Absolutely. Why do artists even bother going through ASCAP anymore?
...and they say they're trying to bring in fairness here?
Translation: NMPA wants a 60% increase in what their paid because delivery costs to the consumer are less than the costs of the guys they dealt with in the days of vinyl, never mind that the old business models are totally broken and can no longer be extrapolated from or counted upon, while the alphabet representatives eat up ever-greater expenses per transaction feeding customer-litigation.
Such nonsense!
I'm a quasi-amateur performance artist, but I pay royalties and fees to the copyright holders and arrangers of the music I perform in public. My understanding is that's necessary to be legal, and I'll do what's necessary in that case.
I'm happy to see creative talent be compensated.
I'm lots less happy to see middlemen/aggregators/lawyered-up promoter, Don King-types take a lion's share of the money that goes through the pipeline, both in terms of building kingdoms through expenses, then more via profits--artificially jacking up expenses, to lessen the profit pool to distribute to the creative talent while the actual middleman workload diminishes per sale. Oh, except for all the litigation certain non-creative rightsholders foist upon consumers.
I don't really know, but I'm guessing strongly that financial gains through litigation never reach the calculation, come time to pay the artists.
HF