I received a letter from Pump Audio, which is owned by Getty Images, the other day announcing that they were changing their royalty structure. The letter read as follows:

• 1) Licensing fees will now be 35% to the artist, 65% to Pump Audio/Getty Images
• 2) This change will take place as of July 1, 2009. Any royalties payable through June 30, 2009 will not be affected by this change
• 3) Performance royalty splits will remain at 50% of the publisher’s share
• 4) Those that don’t accept the new split will have their music removed from the system no later than December 31, 2009.
• 5) The rights you granted to us in the original contract do not change

As you can see Pump Audio / Getty Images now deem their services worth 65% of licensing fees for their artists work, and if we as pump artists don’t like it our music will be removed from their catalog.

I understand that Pump Audio / Getty Images does provide infrastructure and sales support to it’s artists, but without us they wouldn’t have anything to sell. Traditional relationships of this kind have been 50/50, and this was the case with Pump Audio / Getty Images before the recent change.

The greed Pump Audio / Getty Images is displaying by strong arming their artist out of 15% is what all stock contributers may have to look forward to in the future unless artists refuse to conform to their demands.

If you have a story or opinion you would like to share about Pump Audio / Getty Images, please go to the “your thoughts” button at the top of the page, send me your message, and I will post it here.

Also if anyone is looking for an alternative venue www.rumblefish.com has been good to me so far.