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Legislation Would Force Radio Stations To Pay Royalties
Major Blud writes: Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) introduced the "Fair Play Fair Pay Act" today that would end regulations that allow terrestrial radio stations to avoid paying royalties to artists and labels. Currently, AM/FM radio stations aren't required to pay royalties to publishers and songwriters. The proposed measure requires stations that earn less than $1 million a year in revenue to pay $500 annually. For nonprofit public, college and other non-commercial broadcasters, the fee would be $100 per year. Religious and talk stations would be exempt from any payments. Larger radio companies like iHeartMedia (858 stations in the U.S.) would have to pay more.
"The current system is antiquated and broken. It pits technologies against each other, and allows certain services to get away with paying little or nothing to artists. For decades, AM/FM radio has used whatever music it wants without paying a cent to the musicians, vocalists, and labels that created it. Satellite radio has paid below market royalties for the music it uses, growing into a multibillion dollar business on the back of an illogical 'grandfathered' royalty standard that is now almost two decades old," said Congressman Nadler.
"The current system is antiquated and broken. It pits technologies against each other, and allows certain services to get away with paying little or nothing to artists. For decades, AM/FM radio has used whatever music it wants without paying a cent to the musicians, vocalists, and labels that created it. Satellite radio has paid below market royalties for the music it uses, growing into a multibillion dollar business on the back of an illogical 'grandfathered' royalty standard that is now almost two decades old," said Congressman Nadler.
So what you're saying is my college radio didn't need to pay ASCAP and BMI?
Dewey: Oh, you wanna learn something?
Summer: Yes, I do.
Dewey: You want me to teach you something? [most of the students nod] Here's a useful lesson for you: give up. Just quit. Because in this life, you can't win. Sure, you can try. [really getting angry] But in the end you're just gonna lose, BIG TIME. Because THE WORLD is run by the Man.
Frankie: Who?
Dewey: The Man. Oh, you don't know the Man? [class shakes their heads] He's everywhere. In the White House, down the hall, MISS MULLINS, she's the Man. And the Man ruined the ozone, and he's burning down the Amazon, and he kidnapped Shamu and put her in a chlorine tank! Okay? And there used to be a way to stick it to The Man. It was called rock ‘n’ roll. But guess what. Oh, no. The Man ruined that too with a little thing called MTV! So don’t waste your time trying to make anything cool or pure or awesome, because The Man’s just going to call you a fat, washed up loser and crush your soul. So do yourselves a favor and just GIVE UP!!!
Death to free radio act.
Now I can finally sleep at night, knowing that those poor, starving artists are being properly compensated...
This will really hurt radio industry douchebags and enrich music industry douchebags. For the trifecta, they can amend the bill to make the so-called artists donate 10% of the royalties to the Westboro Baptist Church.
For decades, AM/FM radio has used whatever music it wants without paying a cent to the musicians, vocalists, and labels that created it.
That's because radio is free advertising for the artists. Now they want the free advertising and to get paid for it, too? In decades past, the labels would bribe radio station PD's to get their music played; I wonder if they'd rather return to that model where it costs them money (and coke, and cars, and plane tickets) to get their artists some airtime?
Speaking of payola, it should come as no surprise that "TV/Movies/Music" are among the top 3 industries donating money to both Mr. Nadler and Ms. Blackburn.
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
There's NOTHING in the bill that would pay artists,
only record companies.
As to the comments on ASCAP and BMI. In most cases "license fees" are another term for royalties. And in this case they are.
This is more backdoor BS by the record company shills.
'grandfathered' royalty standard that is now almost two decades old," said Congressman Nadler.
Is it just me, or is that pretty young for regulations? Do we really need to re-write the laws every five years? I'm pretty liberal, but I don't see how businesses can make any long term plans if regulations are going to shift that rapidly.
I'm so confused now. There are artists, song writers, labels and publishers. Then there is physical media, purchased digital, free streaming, paid streaming, AM/FM and satellite. Who is getting paid and who is paying?
Some radio stations would definitely fold under this scheme, as they'd have to be more commercially oriented than now...
IMO, the RIAA/MPAA can go fuck themselves... they're the ones killing the music/movie industry
In France, the SACEM is in charge of having any "music player" to pay something. "Music players" include TV, radio, nightclubs and even restaurants, cafés... someone plays some music, and there is always a SACEM agent to ensure they pay something, these people are as sticky as a pita.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
What principled justification would there be for excluding 'religious' and 'talk' stations from payment? One would think that any 'religious' station would either be a nonprofit or deserve to pay like any other business; and 'talk' is huge business, and presumably not a terribly heavy consumer of music.
I can take a few guesses about the pragmatic political considerations for those exemptions; but they aren't exactly complementary.
...stations be free of this forced payola as well? If not, is there are list somewhere of which dieties must be worshipped to escape this tax?
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
Speaking of updating outdated regulations... Is it time to give some thought to the amount of precious, precious, spectrum we dedicate to broadcasting low quality audio using extraordinarily archaic techniques? Sure, I appreciate being able to tune in to talk radio with nothing but a chunk of germanium and the patience to poke it until it agrees to start rectifying; but I need a better reason than that to operate a dinosaur preserve.
They tried that in the late 60's in Australia. So the Aust. radio stations refused to play any US pop/rock and concentrated on available UK bands That very thing allowed the local industry to air home grown tracks on radio (and TV) and I for one think it was the beginning of the early commercial Oz music. Eventually the USA licensors gave up but the re-uptake of US bands by radio stations was slow.
The other thing is that quite a few radio stations are owned by religious organizations, even though they are full commercial for the added revenue.
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
We now know the names of the two Congress critters who are owned by the RIAA/ASCAP/BMI.
Why is Snark Required?
Nearly all terrestrial radio stations are part of a larger media conglomerate that are all vertically integrated. So the bulk of payments would be companies paying themselves? Is this some kind of tax dodge in the works? Or maybe it is the music industry about to go into another round of eating itself.
Revolution is the opium of the intellectuals.
It pits technologies against each other, and allows certain services to get away with paying little or nothing to artists.
Just like the record companies, you mean?
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Why are we giving preferential treatment to religion and pompous windbags again? They're the ones with THE MOST MONEY.
I mean this is what...15 years after Napster? We've had Pandora, Spotify, Grooveshark, Slacker, etc. for years now. Plus iTunes, Google Play and Amazon MP3. And the exceptionally lazy/cheap can use Youtube for all their music needs.
But no, now is the moment that we will make those motherfuckers in radio pay.
Not that I've any love of Clear Channel, but still. Terrestrial radio is already an almost unbearable promotional and self-promotional machine (I know this because I have an old car without an audio line in or even CD player.) Satellite radio, while having some nice content, is more expensive than all of their internet competitors while being much less flexible and having a much smaller selection.
This isn't going to give the artists a significant amount of money, but it is going to waste a significant amount of time.
Why the special handling of talk stations or - especially - religious stations? Given the tremendous wealth of churches, which themselves are already exempt from many taxes, there is no real reason for them not to pay the artists ... ... (of course allowing them to deduct expenses for operations as well as any cost that benefit needy etc. ...)
On a more general terms, all religions ought to be paying for their profits
To some bureaucratic organization that keeps 99 cents of every dollar to cover the administrative costs and lets the artists share the remaining one cent?
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
"For decades, AM/FM radio has used whatever music it wants without paying a cent to the musicians"
That is completely false. They pay to ASCAP and BMI, who in turn pay to the musicians. That is why those organisations exist.
The real issue here is that those organisations are shameless parasites who take almost all the money for themselves before passing anything to the people they claim to represent.
A finer example of how utterly venal the music business is. Any musician who deals with them gets what they deserve, in my opinion.
"And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
Radio stations don't make a lot of money and publishers have been happy for many years with the status quo. I think this is really about hammering internet radio services. Internet radio services point at AM/FM services and say "look at them, they don't pay either"... and as a result, that depresses the bargaining position of publishers with internet radio.
They want more money from internet radio. And that's also silly because that is also a marginal business. They're basically not making money as it is. If they are forced to pay more they have to charge more and asking listeners to pony up more money every month is going to depress subscriptions and possibly drive the entire service into bankruptcy. Leaving the industry with nothing but itunes and piracy.
The music industry is run by idiots. We've known this for years. They were approuched by the founders of napster long before they actually started pushing pirated music. They said "hey, lets set up a music service run by the music industry.". We all know what happened. The music bozos threw them out and said don't come back.
How has that worked out for the music business? They keep thinking they can turn the clock back. They can't. They need to get ahead of the curve or get crushed.
Their cash reserves and social capital/clout are a diminishing resource. The window of opportunity to have any agency in this issue is closing. They can either wake up or become irrelevant.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
So will it be OK to play religious music - or if a station is predominantly religious to play some pop music? Giant loophole.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Now, how are we going to calculate how much the music industry and artists owe radio for all the decades of free marketing and hit-manufacturing?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Skim all they can until radio stations are suddenly very affordable as label-exclusive marketing arms ... as if they're not 90% of the way there already.
You're looking for quotes? See my journal.
Yes they absolutely would LOVE to return to the days of Payola, because that meant THEY were in control of what got played on the air, when, and thus in control of WHO WAS POPULAR.
They aren't pissed the internet plays music, they love that. What they hate is that they cannot control who hears what, where, and when and thus figure out how best to monetize it and get back into the glory days of hookers and blow once more.
Its not about revenue, it never was. Its always been about control. Control makes revenue meaningless because they can affect revenue directly if they can tell the public who they have to blow their money on this month.
Always always always look for the truth behind the lie. If they say its about the money, you can believe that is the last thing its about.
Want to starve 'The Man' out of existence, deny 'The Man' access to your wallet, deny 'The Man' access to your choices, deny 'The Man' access to your relationships, deny 'The Man' everything you can, you might not win but when enough of us do it, 'The Man', also loses.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Just when you thought Radio couldn't get any worse...
Scrap goddamn copyright law already, this is WAY out of hand...
Radio = FREE ADVERTISING, consider yourself lucky if your music gets played/
Thank god for mp3 players, haven't used the radio in years (thanks to the FCC helping destroy radio by letting the same two or three companies own EVERY station in every market)
The fallout from this will be more radio stations transitioning to talk radio formats. Fewer people will hear the corporate music. Sales will plummet.
Failure to tax an entity solely on religious grounds is tantamount to State sponsorship of that religion.
Taxing a religious entity is absolutely nothing like infringing upon the free exercise of religion by an individual. People are still free to practice their religion all they want even if their organized, usually for-profit religious entity has to pay a tax.
The article quotes "all artists are fairly compensated".
Why would the publishers and music companies ever support something like that? Their business is based on making sure artists collect as little as possible of their royalties, assisted by collecting organisations siphoning off their share.
Something smells fishy, unless this is actually a strike against middlemen like the BMI? Probably with the end goal of handing collection over to the music biz further guaranteeing artists don't in fact get "fairly compensated".
And extend it from terrestrial broadcasts to satellite and internet radio? Never did understand why the recording industry gets to charge some people to advertise their product.
you might not win but when enough of us do it, 'The Man', also loses.
And this is why civilizations fall, instead of fixing themselves. Because revolution only works when enough of us are on the same page at once. Nobody wants to be first. By the time enough people are upset to fix things, the society falls into revolt and then you usually get an even worse government, which is just as corrupt as the old government but also ignorant of how to operate a nation.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
My problem with commercial radio is that you can often set your watch by which song is playing.
I was on vacation a month or so, an on one particular day, it seemed every damned time I was in the car it was the exact same song playing.
I think this royalty thing, however, is complete and utter crap, because I completely disagree that the music studios should be paid royalties for the music stations to keep overplaying their pop songs.
I suspect if the radio stations didn't just keep paying the same songs over and over they'd be less popular or even well known.
And, of course, the real eventual grab here is the claim that every time I play something I've bought I should also be paying them ... because music companies are run by assholes whose greed knows no bounds.
At the end of the day I don't care if they try to put radio stations out of business, because I've given up listening to radio. But I'm still someone who buys a LOT of music and rips them to MP3. And it irks me to no end these clowns are likely sitting around trying to figure out how to have my iPod collect payment every time I play a song.
I sincerely hope they try this and then suddenly find nobody plays their pop songs on rotation and their record sales fall even further. Then these idiots might realize they can't monetize every damned play of a song without cutting out how many they actually sell.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) - Oct 1, 2012 - Sep 30, 2014:
#1 Lawyers/Law Firms - $123,056
#2 TV/Movies/Music (RIAA) - $95,600
Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) - Oct 1, 2012 - Sep 30, 2014
#1 Health Professionals - $244,950
#2 Pharmaceuticals/Health Products - $155,250
#3 Oil & Gas - $111,100
#4 TV/Movies/Music (RIAA) - $95,450
For less than $100,000 per year you too can own a couple members of Congress.
LICENSES are merely the means to collect the fees to pay the royalties. They are, in fact one and the same. One is merely the means of securing the other.
BMI and ASCAP pay the writers of the music.
RIAA is payment merely for the use of a recording.
Frankly, any such law, should state that 75% of the royalties should go directly to the artists. Otherwise, there should be no collection. Presently, most artists rarely see any of their royalties. It used to be because artists were indebted to the recording studios. But these days, many artists self-produce professional quality musicin home studios - often of better quality than the recording label studios. (As the latter rush the production of the recording, where as home studio artists spend hundreds and thousands of hours tweaking things to perfection.)
All they have to do is pick one of the big 5 labels, one of the smaller two. And say....
Oops....NONE OF YOUR ARTISTS are getting any airplay.
That label will tank, as none of their artists will get sales. Meanwhile, those artists will riot, because they will be locked into contracts unable to move to another company, and unable to make profits. The result - RIAA will backpedal.
Music artists would not be famous without radio station playing music that they think we want to hear. So now that I am famous, you need to pay me for making me famous.
Why exactly is our government passing laws that make a private business process mandatory? Who got paid off to make this happen?
Royalties make baby jesus cry.
How much will radio stations charge the artists for advertising their music so that people buy their songs?
They should get a fine for overplaying a song. That would end the largest problem in the history of radio.
Radio should play whatever the hell it wants. And people whose music is played should pay radio ("payola") because their sales increase from the exposure.
If stations have to license music to play it, then perhaps terrestrial radio should start playing more new artists, and fuck the major labels. seriously, fuck them to hell.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
For 6 weeks a year I have a compilation of Christmas music that I broadcast online for anyone to listen to. Two years ago I figured I'd go legal and do my bit to make sure artists get paid, so I set up an account at Stream Licensing, mostly since I didn't want to deal with individual licensing organizations. The rules placed on SL that then get placed on me are crazy. Here's a small sample from their TOS
Not only that, I can't have users go directly to my site to listen. I need to either include a flash player widget on my site or create a frame that really goes to SL's site in order to give people a link to go to.
If the terrestrial radio stations aren't paying anything... and there's now one US Satellite music company basically... how in the hell can you say the one satellite music company that IS paying you at least something is paying "below market royalties". I mean, what are they calling the "market" royalties as the only other thing really left is internet streaming, which they made sure years ago to put in place a crazy high rate.
Was that the plan all along? Get internet radio stations to have to pay some crazy royalty fee and then later bitch that the other options, like satellite, are paying a "below market royalty" compared to internet streaming? I mean, it's not really below market, it's just lower than your extremely high forced/made up market price...
People still listen to the radio ?
Why ?
I turned it off years ago after tiring of hearing the same music over and Over and OVER again. You can damn near set your watch between the time you hear a particular song and the next time you hear it. Repeatable throughout the day. EVERY DAY. :|
Hell, for that matter, I don't even listen to commercialized music anymore. It's all homogenized and built around a template designed to make the studios as much money as possible. The audio is highly compressed and pushed to clipping limits across the entire waveform. If nothing else, the internet has given me the opportunity to listen to music that isn't part of the forced popularity program that the radio stations have turned into.
Libraries buy copies of music, then loan those out to the public. No royalties needed. Maybe not the same as a radio station, but if libraries are ever allowed and able to go mostly digital, they will become able to broadcast all over the world as easily as radio stations now broadcast to small areas near their transmitters.
This royalties scheme sounds like an attempt to quietly add a whole other business model and profit mechanism to the music industry, without them having to give up anything. Typical of the rotten deals big business offers the public.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
This situation is clearly something that few understand. We have two different aspects of copyright here On one hand we have ASCAP and BMI as well as Harry Fox Agency who have responsibilities to handle the income from radio play on behalf of their member songwriters and their publishers.
However due to an exemption granted by US Congress around 1937 terrestrial radio was granted a limited reprieve from paying the owners of the sound recordings (not publishers, who get paid) any royalties in order to build their broadcasting networks. You would think that by now they have built them after almost 80 years?
To add insult to injury, because this ruling prevents foreign copyright owners from collecting any performance royalties from their material being broadcast by US radio, these countries around the world reciprocate and deny US owners of sound recordings any income from music they own that gets played on radio stations around the globe, which unlike the US typically do pay sound recording owners for the use of this material.
Clearly, most if not all radio stations around the rest of the world do pay sound recording owners for use of songs in their catalogs, and still manage to thrive.
But the lobbying power of the NAB (National broadcasters' association) and the dizzying amounts of money they've spent spreading FUD on making US radio like the rest of the world would be the death of them -> the famous campaign "The Day They Killed The Music" which should really be renamed "The Day They Killed Fat Corporate Profits To Radio Mega-Conglomerates".
Because even though terrestrial stations across the entire planet have managed to thrive and survive while paying such fees to sound recording owners for all of these years, somehow in the US enacting this legislation would make them die off. Well, one thing for sure: they'd make less profits because they would have to share some of the income with the very people who created the sound recordings; yes, those that they have gotten in the habit of using for free.
It used to be that "one hand washes the other" because radio play ensured such massive sales that those who got their music played reaped a huge windfall in record sales. So it was tolerated, and no one in their right frame of mind would have dared challenge this. But now that record sales are down to a trickle of their former glory, it's looking as if the exemption has run its course and it doesn't make sense anymore to let radio stations benefit from this anachronistic advantage that hurts sound recording owners doubly by also denying them income from play of their masters overseas.
Again: sound recordings, not the musical compositions themselves nor the publishers who represent the interest of those who wrote them.
Lastly, a few years ago terrestrial radio was obviously quite keen on forcing Internet radio startups (unwanted competition) to pay these royalties to sound recording owners they themselves are exempt from. Surely they could anticipate that by doing this, someone was going to eventually challenge their hegemony, and call for fairness across the whole spectrum of broadcasters. Classic case of pot calling the kettle back.
They've gotten away with it for so long, and built empires from this exemption. It's time for this anachronistic advantage to be erased. One thing we can be sure: they'd rather spend billions making sure it never turns into law rather than spending the same paying it to the owners of the sound recordings whose catalogs they built their business model around, by using them for free for so many decades.
In the beginning labels were paying stations to play their artists music, now stations will pay artists or rather labels to play their artists music.
Why again do they assume this will benefit the artists?
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Well, "performers" certainly isn't in there.
They are if they are also composers.
But these days, many artists self-produce professional quality musicin home studios - often of better quality than the recording label studios.
How do artists who write their own songs make sure that these songs are in fact original? See, for example, "My Sweet Lord" by George Harrison that was discovered to have been a subconscious copy of "He's So Fine" by Ronald Mack, or "Stay with Me" by Sam Smith that was discovered to have been a subconscious copy of "I Won't Back Down" by Tom Petty.
There are a lot of people besides artists who work hard to make music. There are many jobs that need to be done.
And the people who do these important jobs ought to be paid for their time on a "work made for hire" basis, as opposed to a residual basis. Does the company that built an office building, for example, continue to receive royalties from transactions conducted in that building?
a song can only be sold once to a listener
Then what are vinyl, replacement for worn vinyl, cassette, CD, DVD Audio/SACD, MP3, and higher bitrate MP3?
Now that Google Maps has added the real time traffic overlay on maps, even that is going away as people use a cell GPS to avoid traffic gridlock.
Radio is a way of avoiding having to pay a cell carrier an extra $400 a year for a data plan in order to stream music or traffic data in a moving vehicle.
For years broadcasters have been trying to kill alternative radio(streaming, satellite) by saying they must pay fees much higher than they do. Now it's their turn. If radio stations are making a profit of playing music, then a percentage of the profit is due back. If the station is small or makes little to no income then their money paid would be much lower or zero. They need to base it on each stations income and make the same rules apply to all (broadcast, streaming, satellite, podcasts). They can't charge a small online radio station something like $500, but a major market radio station would be different.
Make a clear statement that pre-1972 recordings have value and those who are profiting from them must pay appropriate royalties for their use
So, royalties for songs that are 43 years old and older... I can hear the founding fathers crying from their graves.
-TheDawgLives suckitdown
I am sick to death of "religious" groups getting a pass on taxes and fees. 99% of those organizations are big businesses with only the loosest of ties to "faith." Let them pay, pay, and pay again like every other business.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
since the late 40s, ASCAP has required licenses for airplay, and the broadcasters created their own licensing agency, BMI in the 50s. when I was growing up a broadcast brat, the music director weeded out incoming discs that were not of those two organizations (CAPAC in Canada later reached a deal with ASCAP to collect their royalties), and counted up the needle drops. nickle a drop in those days, it was raised to 7 cents a play in the 70s. stations cut their check every month to the agencies.
in the past dozen-odd years, BMI in particular has been putting boots on the ground, checking restaurants, coffee shops, doctors offices, whatever to see if they had a reuse license for music. if you had Muzak or 3M service, they walked out. if not, and you didn't have a license, it was mafia time... sign a contract right there, or you're sued. it applies whether you have your own discs or tapes, or are playing the radio.
recently outfits have been putting up their own music streams across their chains... "Subway radio" "LA Fitness Network" and so on. if the HQs don't have their licenses, as Muzak and 3M arranged, they are up shit crick.
why this bozo congresscritter didn't do any research of his own... oh that's right, their instructions are in the envelope with the cash... well, he's an idiot.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
1) if you play music beyond personal enjoyment, which license is inherent in "buying a record," you need to license the play with ASCAP or BMI as appropriate for the song. scale varies depending on audience size; there are deals for radio stations and web usage.
2) if you wish to license the songs for playing in your own band for public performance, there is a set rate.
3) if you would like a custom album or CD for a special occasion, you need to license master usage from the Harry Fox Agency. I thought about it for my wedding music, but looked north of $60 a copy. nope.
4) if by chance you wanted any artwork used on the original album, you would have to negotiate that with the art owner, typically the record company.
this is why all the record outfits have "special services" departments. correlate it all, make the package, one stop, one check.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Someone composes/writes a song, they get royalties for life on it. Performers not so much.
If we did the same thing for the movie industry, the majority of money for the blockbuster movies would be going to the script writers(as opposed to the scale lump sum they normally get now) instead of the producers/directors/actors. But maybe we'd be getting some more innovative and original movies for a change.
Media company founders did one important thing: be born earlier. The Walt Disney Company, for example, was able to "plunder" the public domain, dupe legislatures into extending the copyright term so that no one else can do the same, and then secure trademarks on the names of characters in notable fairy tales. For instance, if modern copyright terms existed in the early 1940s, the film Pinocchio would have infringed a copyright owned by the estate of Carlo Collodi. And if you search USPTO.gov, you'll find a trademark owned by Disney for the name "PINOCCHIO".
Thanks, have a nice day :)
http://www.educa.net/primeros-...
what property-rights hating country would allow that to happen?
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Religious and talk radio stations can cough up the 100$ as easily or as difficult as non-profits ,so why exclude them? I do agree that ARTISTS should be compensated for their work, but the royalties go to the rights owners which in most cases are either rich individuals or corporations or the publishing record labels. The system is broken because most of money does not end up with the artists, but with others. Yes, they do on occasion shoulder the risk and make upfront payments for production and distribution, but they charge those expenses back to the artists. This is why many rather turn to YouTube, give their recordings away for free, and focus more on live performances and touring where the artists get a much bigger cut than by selling CDs. Especially now that more and more distribution occurs digitally reducing the production and distribution expenses significantly the money left over for record labels, managements, and rights owners is getting much bigger (something they now realize after going ballistic on Napster years back instead of embracing the new channel).
Further, the copyright law needs fixing. Royalties are to be paid to the original artists until their death (record labels and others can sign contracts with them securing their cut) and after that 30 years (one generation) to the rights holder. After that the work is royalty free, but not public domain, means it can only be used by giving proper credit.
If politicians want to fix the system, they should put the artists in control and end the business of cashing in on music generations later. Having folks collect the money even 70 years after the artist died or in some cases even longer is just plain wrong! The term limit should go back to the 1790s act which is much more along the American spirit where every generation has to earn its own wealth, not live off some work others did. For same reason inheritances need to be taxed heavily if they are above a specific limit (don't tax gramma's old house, but tax grampa's global corp)....but that is a different discussion.
Especially AM broadcast! While it has a far reach and is really simple to operate about 98% of the energy needed is used to heat air. AM radio is a colossal energy waster...and who the frack listens to these whacked out talk hosts (RL comes to mind) anyway?