1/21/2010

Today I'm thinking about what Keith Urban said during his acceptance speech at The People's Choice Awards, "I don't even care if you guys download my music illegally. I really don't care." Keith was just happy people were hearing his music. 

CMT Insider recently asked Toby Keith about his comments and Toby made it clear that he disagrees with Keith Urban. He said that songwriters need to be able to protect their copyrights and offers this example: "So, you come to this town and you write. For 20 years, you work at Spaghetti Warehouse and you bus tables, and all of the sudden you're 38 years old, and you've been here 18 years, and a all the sudden you write a song and Keith Urban goes and records it. And it's a smash. You get paid on that. If everybody downloads it for free, you don't get paid on that. So all you become is unpaid."

Toby adds, "You've offered a treasure, a piece of history to the public and they're using it to dill their dancehalls and fill their dance floors and listen to the music in their car. Put it on their iPods and all that. And if it is all for free, this guy is still at Spaghetti Warehouse. He gets nothing for it. Keith Urban gets paid. They guy at the bar that plays his music to pack the dance floor gets paid. So artists get paid because they go to work and sell the t-shirts, but the songwriter won't get paid. That's the guy you have to protect."

Personal side note: Radio stations pay rights for songs to the songwriter. The bill that government will keep trying to pass will require radio stations to also pay the performer. That will put radio stations out of business and the songwriters will lose out on that income too. 

Your keyword is "download" 250 points.