Slashdot Mirror
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!!!
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.
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.
There are a lot of people besides artists who work hard to make music. There are many jobs that need to be done. It's like a movie--think of how many people you could name that work on a movie vs how many appear in the credits. Yes, the people you could name get paid more, but everyone else in the industry still would rather have that money to do that movie job than some other job.
Human's have a tendency to focus on the obvious (the star, in this case) and not to think about the everything else--but it's still there, even if we don't think about it. It's like dark matter and dark energy in that way, I guess.
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!
Legislation killed the radio star...
Take off every Sig. For great justice.