Todays post is about laziness … and how it does damage to people that did work that some of us make their money with. DJs that play only their own stuff can stop reading here.
The following stuff is based on laws in Austria. Most countries have their own societies for that and the details in the process may vary but the concept stays the same.
In Austria we have a very controversial insitution: the AKM. It is the copyright collecting society for musicians an composers. This means whenever a piece of music is played in a commercial context, the AKM takes care of giving some money to the people who created that music.
That’s great, right? Yep but a lot of DJs don’t care about doing their part in giving the people their money. Because the AKM gets money from the promoters. Either with a yearly fee or on a per event plan. The money goes to the artists of the music that was played during the event. But the AKM needs to know which music was played. And it is your responsibility as the one who plays the music to send your setlist there. If you don’t do this the fee that is payed by the promoter is distributed via a distribution key that favors mainstream artist and well known composers.
Damn, that means by not handing in the list of your set, you give money to the people that are aired on mainstream radiostations instead of the people that made the awesome sound you are playing. Shame!