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Radio May Have To Pay To Play
devjj writes "Ars Technica reports that Congress is considering two bills that will remove the exemption terrestrial radio broadcasters currently enjoy that allows them to broadcast music without compensating the artists or labels for it. In the current dispensation only songwriters get paid. The National Association of Broadcasters is furious at the RIAA, which is pushing repeal of the exemptions, and has responded by agreeing that artists need better compensation — and is asking Congress to investigate modern recording contracts. "
This is good in my humble opinion, perhaps it is time for radio to stop playing RIAA's JUNK and start playing REAL music from REAL artists and compensate them directly without the MA****... er, I mean the record companies as middle hand..
Has the entire industry gone insane? Maybe it's a generational thing, but with today's one-hit wonders, there's very little in the current marketplace that I'm interested in buying. The ONLY advertisement the industry can count on is radio air-play. If broadcasters are charged, then we'll be forced to listen to more adverts, which in turn will prompt me to discontinue radio as an entertainment medium.
A small part of me wants RIAA to succeed in this - heresy I know. The notion is that if they win, terrestrial radio broadcasters will all but stop putting the mainstream music on the air and cater more towards local or indie artists, since they would be most likely to trade profit for exposure. Not only would this give those artists the chance they could desperately be wanting, but in a perfect world, would force the studios and labels to see 'the error of their ways'. It's a pipedream, but as most dreams are, it's a happy one.
Does it not seem like the RIAA is shooting themselves in the foot with this? I always thought one of the main points of playing tunes on the radio was advertising for the artists, enticing people to buy the whole album.
If people stop hearing new songs on the radio, then the RIAA will really see a dip in CD sales. This is just more proof that the RIAA is way out of touch with how the market works.
I got nothin'
Sorry, but artists just like NICKLEBACK are part of the problem, not part of the solution.
...I read TFA. It says the payments are to be in the form of a flat fee, per station, per year. That means that if a radio station wants to be able to ever play any RIAA-artist music, even just once a year, they have to pay the same fee as a station that plays the stuff all the time. Given that circumstance, there's no special motivation to seek out non-RIAA artists.
Of course, the article is short. The actual text of the bill may include a pay-per-play option that would encourage stations to drop most RIAA-artist music while still retaining the ability to play a bit of it, on occasion. I don't know because I haven't read the bill so, as always, the devil's in the details.
Somehow, I doubt an RIAA-backed bill would include a sensible measure like this, though. Even they aren't stupid enough to shoot themselves in the foot like that. Are they?
Anybody got a link to the actual bill text?
I think you're right that RIAA endorsed labels do have many respectable bands signed, unfortunately. However - and I don't mean to insult your taste here - You should be aware that Nickelback is almost certainly the kind of [RIAA crap] band that the grandparent was talking about. Many people regard them as total sellouts and possessive to no actual talent or creativity, at least in the circles in which I run. There was the Digg story a while back that pointed to this interesting site: evidence of similarities between Nickelback songs. Regardless of whether you like them or not, they are a hit generator, which is exactly the kind of thing that they play on pop/rock radio. Anyway keep up the good analysis; just use better examples like Radiohead (which you also used). They are distributing In Rainbows under a label associated with the RIAA according to RIAA Radar.
Radio is a bit different, however. With all of the other forms of advertising you mentioned, the consumer is making a deliberate choice to attend a specific concert or buy a specific CD. The consumer already has an idea of the music he or she wishes to buy. With radio, this is not necessarily the case - radio is nonspecific, and therefore is likely the medium in which the first exposure to new music will occur.
Now, different arguments can be made as to what a consumer buys when he purchases a CD. The music itself, certainly - but he can already listen to that for free by waiting for it to appear on the radio. In my opinion, what the consumer buys when he buys a CD is choice - the choice to listen to a particular song whenever he wishes rather than waiting for it to appear whenever a radio station plays it. The radio then becomes the advertisement for this purchase.
Maybe I'm not understanding this correctly... but doesn't the RIAA want people to listen to these songs on the radio so they go out and buy the cd?
Nobody asserts that the RIAA music sucks because their business practices are abhorrent/repugnant/unethical. Instead, the general assertion is that
- (a) the fact that the majority of RIAA music sucks, and
- (b) the fact that many find the RIAA's biz practices repellent
are not causal of each other in either direction, but are both symptomatic of (i.e. caused by)- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
They want everyone to pay every time they listen to or even think of a song. Hookers and blow aren't cheap.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
And that is the way it should be. Bands should be propped up for any reason. They should get by on talent alone.
Ah, I remember when I was 20 and an idealist...
How is a band intended to "get by on talent alone" when nobody can hear your music? There are about 50,000 bands in every state in the US. Why should any given person listen to any one of them over any other? It would take you years just to sit through the cruft to get to a single band worth following.
I give you Bjork as a prefect example of propped shit.
Bjork was part of one of these non-RIAA bands that people like you espouse. I'm sure if it was 1985 you'd be on here talking about how we should all be buying Sugarcubes albums and boycotting the RIAA. That's the problem with idealism; reality has a different dogma. She signed to a major label as soon as she was able to, and her fans continued to follow her regardless. Nothing much about the music changed that couldn't be attributed to 20 years worth of age. Only the label changed.
So when your favorite current indie band signs to a major, will you call them "artificially propped up"? Will their music suddenly suck? Will they suddenly be really boring live? No-talent hacks...
It's pretty ridiculous to indict an entire range of artists simply because of the record label they're signed to. Talk about blind stereotyping... that's supposedly what music idealists like yourself are so against.