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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
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.
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
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.
Unfortunately, in the US, companies are NOT treated with similar rights as people. For exactly the reason you stated above (who do you punish?) corporations are often given MUCH more leeway to vio;ate the law than individuals. The sentence against Bernie Ebbers (Worldcom CEO) two weeks ago was a rare victory for the little guy, but in reality this was a sentence against one man for crimes that were orchestrated and carried out with cooperation and knowlege of hundreds if not thousands of people.
Using this same logic companies every day spew out unfathomable amounts of illegal toxins. If they are caught, they pay a fine, (which they have already budgeted for) ratchet back their emissions, wait for a little while until the EPA gets off their backs, then resume their polluting. A factory farm here in Ohio (Buckeye Egg Farm) did this for over ten years amidst hundreds of complaints and clear violations of environmental laws before they were finally ordered to shut down operations. An individual in the US could not knowingly violate the law, all the while reaping huge profits, only to be told to stop after 10 years of activity. Corporations are given too much criminal protection.
-Arthur
Cave ne ante ullas catapultas ambules
Why exactly should this be illegal?
That's an interesting question. Here's my two cents: The concept of collusion between two separate industries to manipulate the marketplace to their benefit.
Sony Bertelsmann bumps the competition out of the way, and the radio industry gets to line its' pockets by the simple action of excluding independent record companies, filling their playlist with Sony Bertelsmann acts.
Imagine this: Microsoft buys out all nationwide software retailers so that there's only Windows apps in their shelves. No Linux, no OSX, no nothing, only Windows. Sure, you can get your Linux apps through the Internet, or by driving to a mom-and-pop store across town. But it's still an unfair competitive edge, brought about by Microsoft's humongous resources that will only get bigger in this manner, and so it spirals ever deeper.
The law, in theory, is there to protect the small guy from the bloated business monster with resources to burn in the pursuit of absolute control over everything.
Inevitably, after a corporation grows to a certain bloated size, it seeks power for power's sake, which historically has proven to be detrimental to society at large. They might think they are playing a clever game of chess on a grand scale, but they are actually waging warfare against a community that does not have the resources to fight back. Just look at Wal-Mart. And what did Akio Morita say back in the day? "Business is warfare".
Personally, I believe a basic mechanism to keep civilization running smoothly is to avoid allowing too much to accumulate in too few hands, and radio is no exception.
I can think of many other arguments of why something like payola is wrong, but these are my thoughts on why it should be and remain illegal.
Lil' Thindime, lilting a lacrimose lament, krashes the kwaint konfines of Kokonino Kounty
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.
"Imagine if they said, "this next Madonna song was sponsored by EMI."
That would make the music show a defacto advertisement. People would tune out in droves. By hiding the money, they can make an ad seem like a music show.
Listeners don't like being lied to, and given that the airwaves belong to them, they have a right to honesty.
Honest artists and producers don't like it because it's anticompetetive. Implicit in the deal that "you will play *our* music more" is the undeniable fact that "you will play *their* music less".
What amazes me, is that they've been getting away with the "new payola" for so long now. I think it's fair to say that the reason "popular" music sucks so bad is that most of it doesn't become popular on its own merit. Its popularity is engineered in boardrooms.