Pump Audio Music Licensing Controversy

I’ve obviously been quite occupied with things unrelated to this blog for the past several months, but I’ve been impressed by the passionate responses here to Pump Audio’s decision to change the terms of their licensing split from 50/50 to 65/35 in their favor. The post I wrote (holy sh*t!) exactly a year ago today Pump Audio’s Re-Titling of Songs for Publishing and Pump Audio Reduces Artist Licensing Payments from back in May are still getting pretty frequent comments from musicians pissed off by Pump Audio’s unilateral action to reduce artist payments.

I’m also delighted(!) to see that we have the third-ranking site in Google’s organic results for Pump Audio. I LOVE that someone new to music licensing that is searching for info on Pump is going to see this headline on their first Google search “Pump Audio Reduces Artist Licensing Payments”. Those of you inclined to lean against the powers that be can continue to help the indie musician cause by linking to these articles.

I too received their announcement about the licensing agreement change, and so I’ve decided to just let my agreement lapse at the end of the year, which I think is what happens if you don’t sign and submit the new contract. I can’t claim to have done much business with them. In fact, I’m not sure they’ve licensed any of it…

This is clearly an issue affecting a lot of musicians out there, and we depend on every little income source we can find these days. Best of luck to those of you that are going the music licensing route! And good luck to all of you fighting the good fight…