AFM
Session Musicians Win Greenlight for $8M Royalty Fee Settlement With AFM, SAG-AFTRA
The lawsuit, filed by musician Kevin Risto in June 2018, accused AFM and SAG-AFTRA of essentially taking an illegal cut from the recording royalties that are paid to so-called non-featured artists — better known as session musicians. The two unions administer the Intellectual Property Rights Distribution Fund, which holds performance royalties from non-interactive digital streaming services like Pandora for the use of copyrighted sound recordings. The fund then distributes that money to session musicians, both union and non-union alike. Risto, a non-union musician, accused AFM and SAG-AFTRA of exploiting their control over the fund to improperly tack on a new 3% service fee, paid directly to the unions, before distributing that money. The lawsuit said the new fee was not in the best ...
