ASCAP Petitions FCC To Deny Pandora's Purchase of Radio Station

chipperdog writes "NorthPine.com reports: 'ASCAP is firing back against Pandora Radio's attempt to get lower music royalty rates by buying a terrestrial radio station, "Hits 102.7" (KXMZ Box Elder-Rapid City). In a petition to deny, ASCAP alleges "Pandora has failed to fully disclose its ownership, and to adequately demonstrate that it complies with the Commission's foreign ownership rules." ASCAP also alleges that Pandora has no intention of operating KXMZ to serve the public interest, but is rather only interested in obtaining lower royalty rates. Pandora reached a deal to buy KXMZ from Connoisseur Media for $600,000 earlier this year and is already running the station through a local marketing agreement.'"

Comments

Fuck ASCAP

[Type44Q]

Fuck ASCAP and everything they represent.

Re:Fuck ASCAP

[Anonymous Coward]

Rupert Murdoch's dog. Named in a process similar to Katy Perry's cat, Kitty Purry.

Intentions

[Anonymous Coward]

ASCAP also alleges that Pandora has no intention of operating KXMZ to serve the public interest, but is rather only interested in obtaining lower royalty rates.

Paying lower royalty rates to parasites like ASCAP unquestionably serves the public interest.

Re:Intentions

[Nadaka]

You think the songwriters actually get more than a pittance from ASCAP?

Re:Intentions

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a songwriter and to get a few cents from ASCAP I have to pay them.

Re:Intentions

[IndustrialComplex]

Nothing more parasitic than a songwriter getting paid for the public performance of their work... shame on those people... shame.

With how much our culture and technology has been retarded in the name of preserving archaic quasi-governmental licensing systems...

I shed the same tears for the newspapers who lose revenue when jurisdictions no longer require legal notices to be posted in the classifieds. Won't you consider the jobs of the fax machine manufacturers? If signatures can be electronically signed, what will happen to the market for specialized devices designed to print images received over outdated phone lines?

Re:Intentions

[intermodal]

Tell you what. When I get a law that makes people keep paying me for work I did decades ago, maybe I'll be ok with songwriters getting the same privilege.

Re:Intentions

[RazzleFrog]

Except that to earn a living then they would have to write a new song every day. Copyrights makes sense on a much more limited basis. An artist could literally spend years working on something without any benefit. It is not unreasonable to expect some term that allows them to benefit exclusively for their work. Otherwise there would be no incentive to create in the first place.

The problem is that the laws have changed to the point where it is almost infinite thanks to the lobbying of the big entertainment companies.

Re:Intentions

[RazzleFrog]

If an artist worked for a company that paid him a fixed hourly/annual wage for the work he does - whether he completes anything or not - then I am sure he would be fine with not getting paid when his work is viewed.

There aren't many companies that pay artists that way, though. Not to mention that the artist would then be stuck producing only what the company wants which leads to the crap Hollywood produces.

If you don't have a compensation model for artists outside of corporations then you aren't going to get good creative artists.

Re:Intentions

[Nickodeimus]

I am speaking from ignorance here, so keep that in mind...

Couldn't you sue them for something like racketeering? I've heard this way too many times from local artists for it not to be true on at least some level.

Re:Intentions

[RazzleFrog]

Well I think some reasonable analysis needs to be done to figure out what is fair compensation. For example:

Let's say author A spends 3 years writing a novel while his wife supports him. In those 3 years, a college educated individual could have earned say $300K (just picking round numbers). Then let's assume that an average novel produces $30K per year in royalties for its author. That means he would need 10 years to break even. Now if his novel is a huge success he's likely to make back far more than that - which is only fair.

Of course, those are bullshit numbers and only one example. Some calculation could be done based on the last 10 years and updated every 10 years as the market changes. Maybe after the calculation is done the copyright term should be 30 years or maybe 5 but it definitely won't be life plus 30.

Re:Intentions

[poetmatt]

it's a very, very high bar for rico/racketeering. Proof of malice or something, if I recall? IANAL (lawyers, correct me?) While that's easily and clearly what ASCAP is doing to the average individual, the likeliness of success in court proving it is basically zero. They get to parade around with this shit saying how they protect "artist's interests" even when artists disagree and/or it's to the artist's own detriment.

Re:Intentions

[Dishevel]

You do not have to run numbers. Cut it to 15 years. If the people stop creating music and literature and movies then we can raise it. If they continue on or even start producing more we can try 10 years. The market will tell us exactly where copyright needs to be.

Re:Intentions

[kiwimate]

Well, it'd be pretty easy to verify, as their books are open to the public to examine. For reference, ASCAP claims 88 cents out of every dollar is distributed to artists.

Of course, they are a member run organization, so members could vote for a different board of directors, or even simply not join.

Re:Intentions

[sconeu]

We need copyright to extend after the death of the author!!!! Otherwise, what motiviation does Elvis Presley have to write new music?

Re:Intentions

[dywolf]

they dont have it any easier, and copywright is not inehrently evil (though it seems to me you take the view they are).

in fact its quite a bit harder. you're probably like me, and work a normal day to day hourly wage job. we work, we get paid. its simple, easy, and garutneed. its very low risk, very low reward, but we make it up on volume of hours worked.

for the sake of discussion, ignoring the MAFIAA and how they have perferted the industry..... ....a music (or any other kind) artist by contrast is not normal day to day work. it is a high risk, high reward situation. the starving artist stereotype is true because that reflects the condition of the majority of "artists": people who have not been and will never be successful.at it. and most artists DO work continuously. so here we have people who work continuously, trying to be successful, trying to get something creative created AND sold to the public, AND get paid for it. a lot of time and effort with a extremely high chance of NOT succeeding. yet people still do it anyway....because its still a high reward comensurate with the high risk.

if you eliminate completely any protections or garuntees of that works profitability (ie, copywright) the reward drops significantly. the creator of a work does have an right to profit from it, for a -reasonable- period of time. this concept of a limited copywright serves both the personal need of the artist to get a reason reward for his creative effort if he is successful, and the public's cultural interest in having works not perpetually owned and locked down.

but that is the key point: the reasonable period of time. very few people take the stance that copywright is inherently evil, and most agree that a limited duration protection incentivizes artists and protects them, while still encouraging them to continue to produce, and serving the public interest. given that, the rest of negotiation of the meaning of "reasonable". and that is precisely where the MAFIAA comes in, and where they have perverted this topic (another perversionis the enslavement of artists, and using hollywood accounting to prevent having to pay them...but that's another topic). Clearly to most of us this perpetual lockdown that they have managed to bring about is UN-reasonable.

but equally unreasonable is the complete abolishment of copyright.
Turn the clock back to a reasonable duration.

Re:Intentions

[EvanED]

You know, where musicians actually make money as opposed to record deals which usually land the artists deeply in debt when they don't pan out?

This isn't necessarily the case, especially for self-published artists. For instance, Zoe Keating has published her revenue breakdown -- only 26% comes from touring. And that's revenue, not profit, and touring is expensive.

Her situation is unique as she is independent (so no label to take profits) and yet reasonably successful. However, the aggregate information based on responses to this survey puts live performance income at 28%, so her experience is right in line with that. (The survey responses are wildly spread out though -- it covers people who just don't do live performances all the way through people who only make money from live performance (6.3%). The number varies a lot by genre; e.g., in rock, the average was 44%. But that's still a long way from "where they actually make money".)

Re:Intentions

[westlake]

You think the songwriters actually get more than a pittance from ASCAP?

Collectively? Yes.

But only the top tier artists are going to see a significant payout.

In 2012, ASCAP collected over US$941 million in licensing fees and distributed $828.7 million in royalties to its members, with an 11.6 percent operating expense ratio. As of July 2013, ASCAP membership included over 460,000 songwriters, composers, and music publishers.

American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers

If you thought LMFAO and Bruno Mars were ubiquitous in this country, good luck trying to avoid them overseas. Songs from both artists, already massive hits at home, were huge earners outside the United States last year.
Of the top 10 earning songs of the year for ASCAP members, four were recorded by Bruno Mars. Although LMFAO's "Party Rock Anthem" scored the most revenue internationally, Bruno Mars swept the next three spots.
In 2012, the organization's foreign revenue topped 340 million, more than double its 2000 foreign revenue of 128 million. As that revenue has grown, it has also increased its share of ASCAP's total. Foreign share of ASCAP revenue was 36% last year, compared with 22% in 2000.
In all, ASCAP takes in about six times what it pays out to performance rights organizations in other countries.
ASCAP collects royalties from performances in foreign countries through its agreements with fellow rights organizations in those territories. It currently collects from 100 such groups, recently adding Uganda.
ASCAP's largest affiliate partner is Britain, from which it receives about 50 million a year for American songs

LMFAO, Bruno Mars top ASCAP's foreign royalties for 2012

Re:Intentions

[The Archon V2.0]

In the real world, paying someone to get money back (and getting nothing) is a Nigerian scam.

In the music world, paying someone to get money back (and getting nothing) is business as usual.

Re:Intentions

[intermodal]

I never argued against having copyrights, as much as the idea appeals to me.

I take the view that copyright is evil, but a necessary one in extremely limited doses for the purposes of encouraging the creation of a rich public domain. And yes, that means the artists necessarily need to make their money while they can from it, as they will (largely) live to see their copyrights expire, and in not all that many years in the grand scheme of things. Which does, effectively, necessitate that the artist continue producing new successful works. I don't see that as unreasonable.

What we have today is anything but serving that purpose.

Re:Intentions

[TENTH SHOW JAM]

No. There is a simple mathematical way. To register a copyrighted work should cost a dollar in the first year. Every man and their dog can register that. It costs double that on year 2. After 10 years it's costing you $1000 ish to own the copyright. So you had better be making more than that for it to be worthwhile. After 15 Years, it's costing you bucket loads.

You can keep paying for the long tail, but now it becomes a business decision over whether you keep a copyright or not. Disney can keep Steamboat Willie indefinitely, if they can afford it.

Re:Intentions

[Shadow of Eternity]

You mean sue the people with hundreds of millions of dollars who can just pay congressmen to vote "yes" on something they wrote?

No public interest?

[redmid17]

Have they heard most of the radio stations operating today? 99.9% of the content is demonstrably not for the public good.

ah the ASCAP

[iggymanz]

these are the choads that wanted royalties for your ringtones, but federal court smacked them down.

Past time to put this cartel parasites to the flames, treat them the same as the mafia.

Re:ah the ASCAP

[Overzeetop]

Oh, they just wanted to double dip on ringtones. Want to record and sell a whole 3 minute song? That'll be 9.6c per track. Want to clip and distribute a 10 second clip of that song as a ringtone? That's 25c. Written into law. They just wanted to get paid a second time for when some asshole's phone rings with a clip of a song you didn't want to hear anyway.

So, it's okay for every other broadcaster...

[Overzeetop]

...to pay a pittance in royalties, and nothing-nada-zilch to the recording artists, but they get all bent out of shape when you do it over this newfangled "internet" thing, even if it's basically the same (Hit 90s Pop on Pandora sounds like every other Clear Channel station out there).

ASCAP is just looking to make sure they don't lose all that money they spent lobbying to get much higher rates for internet streaming than for airwave streaming.

Re: So, it's okay for every other broadcaster...

[hawguy]

the difference is that ASCAP gets a lot more per 'play' from radio stations than they get from streaming sites like Pandora which just isn't fair. Just because a 'play' on terrestrial radio could be head by half the population of Chicago and a streaming 'play' is usually heard by a single person should not be a reason that they shouldn't be paying the same per-play rates right?

If it makes you feel any better about it, no radio "play" will ever be heard by me - the only new music I hear is from Pandora or Spotify (while comutting, I either stream Pandora or a podcast from my phone to my bluetooth enabled car stereo). And I suspect that increasingly, fewer and fewer of the listeners that advertisers care about will be listening to over the air radio.

A major selling point!

[intermodal]

if ASCAP is against it, it must be a good idea!

Re:Wait

[Overzeetop]

Terrestrial radio is not required to pay musicians anything, and never has. Clear Channel has cut a deal to pay them something - no doubt very little, but just enough to keep them from lobbying to get legislation which would force CC to pay a fixed rate.

IIRC, internet radio pays something like 3-10x what terrestrial radio pays to the writers.

Asshat

[dramaley]

Am i the only one who initially read the title as "Asshat Petitions FCC To Deny Pandora's Purchase of Radio Station"?

Re:Asshat

[halexists]

Did reading it differently change the meaning in any way?

Isn't the allegation irrelevant?

[mark-t]

"ASCAP also alleges that Pandora has no intention of operating KXMZ to serve the public interest, but is rather only interested in obtaining lower royalty rates"

Even if true (and I actually have little doubt that it is), does it even matter? If owning and operating a radio station gives them lower royalty rates, as long as they are actually carry out operating such a station, what difference does their incentive make?

Re:Isn't the allegation irrelevant?

[evilviper]

what difference does their incentive make?

When you use the public airwaves, you have to follow the government's rules. Always part of those rules is your service fulfilling some form of public interest. With TV, this means a certain number of hours of children programming, regular news programming, and some emergency news and emergency alert capabilities.

If you don't like the rules, you don't get to use the radio spectrum for free, and can purchase some spectrum from the FCC yourself, at very high rates like the cell phone companies do, and then you can broadcast, to whoever has your proprietary receiver, whatever you want...

Clear Channel got in trouble a while back because their highly automated operations meant no-one was around to answer the phone at a local radio station, so they didn't broadcast the alert the local police wanted to get out to the public, until many hours later. That's the kind of thing that gets broadcasters shut down. That's the kind of thing ASCAP is accusing Pandora *will* do in the future.

If Pandora does a good job running the radio station, more power to them. But they DO have many obligations to the public that they need to fulfill to be licensed by the FCC.

Wha...?

[jdharm]

ASCAP also alleges that Pandora has no intention of operating KXMZ to serve the public interest, but is rather only interested in obtaining lower royalty rates.

A company wants to operate a radio station to make money?! Holy sh*t, this MUST be stopped!

No, not you Clear Channel.

Didn't mean you Entercom.

Of course not you, CBS.

You're fine, Cumulus.

...

OK, so I just read the brief...

[intermodal]

The claim seems to hinge upon the assertion by ASCAP that if Pandora is able to acquire a brick-and-mortar airwave radio station, it will cause "significant economic harm on ASCAP." The fundamental flaw with that argument is that ASCAP is not entitled to have a bad business model protected by the laws or courts. Nor is ASCAP entitled to block anybody from making moves that give them an improved position from which to bargain.

The best comparison I can think of comes from the airline business.

This reminds me of American Airlines trying to sue Southwest out of Love Field in the early 1970s with claims that allowing Southwest to operate out of Love would hurt the newly-opened DFW International Airport (indeed, trying to force Southwest into the agreement between all the other airlines of the day to abandon Love and move to DFW, Southwest's service not having existed when the agreement was forged), and the much more recent United opposing Southwest's plans to go international from Houston Hobby on the grounds that it would adversely affect United's bottom line. Thankfully, the latter was basically shot down by the City of Houston, but the American Airlines fight against Southwest's operation at Love raged on for decades, with Congress getting involved more than once.

Equal pay for equal performance

[Roger W Moore]

Nothing more parasitic than a songwriter getting paid for the public performance of their work... shame on those people... shame.

That's not the issue - the issue is that they should get the same payment regardless of the broadcast medium. Why should an artist get more (or less) money when I listen to their work over an EM transmission through the air as opposed to through a cable? This makes as much sense as basing the royalty rate on the transmission frequency of the radio station.

Re:Not sure why ASCAP is the bad guy here.

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I have nothing against the creators, but when one broadcast format gets preferential treatment over another, I don't see how that serves anyone.

Re:Wait

[omnichad]

Terrestrial radio is required to pay musicians. It's copyrighted material and can't be broadcast without some sort of license agreement. This is usually brokered through an agency like ASCAP/BMI. Clear Channel may have a special agreement with one of those agencies, but they aren't the only ones required to pay.

If a small TV station airs a Ford commercial with copyrighted music in the background, they have to track how many times they air that commercial and pay royalties on that song. It's no different with TV, radio, or Internet. The royalties are just higher for Internet performances.

Re:Wait

[omnichad]

That's definitely outdated. Radio stations have tracking systems to keep track of individual plays of songs now.

Re:Not sure why ASCAP is the bad guy here.

[sjames]

You must not have read that carefully. Why should I pay anyone for the right to perform my own original work in my own venue

I would suggest that they make sure they don't try to bill people who don't owe them anything and that they don't attempt to collect for someone who has not freely made them an agent for that purpose. It's the difference between a business and a racket.