Now They Want Us To Pay For Radio?
Dec 20th, 2007 at 9:38 pm by Susie
Congress is just full of corporate whores. Tom Waits, what are you smoking?
Radio has always had a strange exemption under US law: it doesn’t need to pay the performers of the music it plays. Internet radio needs to pay. Satellite radio needs to pay. Digital music stations transmitted over cable lines have to pay. But not radio.
The House and Senate are now considering matching bills that would remove this inconsistency by forcing terrestrial radio to pay up if it wants to keep playing music—and broadcasters are livid.
While radio does pay a fee to songwriters, it pays no performance rights fee, in contrast to just about every other developed country on the planet. The broadcasters argue that they are providing free advertising to musicians, who then make money from touring and record sales.
Plenty of artists don’t buy this (especially older artists who don’t tour or sell albums, but whose hits still keep oldies stations in business), and they can’t see why radio is exempted from paying for the music it uses to rake in ad dollars. Tom Waits, one of the most innovative singer/songwriters of the last quarter century, helped to found the musicFIRST coalition that advocates for a performance fee. “It’s just plain wrong for radio to be allowed to build profitable businesses with growing revenues on the backs of artists and musicians without paying them fairly for it,” he said in a statement today.
musicFIRST has the backing of some powerful members of Congress. Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA) and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) had now introduced a performance rights bill in the House while Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) introduced the same bill in the Senate. The RIAA, of course, supports the plan.
I am a musician and musicians have pretty much always been screwed by the business guys. However, if Darrel Issa is for it, I’m against it. Period. Every time.
if you don’t have sirius, get it for a month. then try to listen to regular radio, including NPR.
it is worth every penny