent of actual costs. Two other hospitals in the region might follow suit, potentially leaving 16 contiguous counties without obstetrics.
Medicaid enrollees in Michigan’s midsection have grown accustomed to long journeys for care. This month, Shannon M. Brown of Winn skipped work to drive her 8-year-old son more than two hours for a five-minute consultation with Dr. Mukkamala. Her pediatrician could not find a specialist any closer who would take Medicaid, she said.
Later this month, she will take the predawn drive again so Dr. Mukkamala can remove her son’s tonsils and adenoids. “He’s going to have to sit in the car for three hours after his surgery,” Mrs. Brown said. “I’m not looking forward to that one.”
Sunday, March 7, 2010
School counselor suspended after lingerie purchase
School counselor suspended after lingerie purchase
A district spokeswoman said Friday the man is on paid administrative leave pending an internal investigation.
The man hasn't been charged with a crime, although two search warrant affidavits have been filed in Ramsey County court.
The affidavits say a "concerned citizen" reported seeing a man with a Roseville school badge buying lingerie Feb. 11 for a teen who was with him.
The documents say a school police officer watched the store's surveillance video and recognized the man. The female was identified as an 18-year-old recent dropout.
The documents say the man also texted "numerous" female students about their menstrual cycles.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Melt Banana - Last Target On The Last Day
RT: @aligilliams 3-4-10
RT: aligilliams http://tinyurl.com/yznsb5n check out an interview i did & some behindthescenes pictures from my alice in wonderland shoot at sweet harts! RT
Melt Banana - Lyrics Link
Last Target On The Last Day
All of the targets
they are not hidden
All of the law sets
they are forbidden
All of the poor heads
they are so broken
I just don't know why
They are so wasted...
And I lost one thing
All of the mistakes
they are in the heaven
All of the red cakes
they are so poisoned
All the the less names
they are so brightened
I just don't see why
They are so aimless
All of the targets
they are not hidden
All of the hit lists
they are not written
All of the checkmates
they are so fallen
I just don't wanna play
It's so wasted
The flakes are fallin', fade out
The flakes are fallin', look out
The flakes are fallin', reach out
The flakes are fallin',
You need to lock on
The same old last line...
All of the targets
they are not hidden
All of the law sets
they are forbidden
All of the poor heads
they are so broken
I just don't know why
So fascinated...
All of the targets
they are not hidden
All of the hit lists
they are not written
All of the checkmates
they are so fallen
I just don't wanna pay
So frustrated...
The flakes are fallin'
Fade out
The flakes are fallin'
Look out
The flakes are fallin'
Reach out
The flakes are fallin'
Shut out
LOCK ON..
The same last day
The same last day
RT: aligilliams http://tinyurl.com/yznsb5n check out an interview i did & some behindthescenes pictures from my alice in wonderland shoot at sweet harts! RT
Melt Banana - Lyrics Link
Last Target On The Last Day
All of the targets
they are not hidden
All of the law sets
they are forbidden
All of the poor heads
they are so broken
I just don't know why
They are so wasted...
And I lost one thing
All of the mistakes
they are in the heaven
All of the red cakes
they are so poisoned
All the the less names
they are so brightened
I just don't see why
They are so aimless
All of the targets
they are not hidden
All of the hit lists
they are not written
All of the checkmates
they are so fallen
I just don't wanna play
It's so wasted
The flakes are fallin', fade out
The flakes are fallin', look out
The flakes are fallin', reach out
The flakes are fallin',
You need to lock on
The same old last line...
All of the targets
they are not hidden
All of the law sets
they are forbidden
All of the poor heads
they are so broken
I just don't know why
So fascinated...
All of the targets
they are not hidden
All of the hit lists
they are not written
All of the checkmates
they are so fallen
I just don't wanna pay
So frustrated...
The flakes are fallin'
Fade out
The flakes are fallin'
Look out
The flakes are fallin'
Reach out
The flakes are fallin'
Shut out
LOCK ON..
The same last day
The same last day
Get ready for the Viacom v. YouTube summary judgment briefs
Thursday, March 4, 2010
In the both the Viacom and Premier League cases, opening summary judgment briefs are due March 5, oppositions April 30, and replies June 4. In the Premier League case, the plaintiffs' motion for class certification is due March 26, YouTube's opposition May 7, and plaintiffs' reply June 11.
Get ready for the Viacom v. YouTube summary judgment briefs
After nearly three years of discovery, the parties in the massive Viacom v. YouTube copyright suit will finally lay out their arguments on paper Friday, when opening briefs in support of summary judgment motions are due. Interested observers will finally get to see whether Viacom -- as well as the plaintiffs in the similar class action suit brought by the English Premier Soccer League, Bourne Music Publishers, and others -- has the goods on YouTube, or whether the video-hosting site will stay safely within the DMCA's Section 512(c) safe harbor. Did YouTube employees themselves upload infringing videos? What did they know about infringement on the site? How quickly do they respond to takedown notices? Did Viacom upload its own videos to YouTube, thus bolstering YouTube's arguments that it can't tell which videos are infringing, and so can't be expected to take them down without specific notice from copyright owners? Will Google have to dig into the reported $200 million it set aside to cover copyright liability when it bought YouTube in 2006? Tomorrow, we will likely get a little closer to the answers to these questions, and a lot more.In the both the Viacom and Premier League cases, opening summary judgment briefs are due March 5, oppositions April 30, and replies June 4. In the Premier League case, the plaintiffs' motion for class certification is due March 26, YouTube's opposition May 7, and plaintiffs' reply June 11.
Dannii Minogue is 'f*****g useless' rants Sharon Osbourne
1st March, 2010 Dannii Minogue is 'f*****g useless' rants Sharon Osbourne
Dannii Minogue is 'f*****g useless' rants Sharon Osbourne
Sharon Osbourne just can’t let go of the Dannii Minogue-shaped chip on her shoulder as she continues one of show business’ biggest female feuds.
Sharon Osbourne is on the Dannii warpath again
Speaking about Simon Cowell’s hit TV talent show The X Factor, she fumed: "Dannii - I couldn't stand her. She wasn't so much a dim bulb as a bulb in a power cut. F***ing useless."
This may be spoken with a bitter edge however as Sharon was booted off the show in 2007 – unless she actually did walk – whereas Dannii still sits in her throne as a judge today.
She added in her rage: ‘They’d rather have some doll like Dannii Minogue as judge, endorsing this bulls**t.’
Seething Sharon, 57, went on to slate the contestants and how there is no longer any talent and how the show should be renamed: ‘We’ve Got No Fucking Talent At All.’
‘It’s like a revolving door for t**ts.’
Sharon famously sat on the panel with Dannii Minogue in 2007 and her brash attitude made sparks fly between the hot-headed pair. She then ‘walked’ from the show now claiming it was because she couldn’t stand the ‘bulls**t’ any longer from the charade.
Dannii Mingogue suffered heaps of torment from Ozzy Osbourne’s fiery wife whilst they judged together on the ITV show. Sharon has always slammed Dannii for being weak and having no opinion.
She even went as far as comparing her to an annoying mosquito that she wanted to flick away and rather hypocritically called her plastic surgery ‘appalling’.
Despite claiming that talent shows spurn nothing but wannabes, the TV star is actually a panellist on Simon’s Stateside show America’s Got Talent.
Seems like she just wanted another excuse to vent her Dannii jealousy, again.
This may be spoken with a bitter edge however as Sharon was booted off the show in 2007 – unless she actually did walk – whereas Dannii still sits in her throne as a judge today.
She added in her rage: ‘They’d rather have some doll like Dannii Minogue as judge, endorsing this bulls**t.’
Seething Sharon, 57, went on to slate the contestants and how there is no longer any talent and how the show should be renamed: ‘We’ve Got No Fucking Talent At All.’
‘It’s like a revolving door for t**ts.’
Sharon famously sat on the panel with Dannii Minogue in 2007 and her brash attitude made sparks fly between the hot-headed pair. She then ‘walked’ from the show now claiming it was because she couldn’t stand the ‘bulls**t’ any longer from the charade.
Dannii Mingogue suffered heaps of torment from Ozzy Osbourne’s fiery wife whilst they judged together on the ITV show. Sharon has always slammed Dannii for being weak and having no opinion.
She even went as far as comparing her to an annoying mosquito that she wanted to flick away and rather hypocritically called her plastic surgery ‘appalling’.
Despite claiming that talent shows spurn nothing but wannabes, the TV star is actually a panellist on Simon’s Stateside show America’s Got Talent.
Seems like she just wanted another excuse to vent her Dannii jealousy, again.
U.K. - New law could put block on YouTube
New law could put block on YouTube
Video-sharing websites such as YouTube could be blocked in Britain after a last-minute change to a new law.
YouTube: could be hit by the controversial amendment to the Digital Economy Bill
They are facing a major clampdown on using copyright material under an amendment passed by the House of Lords.
The change grants TV and music companies the right to demand their material is taken down. If the request is refused, they can take their challenge to court, where high legal costs will make it pointless to launch a defence.
Critics say the Digital Economy Bill is a blow to web freedom and hands far too much power to big entertainment companies. They say the reasoning behind the amendment is ‘wholly misguided’.
Websites such as YouTube and its smaller rivals have long been under pressure for posting music videos, film and TV clips without consent.
The law could also affect services used for sharing large files, such as YouSendIt and Dropbox.
Under the new law, copyright holders must ask internet service providers – companies such as Virgin, BT, TalkTalk and Orange – and the website itself to remove the material or any links to other sites hosting it.
If it is not taken down, a court order can force the ISP to block the site.
The amendment is aimed at websites with ‘substantial’ amounts of copyrighted material. However, critics say the law, which is set to be passed in April, is unclear about what ‘substantial’ means and that it is unfair to block an entire site over a few minor breaches.
They say ISPs would simply shut out a site rather than risk the high legal costs of defending a case.
Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group, said: ‘ISPs are almost certain to cave into rights holders’ demands rather than go through a lengthy court process.
‘It’s hard on ISPs because they have no power to change what websites are doing but, if they block them, they could lose users.’
Nicholas Lansman, secretary-general of the Internet Service Providers Association, said: ‘Our members are extremely concerned that the full implications of the amendment have not been understood.’
Liberal Democrat peer Lord Clement-Jones, who put forward the amendment, said ISPs should have little cause for concern as an injunction would be granted only where a website had been warned repeatedly of copyright breaches.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Senate rejects bonus Social Security payments
Senate rejects bonus Social Security payments
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate has rejected President Barack Obama's proposal to give a $250 bonus payment to people on Social Security.
The proposal failed by a 50-47 vote in which Republicans and Democratic budget hawks opposed the idea for adding $14 billion to the budget deficit. Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said the $250 payment was needed to make up for the lack of a cost-of-living adjustment this year for beneficiaries. Disabled people and veterans also would have been eligible for the payments.
Seniors received an identical $250 bonus last year as part of the economic stimulus bill.
But economists say the payments don't do much to boost the economy since many seniors simply save the money rather than spend it.
Jane's Addiction member quits after Australia tour
Jane's Addiction member quits after Australia tour LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The bass player with Jane's Addiction has quit the band, and will reportedly be replaced by former Guns N' Roses rocker Duff McKagan.
Eric Avery, 44, announced his departure through a Twitter message on Monday, hours after the band completed a seven-date Australian tour in Perth
"That's it," he wrote. "With equal parts regret and relief, the Jane's Addiction experiment is at an end."
Guitarist Dave Navarro confirmed Avery's departure on Tuesday, saying on Twitter "We wish him all the best!"
Singer Perry Farrell also took to Twitter on Tuesday, offering a more-cryptic perspective: "Slipping out of that shell of a past. Gripping; wow we're onto something faster now. And so worth the wait. It's the Art Of Great Escape."
McKagan, 46, will join Jane's Addiction in the studio as it attempts to record the follow-up to its 2003 album "Strays," according to various unconfirmed reports. Avery had previously indicated he was not writing songs for the album.
Spokeswomen for McKagan and Avery did not immediately respond to emails seeking more information. McKagan's post-Guns N' Roses band, Velvet Revolver, has been on hiatus since a messy split with singer Scott Weiland in 2008.
Jane's Addiction emerged from the Los Angeles rock underground in the 1980s, distinguishing itself from other post-punk groups with Farrell's sexually ambiguous stagecraft and the musicians' deft ear for melodic tunes. They recorded just three albums and scored radio play with such songs as "Been Caught Stealing" and "Jane Says."
But drug-fueled friction led to the band's demise and the original lineup played its last gig in Hawaii in 1991. The band reunited in 1997 with Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea coming aboard as the first of several substitutes for Avery.
Avery eventually rejoined the band in 2008, when it played its first shows since a 2003 tour was cut short by a flare-up of internal tensions. The band toured with Nine Inch Nails last year.
(Reporting by Dean Goodman)
Eric Avery, 44, announced his departure through a Twitter message on Monday, hours after the band completed a seven-date Australian tour in Perth
"That's it," he wrote. "With equal parts regret and relief, the Jane's Addiction experiment is at an end."
Guitarist Dave Navarro confirmed Avery's departure on Tuesday, saying on Twitter "We wish him all the best!"
Singer Perry Farrell also took to Twitter on Tuesday, offering a more-cryptic perspective: "Slipping out of that shell of a past. Gripping; wow we're onto something faster now. And so worth the wait. It's the Art Of Great Escape."
McKagan, 46, will join Jane's Addiction in the studio as it attempts to record the follow-up to its 2003 album "Strays," according to various unconfirmed reports. Avery had previously indicated he was not writing songs for the album.
Spokeswomen for McKagan and Avery did not immediately respond to emails seeking more information. McKagan's post-Guns N' Roses band, Velvet Revolver, has been on hiatus since a messy split with singer Scott Weiland in 2008.
Jane's Addiction emerged from the Los Angeles rock underground in the 1980s, distinguishing itself from other post-punk groups with Farrell's sexually ambiguous stagecraft and the musicians' deft ear for melodic tunes. They recorded just three albums and scored radio play with such songs as "Been Caught Stealing" and "Jane Says."
But drug-fueled friction led to the band's demise and the original lineup played its last gig in Hawaii in 1991. The band reunited in 1997 with Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea coming aboard as the first of several substitutes for Avery.
Avery eventually rejoined the band in 2008, when it played its first shows since a 2003 tour was cut short by a flare-up of internal tensions. The band toured with Nine Inch Nails last year.
(Reporting by Dean Goodman)
Supreme Court clarifies basis for why copyright suits over unregistered works should be dismissed
Supreme Court clarifies basis for why copyright suits over unregistered works should be dismissed
March 3, 2010 | by Evan Brown | Share on Facebook
Reed Elsevier v. Muchnick, Slip. Op., 559 U.S. ___ (March 2, 2010) [View opinion here]
“Subject matter jurisdiction” refers to a court’s power to hear the matter before it. The Constitution sets out the general contours for the federal courts’ jurisdiction, and Congress enacts statutes that give more detail to this set of powers. Particular statutes can define whether the federal courts have subject matter jurisdiction over certain types of cases. For example, Congress has declared that the federal courts have exclusive jurisdiction over copyright cases (See 28 U.S.C. 1338).
If a court does not have subject matter jurisdiction over the type of matter before it, it has no power to adjudicate the case. So the question of whether subject matter jurisdiction exists is critical.
The Supreme Court just decided a case that deals with the scope of subject matter jurisdiction in copyright cases, and clarifies a notion that has been the subject of some uncertainty. The question the court decided was whether a federal court has subject matter jurisdiction over a copyright case when a work at issue is not the subject of a copyright registration.
Section 411(a) of the Copyright Act (at 17 U.S.C. 411(a)) provides, among other things, that “no civil action for infringement of the copyright in any United States work shall be instituted until . . . registration of the copyright claim has been made in accordance with this title.”
Some courts have held, and many litigants have argued, that this provision of Section 411 is a “jurisdictional prerequisite.” Said another way, some have argued that if the copyright plaintiff files suit without having secured a registration, the court is without subject matter jurisdiction over the case. In the case of Reed Elsevier, Inc. v. Muchnick, however, the Supreme Court held that Section 411 does not deprive the court of subject matter jurisdiction, but instead merely provides a “claim-processing rule,” akin to an element of the case.
The lower court proceedings
A group of freelance writers filed a class action copyright infringement case in federal court in New York. They settled the case and the judge approved the settlement. Some of the plaintiffs objected to the settlement on procedural grounds, and when the court entered final judgment, those objecting plaintiffs appealed to the Second Circuit. On its own motion, the Second Circuit raised the question of whether it had subject matter jurisdiction over the case, as some of the plaintiffs in the class had unregistered works.
The case took on a peculiar procedural aspect — neither side in the dispute argued that the federal court was without subject matter jurisdiction, but the Second Circuit decided anyway that it did not. (After all, subject matter jurisdiction pertains to the power of the court, not the rights of the parties, so parties cannot waive the absence of subject matter jurisdiction.) Concluding that it didn’t have jurisdiction, the Second Circuit reversed the approval of the settlement.
The defendants in the underlying case sought review with the Supreme Court, and the high court took on the case. It reversed the Second Circuit, holding that the court did indeed have jurisdiction, even though some of the plaintiffs’ copyrights at issue were unregistered.
The court’s holding
It is worth noting that this case does not address the bothersome question of whether Section 411 requires that a copyright plaintiff actually have a registration certificate in hand before filing the complaint, or whether he or she simply needs to have the application on file. The case also does not stand for the proposition that one can pursue copyright infringement litigation without having registered his or her copyright. A plaintiff without a registration will still lose, just for different reasons.
Justice Thomas wrote the majority opinion. He began the analysis by noting the court’s recent efforts to curtail “drive-by jurisdictional rulings,” which can “miss the critical differences between true jurisdictional conditions and nonjurisdictional limitations on causes of action.” It was with this eye toward careful analysis that the court looked to the present question.
The court reviewed the general approach it set out in the case of Arbaugh v. Y&H Corp., 546 U.S. 500 (2006) for distinguishing jurisdictional conditions from claim-processing requirements or elements of a claim, stating in part that “when Congress does not rank a statutory limitation on coverage as jurisdictional, courts should treat the restriction as nonjurisdictional in character.” Said another way, if a statute somehow limits the way a case can be brought before federal court but doesn’t come out and say that it’s a limitation on subject matter jurisdiction, it should not be read as limiting jurisdiction. In this way, the court’s approach is to broaden federal jurisdiction.
In this case, the court found that Section 411(a) did not “clearly state” that the registration requirement is jurisdictional. Moreover, the section of federal law that provides for federal court jurisdiction in general (28 U.S.C. 1331) and federal jurisdiction over copyright claims (28 U.S.C. 1338) says nothing about a requirement that there be a registration before the court has subject matter jurisdiction. Furthermore, Section 411 provides on its face certain exceptions for the registration requirement (e.g., no registration is required for non-United States works). The court observed that “it would be at least unusual to ascribe jurisdictional signifcance to a condition subject to these sorts of exceptions.”
What does it mean?
The case actually addresses a rather nuanced point of copyright law. And the effect of the holding will not change the end results of cases brought in the future with the same facts — after all, a non-registering plaintiff will still lose either way, now just for a different reason. Motions to dismiss copyright complaints alleging infringement of unregistered works will clearly fall under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) (failure to state a claim) and not 12(b)(1) (lack of jurisdiction).
But the question of a federal court’s jurisdiction is of significant import, regardless of how nuanced the question is, or the lack of difference in practical effect. The question of whether a court should dismiss a case because it doesn’t have the power to hear it, as compared to dismissing it because the plaintiff has not jumped through the appropriate hoops, is an important one.
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