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Sony Agrees to Stop Payola
dsginter writes "Sony BMG Music just reached agreement with New York Attorney General. Sony spokesman John McKay admitted that the practice was 'wrong and improper' but the company engaged in the activity anyway. They were fined $10 million and have agreed to obstain from the practice in the future. Is this the first step toward getting our airwaves back or is this just a slap on the wrist?"
The Recording Industry Association of America will never stop something as profitable as payola without the threat of jail. Period.
I'm probably at the karma cap. Mod up a funny troll instead, it lightens the mood
It's "abstain".
They'll just use junior management as scapegoats and have them go, or just continue their practices from jail.
That's probably a single-digit percentage of what they made the first few weeks of payola. Wait a minute, didn't they promise to stop with this a long time ago? You mean they lied and continued to do it anyway? But okay, a little slap on the wrist and another promise. I guess all is well then.
Sheeeeeesh.
They were fined $10 million and have agreed to obstain from the practice in the future. Is this the first step toward getting our airwaves back or is this just a slap on the wrist?"
With music industry profits of billions each year, I'm sure they made much more than $10m from doing so. They'll carry on with the payola until it stops being profitable for them to do it.
Don't forget it's not just direct profits that payola causes. Payola is a large factor in preventing independent musicians from getting adequate airplay, so it actually supresses the competition and reinforces the RIAA cartel's position. That alone has to be worth way more than $10m.
A Salon feature from earlier this year offers some more information on the practice, and a tentative answer to the question posed in this summary:
"...radio playlists are unlikely to improve anytime soon. While [promoters] are often seen as dubious, they did have a knack for getting new acts their break on FM radio...station programmers may soon become even less adventurous in choosing which songs get tapped for rotation on FM stations' heavily guarded playlists.
The indie promotion fallout could be especially tough on smaller, independently owned record labels...The short-term effect is not good for independent music."
Spitzer said Sony BMG's efforts to win more airplay took many forms, including outright bribes of cash and electronics to radio stations and paying for contest giveaways for listeners. In other cases, he said, Sony BMG used middlemen known as independent promoters to funnel cash to radio stations.
So if a regular Joe spreads the word about a new song and induces many thousands of random people listen to it for free it's theft, but if a radio DJ does the exact same thing he gets paid? Riiight.
Maybe Sony should just have those "independent promoters" run eDonkey clients instead. It'd be much cheaper.
Money for nothing, pix for free
It's a good gesture to try to stop the corrupt radio business, but it will have very little effect. The corruption runs rampant, from low level DJ's to nationally syndicated shows, however unfortunately most is unknown.
The bottom line is that having steady radio play is the key to selling albums, and when the the vast fortune of the music industry is at stake, dishonesty is inevitable. A VERY high percentage of Americans discover new music by hearing it on the radio, and a small fine (10 million? Ensuring that their arists get radio play has got to be worth at least 10x that) will do little to discourage the big labels.
One of the managers of a local station admitted on the air to playing a crappy song because they got payola for it. The (very popular) DJ/host complained that the song sucked, the GM said "We have to play it because we get paid, and I'm happy to do it." or some words to that effect.
And, daily they have listeners call in to say, on the air, "Bob's an asshole!" Bob is the manager.
Makes me wonder how much they paid the Attorney General to keep the fine that low.
Beep beep.
Wow, a whole 10 million dollars, huh? I'm sure that'll teach them. Oh, and I'm sure this only applies to radio stations in NY, right? (off to RTFA now)
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
Payola, while unpleasant, is nothing to people who are carefully creating radio to only be sports, 80s hits and right wing shock jocks.
But, fortunately, there is satelite with some variety but above all else the internet.
Australian radio, in contrast to US radio, is vibrant, brilliant and is a good industrial subsidy for the Australian music industry (ever wonder where INXS, Midnight Oil and many others got their start?).
If you want to check it out over the net check out JJJ, RRR, 3PBS and enjoy some streaming quality alternative interesting radio for a change.
..some music is so poor, yet so successful. Take, just off the top of my head, a Madonna track that was released for the Bond movie "Die Another Day". It was A list on the radio and got played at least once every 3 hours, and it was utterly appalling. Like, so bad I couldn't understand why anyone would listen to it, never mind buy it.
I mean, music criticism is difficult because someone somewhere is going to see something in a track you might detest, but I'm pretty confident that 99% of the people who heard that track would think it was rubbish. But still it got on air, a lot.
DJ's these days are totally shackled by the system, I think they have very little freedom on large stations to play music they actually like. It used to be that an "Indie" DJ played music they liked, and if they were actually a good DJ with discerning taste and access to a lot of new stuff, it was like a filtering process to find stuff old and new you would like. But listen to any commercial station and the music is essentially interchangeable, at least here in the UK.
Anyway, talking of music that's overhyped and overpromoted, just read "most of modern R'n'B". The genre, with too few exceptions, requires little to no talent compared to too much arrogance and attitude. Recipe for success: a few hooks, some mediocre rapping and an effects/whore-heavy video. If it wasn't pushed so much, it wouldn't be popular.
Meine Schwester ist sehr, sehr reizvoll - Nietzsche
Here's the wikipedia link for those (like me) who didn't know what payola was.
Btw, it redirects to bribery.
"When a ball dreams, it dreams it's a frisbee"
Individual likes music. Buys music. Distributes it to friends and family. Gets caught by the RIAA and gets slapped with a criminal record.
Record company hates music, loves advertisments. Gets given music. Gives it away for free over an unencrypted medium to anyone who cares to listen. Gets given a huge 'bribe' by record company to keep doing this and the record company is a criminal.
I know this is an over simplification, but this really is nuts.
Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
Courtesy of dictionary.com :
No entry found for obstain.
Did you mean abstain?
Suggestions:
abstain
obtain
obsidian
Bestain
abstains
abstainer
Ostein
ostein
Boston
Isatin
isatin
Obsign
Obstancy
obtainer
oil stain
ousting
Obstringe
abstained
No entry was found in the dictionary. Would you like to search the Web for obstain?
Wow.. so Michael Jackson was actually right when he accused Sony of this back in 2002?
These are the same people who are leading the front (through their sock-puppets, the RIAA) to have music swappers incarcerated.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Why the hell shouldn't sony be allowed to pay for their music to be advertised?!
Advertising is how the radio makes all of its money; surely payola is one of the least unpleasent methods from the listener POV, you'd be stupid to want the practice to stop.
And of course, if you really don't like the mainstream/sellout stations, just stop listening to them.
Why exactly should this be illegal?
If a DJ accepts a direct payment when his employment contract forbids it, that's breach of contract.
If a radio station advertises that they don't accept payola, but they do, that's fraud.
But if a radio station wants to make a strait-up pay-for-play deal with a record producer, why should the government care? If it really bothers listeners, a competitor can lure those listeners away by promising not to.
There is the really lame argument that the airwaves are a public trust, but that just means the government was dumb enough not to auction them to the highest bidder.
There is the only slightly less lame argument that music should compete on quality alone. But if the listeners don't care, and somebody has to be the popular band, why not the one that pays the most money?
And to think they do this just to get airplay. Imagine what they're paying to the politicians themselves. They don't care. They know it's wrong and illegal and they just don't care. Money has corrupted every level of government it seems except for the NY Attorney General. Good on ya' Mr. Spitzer.
Payola has existed for a long time. Control by large American companies has existed for a long time. Not suprisingly, in the 1960s hardly any Canadians could be heard on Canadian radio stations. To solve this problem, the Canadian government imposed the Canadian Content rules. A certain proportion of airtime had to be devoted to music with Canadian content. (There was a formula based on the writer, the artist, the recording company, etc.) The result is a reasonably strong Canadian music industry.
The other thing we have is the university radio stations. They must, by law, play things that aren't being played on the mainstream stations.
There may well be a legislative solution to the problem. The other thing might be to start looking at the RIAA as the convicted criminals that they are and quit rewarding them with draconian copyright laws that criminilize our kids.
I was trying to figure out why payola bothers Americans.
I don't think it is simply that radio stations are using a public resource -- if all radio was private (ala Sirius or XM), I think folks _would_ mind a bit if stuff was getting paid because the company was getting stuff in return. But I think they'd mind less, because they'd figure that Sirius can do with its spectrum what it wishes, because they've paid for it.
I think what bothers folks is the fact that it is done in an underhanded, secretive fashion. This last case took it to whole new levels of Talmudism (just RTFA to see).
Imagine if they said, "this next Madonna song was sponsored by EMI. Madonna is so great! Buy the album." I just don't think people would mind so much.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
While the labels share some of the blame, the radio stations allow and encourage the corrupt practices of the so-called independent promoters. If the radio station plays a record from your label, the independent promoter sends you an invoice. If you don't pay, forget about future airplay of your label's artists. The independent promoter is the middleman in extorting cash and other products/services from the record label. Basically, it old-style payola with the addition of a middleman to launder the money, and the money goes to the radio station's owner, not some dishonest DJ. It's been institutionalized to the point that large radio networks sell exclusive franchises to independent promoters for large fees. The end result is that you don't get airplay without greasing the appropriate palms.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
You know, there is a form spellchecker for Firefox.
I believe that the RIAA and it's members wants one thing above all else: TO RETAIN CONTROL OF THE US MUSIC BUSINESS. Enforcing copyright is just one of the tools that is used to control the music business. People distributing songs using P2P is not under the RIAA's control so the RIAA does everything that it can to stop it.
Run those corporate leeches out on a rail.
God I love that guy. He's as close to a knight in shining armor that we'll find in his position.
Should a person break the law, they may well face a jail term.
For a company, a jail sentence make sense. Who should be incarcerated? The executives?
Perhaps we need to take a different approach - one which with credible and appropriate consequences.
I suggest removing all copyrights on songs/artists that benefited from the payola crime.
The starving artists themselves can claim damages against the company directly.
--- blackironprison, where ignorance is bliss....
Yesterday's news, today. Just like reading a newspaper.
Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act... If the recording industry and the radio industry knowingly collude to perpetuate payola, how is it not covered by this act which has some real teeth?
Moderation in All Things... Especially Moderation - gurutc
I don't understand this. I thought that the record companies were supposed to be the shining beacons of morality! What with all their protecting the rights of the innocent and defenseless artists, they'd HAVE to be completely upright businessmen.
:)
I guess the moral is that people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
Meanwhile, I'm going to start downloading music again.
-Arthur
Cave ne ante ullas catapultas ambules
I would argue that there really is no such thing as independant music being played on most stations. 'Indie promotion' is just another buzzword that makes it sound like it's creative and underground, which is far from the truth. Indie promotion is another word for payola. That's all it is. If there are a few indie promoters that can get some unknown band on the radio, they are very few and far between.
And as far as station programmers choosing playlists, well I don't know enough about it to make a conclusion, but given the fact that where I live Clear channel owns both 'classic rock' stations and they both play pretty much the same playlist, I doubt the station managers have any control on what Clear Channel wants played. At any specific time I can turn on a Clear Channel station and be guaranteed to hear one of 3 AC/DC songs (who knew they only put out three songs?) or some old Aerosmith song.
The music industry is stagnating right now. MTV has been useless for several years now, choosing to focus on reality television rather than music videos or innovative sound. Mom and pop radio stations have been bought out by the one or two monopolies left in broadcasting.
And anyone that can tell me Lil' Jon is a musician with a straight face deserves a frickin Oscar. It's almost as if two music executives sat in a room together and made a bet that they could make millions off of a bum with no talent just from pure marketing hype alone.
I think if there's anything that can make a big difference, it's a media-centered site like Apple's iTunes that has things like music videos, sampling, playlists, online radio stations. I can listen to more new bands in a week through iTunes than I ever heard introduced as a new band on a radio, in all the years I've been alive.
And that's all that matters!
Well played!
How's the e-mail thing working out for you, old chap?
I wonder if this is why the NY hard rock station, 92.3 WXRK, changed formats and has ditched nearly all music produced since '95 from the playlist.
Currently, NY is completely without a modern rock station, leaving only pop Z-100 to play anything new.
Perhaps if (since these are supposed to be the public airwaves) one radio station per coverage area could be set aside by the FCC as a cooperative; a TRULY public station. Sort of like the organic grocery cooperative I belong to is run.
-) There'd be a membership fee for each household. Something nominal. The membership fee at my co-op is $100 lifetime.
-) Each member gets to vote for a board of directors who run the station (hires djs, purchases Cds and equipment, etc.)
This would ensure community ownership and operation of what is again, supposed to be the public airwaves. This would ensure what the community wants to hear would be played. This would ensure local interests would be met.
Sugapablo
Some of the memo's are pretty revealing. FSN has a story on some of it. "We ordered a laptop for Donnie Michaels at WFLY in Albany. He has since moved to WHYI in Miami. We need to change the shipping address." One Sony memo from 2002: "Can you work with Donnie to see what kind of digital camera he wants us to order?" Looks like Rush was right: "glittering prizes and endless compromises shatter the illusion of integrity, yeah!"
Spellchecker forms you!
I mean, the record companies want to sell albums, the record companies pay radio station to air adverts for the albums... but if they pay them to broadcast free samples from the album, that's suddenly wrong?
I never figured out why radio stations had to pay record companies for the right to broadcast advertising material for them. The recording industry's greatest ever scam was reversing the advertising model to such an extent that if they are caught actually paying for their ads to be broadcast, it's seen as wrong...
I wonder what percentage of albums that they release a year have a profit at least $10m.
As an aside, the next time you sneer in disgust at a greedy tort lawyer (the sneer is very deserved in some cases) and think about calling for sweeping reform of our "broken" tort system, remember that manufacturers do the same thing with product safety. Probability that it will hurt somebody times what it will cost us when it does. If that's less than the savings from making an unsafe product, they make the unsafe product. The reason they don't like lawyers (and especially juries) is because they're an uncontrolled element to the damages variable. Huge jury awards hurt them (and can actually drive changes in unsafe behavior) because they can't accurately budget for them. They have such a love affair with capped awards and forced arbitration because it makes it easier for them to lock down that variable and accurately measure the benefit of hurting people.
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
It's funny that the music industry will actually pay out money sneakily to get airplay via the radio and tv, to boost sales, but for some reason airplay via p2p services can only damage their sales.
Of course p2p could result in the listeners having a permanent copy, but so can radio and tv.
- And then there are all the streamripping and peercasting options to grey-out the difference even more.
"Against a clear backdrop of what is right and what is wrong - what is legal and what is illegal - it is as important now as ever to encourage our fans do the right thing" - Cary Sherman, President of the RIAA Perhaps a good way would be to lead by example....
Corporations have limited liability, meaning no one is liable for the actions of the corporation. If a corporation goes bankrupt, the stock holders never have to pay off the creditors, or declare bankrupsy themsevles. If a corporation did merely derive its rights from its stockholers, then the stockholders would have to pay off the creditors.
Now there are some types of company, such as sole proprietorships or partnerships, where the owners are *more* liable for the actions of the corperation. These companies should have correspondingly more human rights, but the truth is that they usually have fewer rights.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Payola is nothing new. Anyone who is surprised that this is going on was just unaware that the practice has been around as long as radio.
... when is New York state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer running for a bigger office? He seems to have a knack for getting headlines with high profile cases that get everyone all fired up.
w ire/sns-ap-clinton-2006,0,1068438.story?coll=sns-a p-nation-headlines
My big question is this
From http://www.nynewsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/
the poll showed state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer continuing to hold a double-digit lead over the three-term governor in a possible matchup for the 2006 gubernatorial campaign.
Is this the first step toward getting our airwaves back or is this just a slap on the wrist?
We'll get our airwaves back as soon as the government stops telling us what to do with it, and not a moment before. I don't see it happening any time soon. There's far too much corporate interest in keeping these government handouts.
Seriously, isn't it nice when companies agree to stop being evil, monopolistic, and unlawful. I bet they only had to be asked politely a few dozen times first, too. I think we should take this stance with other society-harming crimes, too - murders should be let off if they agree to stop killing people.
What's wrong with a good old fashioned bitch-slapping and imprisoning those responsible for a dozen years or so? Nah, we can't do that, their bribes are all lovely and money-filled. Lert them off with a mere claim that they won't break the law again.
A commercial network like Clear Channel gets paid to play this music but an internet radio station has to pay through the nose?
Oh thats right, unlike commercial radio, the internet stations play music that is GOOD, not just stuff that is popular or that the RIAA has decided is flavor-of-the-month.
The only venue for a broad spectrum of music these days is non-corporate radio, otherwise usually known as "college radio". At least their revenue mostly comes from outside the RIAA business community.
I listen to WPRB (103.3, http://wprb.com/) from Princeton. Period.
[truth in posting disclaimer: WPRB "pays" me every day by playing a wide variety of music most people consider wierd, at best]
that the same song played at the same time on three different radio stations in the same market. --------------- sarcasm rarely works in type.
"The agreement springs from an investigation by New York state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer"
The Sheriff of Wall Street strikes again. If this man isn't running the country in 7 years, I'll be surprised.
"With a level playing field, the airwaves can better reflect the impact of indie labels and artist"
I don't think this is about a level playing field. The thing about radio is nobody has to listen to it. If they are playing stuff you don't like, you can listen to a different station. Clear-channel may own a lot of stations but people are listening to those stations because they like the music. I don't think payola is a good practice. I do think it should be illegal, however, I don't think that good artists remain unknown because others are paying for airtime. That is because they aren't really that good.
If people wanted to listen to these indie labels, they would request it or listen to the Public Access stations that already play them, but they don't. Oh, the commercials are over. I need to get back to listening to the next 20 min of music. . . .
Ten million dollars is far, far less than the cost of marketing Sony's latest bomb in the theatres. Like, if they released "Monster in Law 2: Electric Boogaloo" J.Lo and J.Fo's poster airbrushing would cost more. They pay a pittance and "promise not to do it again"? This is punishment?
No, Payola isn't huge as far as its consequences for graver political issues, but it does help to silence the musical voices of this generation, basically pumping industry misinformation along the channels that are supposed to represent public opinion.
Seriously: astroturfing request lines? Like that's going to give them any real info on people's buying preferences? They bathe in their own bullshit, they deserve the hilarious business consequences. They should probably enjoy more legal consequences but that's just not how our system's built.
Besides, it's not like we're never going to hear good, original music again. I haven't listened to a radio DJ for a long fuckin' time.
Oy feels better about the gigabytes of music Oy've been liberatin'. Aaarrrgh.
We's all be pirates and brigands, sez I.
This news reeks of a controversy that had surfaced a couple of years ago when a pathetic band called Limp Bizkit and one very nasty whiner called Fred Durst were found neck deep in the very same scam. Rumours has it that Interscope paid radio stations to blare out there obnoxious tunes..(BTW I am a hard-rock fan)
Here's one reason: When I (not me personally, you get the point though) listen to the radio, and people call up saying, "OMG! I just L-O-V-E that new Backstreet Boys song! OMG! Can you play it? YAY YAY YAY", it gives me the impression that the song is great. I may even go out and buy it.
If Sony/RIAA/evil-doers paid for that person to call up, then they *tricked me* (legalese: defrauded) me. At least, that's how I see it.
Kinda makes you wonder how many people actually call up and request songs. I've done this a few times, and they never played the song.
Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. --Nietzsche
I hope this will result in better music on the radio. This morning it was a real chore to find a station that didn't have either screaming, noise or classical stuff on it. Lot of no-talent out there, then there is RAP - crap. Thank goodness for MP3 players!
"Toward that end, the label group agreed to companywide reforms to detect and prevent future abuses and is making a $10 million donation to local charities to fund programs aimed at music education and appreciation."
/ index.jhtml?headlines=true
That quote is from this link:
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1506321/20050725
So, was ti a $10 million fine with a $10 million donation thrown in for good measure?
all the best,
drew
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
The same thing has been said about music since at least the days of Elvis, and I'm guessing there have been discussions like this since there were room for musicians and critics.
Erm. . . I had a revelation halfway through the post. You're referring to the industry not music itself.
I agree, mostly. The monolithic companies that control most of the music industry are pretty much what you'd expect from a monolith - controlled by inertia, and slow to react.
The key difference is found where music is really progressing - not in the Clear Channel approved acts but the other stuff that gets no radio play. Look to Ani DiFranco for an example of an artist who is 100% independent. Look to Eighteenth Street Lounge recordings for a small label with huge distribution, and tons of radio play worldwide. (not so much in the US, due to payola and the like).
So I guess we agree. Traditional model - bad and failing. New models - good.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
And if you live in the UK you'll no doubt be aware of our very own musically-diverse payola network, Music Radio (the parent company) : http://www.musicradio.com/map.jsp).
Fortunately we have the BBC as well, although Radio 1 tends to go the GWR route during the daytime, playing the same records every day.
Nothing costs nothing
Come out with some decent music that people want to listen to, then you won't have to pay out for play time.
"If you have done 6 impossible things this morning, why not round it off with breakfast at Milliways" -- hhgg
The value of the tort system is not in the amount of the awards, but in their inability to be predicted.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
What a sad article.
It's illegal to give cash or merchandise to a DJ or radio station to get them to play your song.
It's legal to give a state AG who wants to be governor $25,0000 and just have him "coincidentally" focus the state's legal arm on your favorite pet peeve.
So Don Henley is a good guy for giving Spitzer 1000's of dollars, but a BMG promoter who gives a digital camera to a DJ is a bad guy.
I think the Sony BMG guys are slapping their foreheads and thinking they should have given Spitzer $100,000 and "suggested" he focus efforts on P2P file sharing or music piracy instead.
Australian radio sucks, and sucks hard.
JJJ is _so_ much better than any popular Canadian station. Listening to FM radio in Canada made me want to punch the radio... it wasn't just bad, it was brain-washingly horrible. I think the only reason why people didn't realise how bad it was is because they'd never heard anything like JJJ. B105 and MMM are still light-years ahead of commercial radio in Canada
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
The record industry claims they're "losing" money (actually not making as much as they think they should). They've been blaming it on piracy. Maybe people aren't being exposed to good music. Maybe it's just that force feeding customers what the record industry think should be hits is causing fewer sales, not more. After all, who wants to buy crap music? Whether I hear the song once or a hundred times, I'm not going to buy it if I don't like it.
Here's a question for the record companies. How about letting the consumer drive the market? It's always worked before.
You are welcome to read my rant on my blog.
They were fined $10 million and have agreed to obstain from the practice in the future.
Obstain? If you merge the definitions of abstain and obtain, the hybrid does kind of fit the situation.I seem to recall from my marketing classes that new companies who want to distribute to certain grocery stores must purchase shelf space up front, along with providing the product. I'm not sure the details on this, but it sounds similar.
I think the easiest way to end it would be to make them say and now here is Song X brought to you by... After the 20th time hearing it in the day people would get the idea. And it costs next to nothing.
"Help me Andy, I've got a monkey on my foot!"
"Consider the lillies of the goddamn field."
Bertrand Russel has written some interesting stuff. I was required to do a paper for a (very interesting) philosophy class, disecting an argument of one of the philosophers that we had studied recently.
d .1736/ to see the fallacies.
I chose Bertrand Russel's "Why I Am Not a Christian" largely for reasons of ease.
That lecture is so stuffed full of logical fallacies I had had more to write about than would fit in the assignment. Two of my favorites are his pervasive ad-hominem reasoning and the obvious self-contradiction in his dice example.
Still, as logically silly as the lecture is, it is still interesting.
Some of his math is interesting too.
http://www.classicreader.com/read.php/sid.6/booki
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
Nowhere is it written that radio is the ideal medium for music, and the usual suspects (the RIAA, the music conglomerates, corporate radio) have been milking this cow for so long that it's getting almost completely dried up.
The Internet is a much better distribution medium, primarily because there are so many different ways to structure on-demand music through the 'Net. Internet radio, online purchasing, and online renting for a monthly flat fee are already available. Terrestrial radio allows for just two different business models: Advertiser supported or donation supported, while the Internet allows for a wide variety of business models and therefore more choices.
The worst thing about commercial terrestrial radio is that it provides the illusion of choice, but because it is wholly advertiser supported, it practically begs to be gamed. If its masters want to squeeze the cow until it dies, maybe we should let them. It's not like there aren't other alternatives to terrestrial radio.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Eliot Spitzer is idealistic and ruthless in his pursuit of corruption.
The idea that he would accept bribes is ludicrous, not to mention stupid. In his high profile position, he would surely be found out.
That's an interesting quote. They'll probably pay the fine with don't steal that song posters. Or show the latest DRM enabled songs.
As a former Top 40 radio station program director, I enjoyed being flown roundtrip to New York just for dinner, vacations in L.A. and New Orleans, free DVD players, a new telephone system for the radio station, jingle packages and much more just for playing records more than they deserved. 99% of the time the disc-jockey has no control whatsoever what is being played on the air. They're given a playlist to follow that's been generated by a program called "Selector" or "MusicMaster". They're also told when to talk and in many instances, what to talk about. I used to refer to Tuesday as "hell day" as record company reps would call and beg you to put their record on that week, to make a big splash on the charts. It wasn't uncommon to get $3K to $4K per week for the station in "promotional money" for three or four adds to the playlist. This doesn't include the little perks like lunch, dinner, flights, DVD players, etc. The later in the day, the more money that was offered, especially if several stations were waffling on adding a record. I enjoyed the perks, but it's a corrupt business and I'm glad to be the hell out of it.
Does anyone really listen to the radio now anyways? I can't stand it any more, as every time I try I hear the same half-dozen songs repeated multiple times in a day (even if I only listen for 45 minutes on my way to and from work). Some stations in the Seattle/Tacoma area are so bad, in fact, that they have pre-recorded DJ voices that announce the group and song names after "popular" songs are played (Audioslave - which was mentioned in TFA - comes to mind, in fact). When listening to several stations, it's become a running joke between myself and my roommate (with whom I carpool) whenever ridiculously-overplayed songs like "Beverly Hills" come on the radio during our daily commute (especially for the 2nd or 3rd time in a given day).
It's like they (the DJs and/or record labels) just don't get the fact that (some?) people will actually start to HATE songs if they get played once every 30 minutes. It makes me want to pirate MP3s of old music and make audio CDs out of them just so I can have some variety (actually I make MOD tracker mix CDs instead, as the music is much more original and varied).
Arguing about vi versus Emacs is like arguing whether it's better to make fire by rubbing sticks or banging rocks.
The Gorillaz. I'm not so sure I like the music as much as I've liked other material, but there are some very innovative things about this effort. It is a "virtual" band, which means that the artists who write/perform the group's music can be as varied as the music itself. The site itself is entirely flash-based, but it's creative. The videos are available in the Cinema, which you can easily get to by using the directory on the wall.
Second, it's accompanied by some of the more artistic videos I've seen in a long time. When music videos first hit the scene, there was a conscious effort to actually produce something creative. For quite a while now it's been mostly the same tired crap, a formula re-worked, and re-worked, and re-worked...I'd had enough of it a long time ago. The only thing I do not like about the videos on the Gorillaz website is that they're only available in RealPlayer or Windows Media Player formats.
Why don't we forget what's in the books at Congress for a second? Payola is clearly constitutional. The FCC is clearly NOT constitutional. It's funny how everyone hates the FCC when they try to censor the latest "extreme" shock jock. Yet now they're beloved, because, you know, they're helping the little guy. Damn the man! The FCC *is* the man. If it didn't exist, you'd see more variety on the airwaves, not less. Regulations only hurt the consumer. Anything that restricts speech in any form for any reason other than protecting the population from the threat of force is wrong.
I remember what a big scandal it was when "Murry the K" got caught basically taking bribes from the labels to give their latest single some air time. that was when the term "payola" was invented.
whats really changed? Radio was the outlet, the only way a song got much exposure. That put the station in the power broker spot and DJ's had more control back then perhaps. Air time was a seller's market and buyers bid it up all sorts of ways.
Now there are many channnels for promotion beside radio, and especially, there is P2P. The calculation the record label makes in budgeting for a decent return on a recording is quite different. In addition to bribes to station managers, they have to ponder how much of the product they should allow to leak into the prospective market via legal and illegal file sharing, whether to make a music video, look for a movie where the song fits in the sound track, and if the artist is sexy enough, whether to put him/her on tour. It gets complicated and I'd bet fewer producers are making huge profits and finding it harder and harder to have the next "Beatles" on their label.
What surprises me is that, with all those options, Sony would bother with the bribery at all....or, now that I think about it, perhaps Sony is only coming clean now for PR sake because their real reason to stop payola is that it no longer buys much record sales.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
To create more stations. The FM/AM dials are limited and it is expensive to start a new station. Why don't we have a standardized technology that will allow 10000 stations in every area? That would lower the price dramatically - once that happens nobody would care about payola.
Corporations have the same legal rights as individuals, right?
It's time to impose the same responsibilities as well. A company that engages in such practices, and can be found guilty of same in a court of law, should be shut down and all of its assets seized and sold off to benefit those individuals that it has harmed.
Extreme? Not at all. No more extreme than putting to death an individual that has killed someone. And maybe, just maybe, stockholders and boards of directors will take an active interest in what their investments are doing if they know they have a serious chance of losing everything.
How are the Gorillaz Australian????!?!??!?!
- Tina Weymouth - Talking Heads - AMERICAN
- Chris Frantz - Talking Heads - AMERICAN
- Dan the Automator - AMERICAN
- Miho - Cibo Matto - AMERICAN/JAPANESE
- Damon Albarn - Blur - BRITISH
No such word.
Fix it.
Instead of fining Sony tiny sums of money, we, the little guy, could hit them much harder, by supporting LOCAL music. Most local bands are very appreciative of any support, give out their cd's for free, and are actually pretty decent. In Chicago, people used to go out to a bar on any given night, because they knew live music was there, not some specific band they've heard a million times. Now, you have to bring your own crowd, as the days of a good VENUE with a built in crowd are nearly gone. That is the biggest crime of payola - most peoples ears are trained to reject new music unless the music industry force feeds it to them.
So, get an ipod, load it up with your favorite classics and local music, and stop listening to the radio. And go see some live music without knowing who they are. It's good times.
Is it just me? Or do people with /. ids > 99999 just not listen to/care about music anymore?
Maybe if we all band (heh) together and raise some money, we can pay Clear Channel to play more than 10 songs before their playlist loops.
There are songs on the radio that I absolutely loved when they first came out. After about two months, I now never want to hear them again.... ever. And then there are the songs that have been out for ten years that are still in rotation.
I've never been a news type of guy, but radio has gotten so bad these days that my commute is listening to the NPR news station. Sure its stories have a lefty slant and aren't particularly exciting, but at least they change them every day....
If you really want to get the industries attention we need a good sleazy group of lawyers to file a class action against the record companies on behalf of independent artists (the actual victims here). the threat of a payout in the hundred of millions maybe even billions might just wake them up.
So on the one hand, they hate 'piracy'. On the other, they are paying people to play their stuff for free?
I hope they figure out soon how beneficial it is to let people download music.
They aren't, which is my mistake. They are, however, rather innovative with respect the points that I mentioned.
streaming if you can receive the frequency modulated signal, plus the just added a podcast set that will hopefully become a regularly updated feature. you really don't have any excuse now.
The independants don't have airplay, all they have is P2P.
Sony isn't afraid you'll download Brittney's latest pop hit. After all, you can sample a better quality file from the radio, and do it faster, than DLing from P2P.
Sony is afraid you'll download [artist you never heard of] and buy THEIR CD instead of Britney's.
Consumers only have a limited number of dollars. If I buy three five dollar CDs from three indie bands, I no longer have the fifteen dollars I need to buy Britney's.
THIS is the real reason the labels hate P2P, which all studies (except the one commissioned by the RIAA) show increases a performer's sales rather than, as the RIAA claims, takes away from it.
the best sounds can be heard on vinyl
and nothing can beat an old Blues 78
they'll try and deduct that $10 million from artist royalties.
By the time the Radio Act of 1927 was enacted, radio networks were already centralizing program origination, but the Act said little about them. Advertisers were required to be identified, but nothing beyond that.
The more things change...
Mail? Put "slashdot" in the subject to pass the spam filters.
When I was about 18, I worked at a local incoming call center and my trainer there happened to also be a popular local DJ (I guess they don't make much). Once he introduced himself, he asked if anybody had any questions for him, I was the only one that spoke up. "Why do you guys always play the same lousy songs? Are you getting paid to play them?", his reponse was "You mean Payola? No, payola is illegal. What happens is the record companies will buy stuff for us, like they will put a free vending machine in our office or something." Interesting that the DJ's didn't think anything of it, apparently this one didn't even know that was illegal. The radio station owner probably did. What they aught to do is fine the DJs and radio stations, with their limited incomes, not the record companies. There is not much for them to gain, in fact they probably lose listeners when they sell out to record companies.
Personally, I have stopped listening to the radio. Radio is dying and these dumb ass holes are just killing it quicker. Bribing DJs to play your crap might bump the sales of that particular record, but I bet it causes people to turn off their radio's much quicker and damage the industry as a whole. Personally, I think that radio is on its way out. Why would I listen to the radio when I can shell out $10-20 a month foe satellite radio? Satellite radio doesn't need to play for the lowest common denominator because none of the channels are competing with each other. If anything, they want to specialize such that their listeners can find exactly what they want so they don't jump ship to another satellite radio that does. As an added bonus, there are no commercials. So, other then being 'free', what exactly does the radio have left? Hell, it isn't even free if you value your time. Spending an hour listening to a half hour of commercials and another 20 minutes of shitty music isn't free in my book.
Even if you don't want to shell out for satellite radio, just do Internet radio. Almost every college station these days has their own radio station that gets only travels about a mile away via radio waves, but can be gotten anywhere via the Internet. Radio is dying. I personally don't give a shit if a pile of corporations selling mass produced music fight over the remains.
from the indie artists who could otherwise get played. Tell me how this is different from the "potential" sales that would have come from the pirates who download music. The money should go to the indie labels who lost many "potential" sales from the companies that make up the RIAA.
Yes! I like them even though Damon's voice wears a bit on me. Interestingly, he got the idea for the band from Holger Czukay (Shoo-kay), member of seminal 70s Krautrockers, Can. I highly reccomend you check them out. They started off as a weirdo hippie freak-out stuff and were setting the stage for electronic dance music by the end. They incorporated tons of new ideas, using sampling, multitracked tape experiments, analogs synths, etc.
what about streaming it, then? You're not giving away the mp3s files, just streaming them over the internet.
:(
Too bad the RIAA/ASCAP got their filthy paws in that one too and screwed everything up.
Sucks. There used to be a lot more internet radio stations, too.
This goes to show how poorly Americans are in knowledge of their laws. As long as the station in question announces beforehand that the song in question is being played for explicit compensation, there literally is no crime for doing this. This is one of the very first facts given in any basic entertainment law survey course. I heard a version of payola a couple months ago, for Porcupine Tree's "Shallow". Their label took out an ad and prefaced with it a tag that went something like "And here's 'Shallow', the latest from Lava Records artist Porcupine Tree.", and the whole song was played without any voiceover interruptions, followed by an out tag.
But to get to the "reclaim out airwaves" rant, let's say payola was indeed eradicated. There still will be artists crying that they can't get heard, simply for the fact that there are more artists putting out stuff than there is available airtime to play their stuff! Many (conservative figure: 95%) artists will simply be left out. How would you propose to solve this? Mandate songs be less than 1 minute? Create "radio station welfare" and use public funds to build more stations? And even if there was 100% available airtime, are we going to force the public to listen to them all? At what point is it enough to quell the cries?
The fact that payola exists is proof that there are more artists than airtime available. Radio stations are certainly not begging for material.
Why have them, supported by newer or existing leglislation, why not have them Ride the Lightning.
If I ran a radio station, I'd make people pay me to play their music. They sell songs to people who like them because they heard them on the radio. Why should I pay them to play the songs on the radio, to help them make money? I'd pick music that fit the format, of course, to keep listeners happy, but then only those who paid would get airplay. Then there would be no need to waste listener's time playing commercials. Why should it be illegal for me to do this? What happened to freedom in this country?
Vote for Pedro
I'm really surprised the entertainment industry still finds more profit from promoting a personality when compared to using talented people.
Literally billions have been injected into the failed careers of several female *artists* with little return other then product endorsement (which rarely (less then 10% of the time) has any POSITIVE effect on sales) and politics. The effect of which taints target audiences (teenagers) away from the industry as a whole.
When does the costs of talent outweight the costs of promotion? When will the PR people and promoters get a clue and figure out that they're not wanted or needed? When will this madness stop?
Howard stern has the right idea...
Abandon public broadcast radio!
As long as groups like Clearchanel and the FCC are around to circumvent the first amendment there will be no hope for broadcast radio.
For sony this is a case of 'too little, too late'
FCC 317 reads: "All matter broadcast by any radio station for which any money, service or other valuable consideration is directly or indirectly paid, or promised to or charged or accepted by, the station so broadcasting, from any person, shall, at the time the same is so broadcast, be announced as paid for or furnished, as the case may be, by such person: PROVIDED, that the 'service or other valuable consideration' shall NOT include any service or property furnished without charge or at a nominal charge FOR USE ON, or in connection with, a broadcast unless it is so furnished in consideration for an identification in a broadcast of any person, product, service, trademark, or brand name beyond an identification which is reasonably related to the use of such service or property on the broadcast."
In other words, announce that the song being played is only because the label paid for it to be done so, everything's kosher.
Spitzer released the following statement directed at the recording industry:
"Good Evening. As the duly designated representative of the city, county and state of New York, I hereby order you to cease any and all supernatural activity and return forthwith to your place of origin or the nearest convenient parallel dimension."
First against the wall when the revolution comes
Force the company to pay innocent workers during the sentence even if it is for decades and beyond bankruptcy to the point where guilty employees can have their organs sold till near death and their bodies used to pleasure serial rapists in prison and sell the video rights to a porn company. I am strong believer in a punishment for corporations to inflict such extreme damage that no one would ever consider fibbing about stealing a penny. Shareholders should be the last people to have protection after the public and the employees not the first.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
"In both cases, it's up to the people to truly solve the problem, the government can't do it for them."
But the whole reason for governments to exist (democratic governments, at least) is to solve the problems of the society they govern. That's why they exist. In order to do what they do, they levy taxes. That's why you pay taxes.
Yes, most governments may be very inefficient, and often corrupt, but what they are in a democracy is the expression of the way a society that society, rightly or wrongly, thinks it should be governed.
Put it this way - if the people of a country got together to choose a small group of people to represent their wishes and run the country the way they wish it to be run, what else would they have formed but a government?
Not neccesarily so.
There is an offense in some places of "accepting secret commissions".
Plus, you probably become an accessory to the crime (presumably before, since its unlikely they would give you the money before establishing that you would play the tune in return)
Anyone who's ever tried to get a song on the radio knows that payola is alive and well.
I play in a local rock band. There's a small radio station in the next county north of where I live (they've got about a 20 mile broadcast radius). When we put out our first album we tried to get on their show that showcases "local" bands. Talking to the program director didn't get us anywhere. After being turned down a couple of times the guitar player and I ran into the DJ that hosts the local band show on the radio at a bar we were playing. He really liked our stuff so we gave him a free CD. When we asked if it would be possible to get it on his show he laughed and told us that we had to buy the $2,500 "advertising" package at the station before the program director would even listen to a song off of the CD.
I'm not suprised that Sony is involved in Payola. What I am suprised at is that they were caught doing it directly. There are "promotion" companies out there that exist only to act as middle-men between the labels and the stations. After talking to the DJ we poked around and found a promoter that works in Chicago (our general area). Let's just say they're not hard to find. For $10,000 he would guarantee us airplay at a major radio station in the Chicago market.
Oh, and Zardo, not to disparage your friend at all but he knew it was illegal. Even when I was doing college radio we were all made well aware of it and the possible consequences. In reality it's more of a "wink, wink" in the industry because everybody does it. Sony definately got a slap on the wrist. These stories come out every few years so the industry can say that they're cracking down.
Definitely... you have to remember that Sony has deep deep pockets. A $10M is an inconvenience not a deterrent. However, one might imagine that DJs make less money than Sony. So even a $1M fine would be prohibitively expensive. If Sony can sue music pirates absurdly vast amounts of money I don't see why the American public couldn't sue bribe taking DJ's for obscenely vast sums of money. They airwaves do belong to us as American citizens. (for those that are here in the US)
Not only that, if it is just a donation, and not actually a fine, they will take a tax deduction on account of their "gift".
all the best,
drew
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
sony, just as evil as MS and Intel.
Science : Proprietary , Knowledge : Open Source
The Recording Industry Association of America started to sue customers for illegal downloading.
Customers should sue the recording industry for payola at radio stations. Radio frequencies belong to the public (the radio stations are just licenced to use them), therefore the public could sue the hell out of the recording (and broadcasting) industry to monopolize public airwaves, by bribes.
Sony announces it will continue its unrelated Payorama program.
No announcement has yet been made regarding the already faltering Payorooskie program.
I gave up on radio more than ten years ago because stations played the same crap over and over and over again. Do people still listen to the radio?
I have obsolutely no abjections to thier decision to obstain from this practice. Hopefully this serves as an abject lesson for them. Though I wish the fine had been higher. It should be abvious to everyone that given how abstinate they are, they're just going to do this again. The only way to stop them would be force them into object poverty.
...politicans in the U.S. agreed today to stop taking "campaign contributions" from large corporations that ship our jobs overseas...
Yeah, that'll be the day...
Unfortunately few people have "the balls" to do what is right when their jobs are on the line. If the DJ doesn't play what the station manager is told to play by the RIAA, I doubt they'll be employed for long.
When bribery fails, the RIAA will resort to blackmail, and simply stop sending popular music to the station if they don't meet their play quotas.
In Canada I'm glad we have minimum Canadian content play rules for music stations, it at least gives CIRA artists a chance here, and stations like the CBC that are funded by the government actually give welcome competition to corporate owned behemoths like Corus, Rawlco, Hollinger, and Clear Channel.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Yes, the RIAA is very vocal about people ripping them off, but by saying nothing in regards to the institutionalized theft from the public and independent artists that is payola, their completely corrupt nature is revealed.
The RIAA cockroaches have developed payola to a fine art and it has continued unabated since the original case in the '50s. They'll never reach the "hearts and minds" of the public regarding digital media until they clean up their own house regarding the rampant PIRACY of the airwaves that is going on...
There's no way SONY was going to be able to account for Brittney Spears forever!!!
Maybe now stinky music will be given a rest eh?
"Love is like pi - natural, irrational, and very important." (Lisa Hoffman)
Just more of the reasons why p2p is a friend to the indie and just a few of the many reasons why the big record companies are going the way of the dinosaurs.
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CD Price fixing class action [antitrust] lawsuit against the big music labels settled:
http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl-cd-settl
http://www.musiccdsettlement.com/english/default.
The full suit can be downloaded here(quite interesting I may add)
http://www.oag.state.ny.us/press/2000/aug/aug08a_
And just in case you weren't sure how the music industry works (and why we are inundated with lackluster crap advertised on the knob.....errrr, i mean 'played' on the radio by big manufactured label artists)!!
We've all known for a long time that contemporary pop music stinks. We hear "hits" on the radio and wonder, "How can this be?" Now we know. And memos from both Sony's Columbia and Epic Records senior vice presidents of promotions circa 2002-2003 -- whose names are redacted in the reports but are well known in the industry -- spell out who to pay and what to pay them in order to get the company's records on the air.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,163537,00.htm
Recording industry titan Sony BMG Music Entertainment agreed Monday to pay $10 million and stop bribing radio stations to feature its artists in what a state official called a more sophisticated generation of the payola scandals of decades ago.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/arti
The money probably won't stop the practice or make the radio stations turn over their setlists to a progressive utopian audio environment, but if the information gets out that most idiots aren't really listening to something cool, rather what a bunch of 50 year old board execs are pushing, maybe the shame will wake up people. This has an excellent opportunity for an Emperor's new clothes scenario, but the word has to spread. Unfortunately the biggest disseminator of information is the media, and it certainly isn't shouting from the rooftops that "we're responsible for the shitty music by taking bribes. It all has to happen grass roots style, either that or wait for the baby boomers to die off.