Spitzer Takes On Record Industry Payola

flackrum writes "NY Attorney General Spitzer has served subpoenas to four major record labels (UMG, BMG, EMI, WMG) in a continued house-cleaning of corporations employing dirty-tricks. In this particular group of cases, investigations are focusing on the circumvention of the Federal Payola Law, which forbids bribing radio broadcasters in return for airing specific songs. Mmm sweet karma."

Comments

Re:Good Idea

[!ucif3r]

I have to agree with that. I didn't actually know there was a law against this (and for all I know there isn't where I live in Canada) but I noticed this happening about 2 or 3 years ago in Canada.

Radio stations I used to like to listen to were playing top 40 hits non-stop during the day, and often two stations would be playing exactly the same song at the same time. I said to myself, that isn't music it's advertising space.

In Canada there was a backlash against it by a number of top DJ's who got sick of playing this crap and the left to join a group of radio stations that were formed across the country (by a big corporation mind you) that lets them play whatever the hell they want. It ain't always in my taste but I guaruntee no one paid to get Whitesnake or Genisis played ;-).

Hopefully this means the Rock/Classic Rock stations I was listening to can stop playing top 40 music.

Re:Disclosure

[squiggleslash]

My understanding is that it is legal with full disclosure. Indeed, a story in the past on /. covered the fact that record companies were planning to "get around" the payola laws by booking three minute advertising segments and playing the song during them. Except they weren't really "getting around" anything, the entire point of the payola laws were that record companies were playing three minute adverts without it being clear that this was what they were (and without them being counted in the advertising vs content figures.)

What you're asking is for payola to be legalized if it isn't actually payola ;-)

Re:At least it is a step up

[Almost-Retired]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again... people put WAY too much weight on the power of the presidency. In candidate ads, news articles, /. posts, and conversations, I hear/read of all these magical powers that just don't exist.

Ahh, but you missed the most obvious way to put the lie to that statement. I give you the DOJ v M$ as a case in point. IIRC the judge who was supposed to rule, and we all expected the ruling to be against M$ from the public statements made (a definite no-no according to some), was replaced by a GWB puppet, with the expected results, business as usual for M$.

So yes, the President can find a way, and the more circuituous that path back to him, the better its swept away, drowned out by the other public noises.

Cheers, Gene

Re:Because without the loophole

[Kwil]

Ooo.. lookie.. the cumulative number of people listening to radio increases over the years.

Ooo.. lookie.. the cumulative number of people born increases over the years.

Congratulations, you've just managed to find a (very poor) measure of population growth.

Every stat except the cumulative shows a downward trend. This includes the TSL (which I assume stands for Total Seconds Listened). More people, listening less. That certainly says something about the quality of radio, doesn't it?