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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."
But government's meddling in what businesses can pay to each other seems wrong to me.
That said, Spitzer is right enforcing the law -- the practice of having stupid laws on the books without enforcing them for years is even more worrysome -- it simply leaves the door open for selective enforcement in the future.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Radio stations would have to play what people wanted to hear.
If guns kill people, then CmdrTaco's keyboard misspells words.
This is good news.. these laws have long been ignored and in the age of consolidated mega media, "pay for play" is just part of the SOP.
They should enforce the law or remove it from the books. But if big media can't get the radio play they want, it really makes it hard for them to produce mega hits "on demand."
http://www.hawknest.com/
If bush wins the election, you will see this case quietly vanish into the ether..
if kerry wins the election... oh wait...
Online backup with Mozy, sounds like Ozzie, but more!
I mean, how a mere official dare confront the biggest in the mind-shaping industry???
Expect Orin Hatch to soon introduce legislation to legalize payola...
Just what the hell is wrong with that? That is his freakin job. You think people should not be paid for work?
Music is not a manufactured commodity. It doesn't have feature sets, like computer software. Taste in music is subjective.
Aren't you in the least bit frustrated to tune through the FM dial and find the same artists on 3/4 of the stations?
Do you really believe that the reason independent artists are never played on the radio is that none of them are as good as commercial artists? The reason they get no airplay is because they can't afford to stuff the pockets of radio programmers. This system keeps the big labels happy, because they essentially own the FM radio band, and they use it as one big commercial for all their latest crappy music.
Think about it, who benefits from payola, the bribers or the bribees (don't know if that is a real word, but lets pretend it is)? The record labels are forced to pay just to get their music on the air, while radio stations get to cash in on the label's desperation. Pretty much any competent record company exec would prefer to get that promotion for free, and in fact that have written complaints over the practice in the past (just the people who would normally be on their side in such a case are convinced in their close minded world that everything a record company does must be evil).
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
I don't know if attorney general is an elected position, but that doesn't matter. We need to send the message to people in our government that the more they do stuff like this the more likely they are to get our vote. The two presidential candidates have not even said a word about taking out evil corporations. And the third party candidates might say something about it, but have no track record of actually doing so. I want the people who represent me to know that if they do things that hurt record companies, the MPAA, media companies, etc. That I will proudly vote for them regardless of political affiliation.
Did you hear that?
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
That dude is a libertarian. He thinks the marketplace belongs to the people with the most capital, and worthless consumers should enjoy their shit sandwiches at 300% markup.
You tell me that some of these news stories aren't bought and paid for? And these news stories are driving our politics and our society in general, so that is much more important than what songs are playing.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
... of a business model becoming extinct. People can make their own radio stations now from online jukeboxes. If they really like it, they can pay for it and take it with them, so the distribution method is also going the way of the dinosaur.
How about we re-regulate radio? I'm tired of 10 song play lists being recycled 24 hours a day. God damn clear channel.
What you are saying, is legal. The Payola allows actually allows for Pay for Play IF and ONLY IF they say something like, "Mega corp has paid us to play this song for you..."
The issue is, esp., when DJ's used to pick the songs they played, that the public would believe it was picked because they liked it... not because of payola.
http://www.hawknest.com/
I second that. I appriciate a good toilet joke but those people were really being abused (financially). If you've ever been in contact with one of them they are incredibly nice and it very uncomfotable to think they were being treated so badly. Kudos to Spitzer for taking on the big cases as well as the small. Spitzer may have political aspirations but he seems to be fighting the good fight in the meantime.
meep
Spitzer's an effective Attorney General who, politically, has realized that the best way to get a favorable opinion of himself is to do his job.
This doesn't work for every position -- most governors and the President, of course, have to mix so many different sides with no clear winner that they inevitably have to spend at least some time politicking.
OTOH, being honest, doing your job, and erring on the side of the little guy is a good enough forumla to win popular acclaim.
We need to stop talking about free markets in markets that the government inherently regulates or influences from the get go.
These include:
1. radio and tv broadcasts - no possibility of free markets here as the government licences "public" spectrum to the entities in the first place. and afaik the government will police your spectrum for you. so to talk about a free market here we would first have to let anyone who wanted broadcast on any frequency he wanted. if we do this, perhaps it will be ok to talk about a free market in this area.
2. any copyrighted work - how can you have a free market in a good that is by its very nature a government granted monopoly?
3. any patented work - see reasoning for item 2.
4. perhaps any regulated and/or licenced profession? perhaps only some of them? thoughts please.
A Nony Mouse
Drug advertising contributes to the cost of the medication, on the order of 10%. Ironically, the 'bribery' has gone down as the TV advertising has gone up. This is OT, I know, but I think the drug advertising on TV is ridiculous. Really, they should be allowed to talk about a disease rather than the drug that treats the disease. After all, if they say, for example, 'Talk to your doc about cholesterol' they will still sell more cholesterol lowering drugs.
If the market was truely libertarian, then demand would cause new ventures to popup to undercut the markup thus putting the overpriced ones out of business.
It's a myth that an unregulated market is good for the small guy trying to break in. The reason this is not the case is the concept of scale effects. When you sell 100 items of a product your fixed costs per product are a lot higher than when you sell 100.000 items, and your variable costs tend to be higher as well (due to the inefficiencies of low volume production). Because your cost per product as a small guy is higher, it is hard to compete against the bigger businesses, who can maintain lower prices and still be profitable. Over time, this effect causes the market to merge in a number of big behemoths (the larger you are the more profit you make per product), and once you reach that point usually they will form cartels, where they use various kinds of underhanded tactics, like predatory pricing, coupled sales, government bribing and so on to keep out new market entrants and maintain higher prices than market forces would dictate. Examples of this are the music industry (the big five), microsoft's windows and office empire, the telecom industry on the local level, and on and on.
Cartels or monopolies have been demonstrated to tend towards having low market efficiency, due to the profit maximalization imperative and their ability to maintain non-market-optimal pricing models at greater profit to the business.
The only way to avoid this is to limit the ability of market players to form cartels or monopolies, and then abuse their power. Retroactively, that means antitrust law. So antitrust is a necessary part of maintaining a healthy free market. Proactively it means making sure that new market players can enter without high entrance costs (like allowing small telecom companies to use existing networks for a fair price, so they don't have to build up their own network at extreme cost), so raising prices by the big players would cause new players to enter at lower price points.
So, in conclusion, to have a truly free market (meaning with near non-existant barrier to entry), you must regulate it so no market player can become too powerful. A correctly regulated market is a healthy market, an unregulated market is a diseased or soon-to-be-diseased market.
Ofcourse, big business has been very successful at spreading the meme that market regulation is bad for the market. The reality is that it's good for the market (if done correctly), but it's bad for the behemoth.
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. Bush should do something about X, Kerry will make the paralized walk. The president has power but there are other people in our government.
Worried about the draft, pork spending, over/under litigation? Want more/less spending on aids, stem cells, drugs then? Talk to congress. They write and pass bills. The prez can veto but congress can battle that. If the current music business model is not working, then your congress-person should be pestered. If they thought stem cells are the cure and private funding isn't getting it done then there would be 100% backing in congress to ram a bill into Bush's lap.
Republican or Democrat, the president is not a Mystykyl Majical being that can cure every problem in the country.
Now, if you subscribe to this mentality, the law falls into place nicely. Since the radio stations are there for the public benefit, it is up to the public (by way of representatives and laws) to determine how they should conduct business. Also, since there's supposed to be a division between content and advertising, and I think we can all agree that that division is in the public's best interest, codifying that division can only support the public's best interest.
Again... this all makes sense if you agree with the original mindset in which the law was written. To sum it up, here's the basic logic (since that last paragraph was poorly written and hard to follow):
- Radio stations are allowed to broadcast by the government (acting as representatives of the people) for the public benefit.
- Radio stations have "content" (music, talk shows, etc
... ) and "advertising" (pre-recorded ads, endorsements, contests, etc ... ). Keeping these separate allows to strengthen the public discourse while providing the radio station enough money to operate profitably.
- By allowing companies and industry groups (like RIAA) to "pay for play" in the content section, the "public discourse" is taken away from the public and given wholly to the industry. As representatives of the public, the government should try to stop this.
- Furthermore, by having a "pay for play" policy, recording companies with less money are unable to get their songs heard and can never compete with the larger labels. This creates a oligopoly (like monopoly, but instead the market is cornered by a "group" of companies), which is against the competition model of our society's capitalist system.
Agree or not, hopefully that will make the intention of the law clearer. I thoroughly understand your viewpoint, though, and I agree that dictating what a company can or can not do is a little risky, but only if you're a laissez-faire Republican (one who believes government should be reduced in size, and take a less-active role in day-to-day life... i.e. a classical conservative). The fact of the matter is that industry is subject to regulation all the time, usually in a way that supports the public good (i.e. environmental laws, zoning laws, bribery laws, accounting laws, etc-=-=-=-=-=
I'd rather be flamed than ignored.
Why?
Didn't kerry vote for most of the laws that allow ashcroft to do what you do not like?
Citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan excepted.
Satelite is an oddly regulated business as they should be a closed network but the broadcasters are a powerful enough lobby they have probably done some monkeying with their status. My understanding of the theory behind regulation is that spectrum was seen as a scarce public good which is granted by the government to certain businesses and as a result you aren't supposed to offend people with something you broadcast over the spectrum. However if you set up a closed network you can broadcast anything you want (as anyone recieving the signal got it especially to recieve that signal) which is why CBS got fined for showing a boob, but Skinimax can do it every day if they want and MTV could show the Smack my Bitch Up video. I think satellite is considered to be closed (because it is encrypted) but the payola rules might be propogated by another legal theory (not public ownership of the airwaves).
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
Personally, I find bathroom attendants to be remarkably creepy. Taking a crap should be a personal experience and they are an intrusion. Nevermind tipping them, I don't even want to see them.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
You don't prove your point at all. Economies of scale occur whether or not the market is regulated. A better argument would be to note that regulation can reduce barriers to entry just as they can raise barriers to entry.
But try this exercise. Name a regulation that doesn't exaggerate the effects of economy of scale or increase barriers to entry. You can find them, but not easily.
I disagree. Going after individuals/corporations/entities that violate the laws as defined by the legislature is exactly what he was elected to do. Unfortunately, some of the laws do not make sense and for those we should criticize the assembly. A judge couldn't decide that we should have software patents, but he could decide that existing patent laws apply to software. The legislature makes the laws, the judiciaries just make sure they are upheld (hopefully correctly).
I understand what you're saying about subjectivity. But you're acting like it's an absolute; that all bands are equally good since objective measurement is difficult or irrational. But that's not true. Subjective quality is not uniformly.
You might have a real point if airplay correlated with album sales. But there are glaring exceptions. Look at Radiohead. Look at Steely Dan. Look at the Grateful Dead or Phish. There are lots of bands who aren't on the radio, yet have huge album sales. The issue is not radio reflecting the taste of phillistines; it's radio reflecting its own corporate ambitions, and intentionally shaping the preferences of the casual listener.
As a person's devotion to music increases -- i.e., more time is paid to the hobby -- the overwhelming majority turns away from what's on the radio. They may turn to obscure country, or blues, or indie rock, or jazz -- whatever. But very few people who spend a lot of time listening to and reading about music find their love of Britney Spears' artistry deepening.
Is this just en-masse elitism? I'm sure to some extent it is. But I find it hard to believe that solo artists locked into multi-album deals -- the kind of artists that are most profitable to the record companies -- are the "naturally best" solution to serving casual listeners (at least from the listeners' perspective).
You're right that the subjectivity of art means we can argue forever about what ought to be on the radio, but one thing should be clear: whatever it is, it isn't what's on the radio now.
I feel rather uncomfortable knowing your wife was a dancer. It just seems too personal for me.
Anyhow, yes, it is unfortunate to give 10% to some guy to play CDs and 10% to the house, but as the other reply states, they are saving her from formal taxing.
I used to make $6/hr (min wage was $6.85) under the table at a gas station. No tax. It was hush hush.
If it were not for the hush hush I would have had to pay incometax, EI, CPP and then I would have a lot less $$ for school.
There is a huge trade-off in the services industry. Sure, you get paid a portion under the table (tips and what-not) but you have no legal backing. If the company wants to toss you out on your butt, they can.
As for the laws about distance to patrons, well that is actually to protect people. Protect the girls from assault, protect the patrons from assault from the bouncer, etc... The bouncers in Canada will bounce you off everything in the bar if you lay a hand on the girl. They don't touch in Ontario (some places they do, but it is their own choice - IE Quebec) but they come VERY close. It boils down to respect. Respect the rules and enjoy the entertainment.
Some states view respect as law enforcement required. There's not much you can do about it. The Tim Horton's equivalent (Dunkin' Donuts or whatever) does not pay anything like a peeler bar, so you take the good with the bad.
You don't prove your point at all. Economies of scale occur whether or not the market is regulated. A better argument would be to note that regulation can reduce barriers to entry just as they can raise barriers to entry.
Economies of scale are the explanation of why a totally unregulated market over time turns into a few large behemoths, unless the product doesn't afford barriers to entry or economies of scale (very few products are like that). I think I made that point, you may want to refute it.
But try this exercise. Name a regulation that doesn't exaggerate the effects of economy of scale or increase barriers to entry. You can find them, but not easily.
You can find anecdotal evidence to bolster any argument, I could easily come back and cite countless examples of just such regulation, but it wouldn't support my case. My case is that an unregulated market is inherently a sick market because it will grow steadily more inefficient. Regulation is the fix for this problem, not the cause, even though regulation, if done poorly (most often the case), can increase market inefficiency even more than monopolization will.
So, yes, you're right that regulation can be very bad for the market. I'm not arguing that it's not. I'm arguing that you need regulation to keep a free market free.
How about this exercise: take a look at markets in zones of lawlessness, like warzones, and see how efficiently they function, how "healthy" they are.
If you're talking about a commercial radio station which has a chance of actually giving you a return on your investment, then you're going to need at least a million for:
Engineering studies
Transmitter
A building from which to operate
A position on someone's tower, unless you want to build your own site
A plethora of fairly expensive equipment, including on-air and production studio consoles, some sort of digital audio playback system, CD players, audio processing gear, an STL link to get the signal from the studio to the tower, broadcast quality microphones, a number of personal computers and all the software that goes with them, a network and a few hundred other pieces of gear -- descriptions of which I can't think at the moment
Salaries for airstaff, newspeople, programming staff, producer(s), traffic department staff, creative department staff and sales staff
Various licensing fees
Subscriptions to record labels so that they'll send music to you
A promotion budget large enough to enable you to compete with the other stations in your market
You'll also have to spend a significant amount of money preparing a good case to the regulating authorities regarding exactly why they should give a license to YOU and not one of the other applicants.
Oh, and this is all based on Canuck Bucks. Adjust accordingly for US based operations.