Singers tell Congress: Money, That's What I Want (Radio stations may pay more royalties)

Associated Press/Yahoo! ^ | May 3, 2009 | By RYAN NAKASHIMA

[MaestroLC]

(excerpt)

A bill moving through Congress aims to change that. It would let performers and the recording labels get a share of the ad revenue that radio stations collect from playing their songs. This pool of royalties could be hundreds of millions a year — which would be crucial for the record industry, as compact disc sales plummet and digital song sales aren't making up the difference.

It could also unlock an estimated $70 million to $100 million per year that is collected by radio stations abroad for U.S. artists, but never paid out because U.S. stations don't pay foreign artists in return. France, for example, takes the U.S. artists' portion and puts it into French cultural funds.

There have been more than half a dozen attempts since the 1970s to enact a performers' royalty on Capitol Hill. All have faltered to a powerful radio station lobby headed by the National Association of Broadcasters. The association says performers and record labels are already compensated — they sell songs and concert tickets because of the radio airplay they get. The NAB says the long history of record labels paying disc jockeys for extra rotations helps prove the point.

This time, however, the music industry thinks it can win. In the last two decades, recording companies have secured royalties from other formats: Internet radio, satellite radio and music channels on cable TV services. Mitch Bainwol, the chairman of the Recording Industry Association of America, says he's prepared for a "multiyear" fight.

The bill has the support of the Judiciary Committee Chairman, Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., and is set for final revisions this month before possibly being sent to the House floor for debate.

Radio stations say the renewed push couldn't have come at a worse time.

[skr]

When is the fashion industry going to charge us all for seeing their designs, even if we aren’t wearing them?

[muawiyah]

As Prince has demonstrated, just hauling people to court doesn't get more money out of them (which is all that happens if a law is passed). Instead, you get an exclusive distribution contract with a non-traditional music distributor like Target. Then the money rolls in.

Oh, yeah, and it helps to publish sounds folks want to hear. Too much recent material is just so much garbage.

[dila813]

Sounds like they are trying to kill the FM Dial, strange.... More Right Wing Radio? This time on the FM Dial!

[Mark was here]

Seems to me the artists should be the ones paying to have their commercials played.

[mysterio]

Maybe now the radio stations will wise up and tell the record companies to piss off. There’s independent music that is much better than the top 40 stuff that the record companies payola the radio station monopoly to play.

[Question_Assumptions]

What other sort of work can a person do once and then live off of for the next 40 years by making money from that work 40 years later?

[Venturer]

I would love to see the musinc recording industry go broke.

The these mental midgets who become political genius’s after they get rich could take their political views and shove them.

[max americana]

I couldn;t even stand today’s “talent”. Well, calling them “talented” is really a stretch when I rarely listen to music on the radio when I almost everyone has an mp3 to cut down on talky DJ’s.

If the bill passes, most of the stations today will gravitate towards talk radio just to cut down on paying these overrated hacks.

[Secret Agent Man]

Why do we assume that musicians were only getting paid what was fair when the prices were high? Could it be they too were overvalued? Perhaps this correction is showing what they are really worth.

They are trying to artificially prop up and justify costs that just aren’t there. I am all for getting what you’re worth but if the costs go down in a free market, the market is telling you you were over-valued for what you were offering. And nobody is guaranteed they will only get more money every year.

Reality hitting the untouchable music stars. Guess you can’t blow a ton of money on drugs and babes anymore. Live like the rest of the civilized world.

[Arkinsaw]

Here is my opinion....get the government out of the way and let them charge whatever outrageous prices it is that they have in mind here. If they want to charge $1000 a song fine. Who am I, or the government, to impose some price on them?

Let them charge their magic number and see what happens to them.

[The Great RJ]

Between this bill and a re-enactment of the Fairness Doctrine radio in the US will be killed. When stations are blocked from talk radio and can’t afford to play recorded music the result will be programing like Aunt Mildred’s Recipe Hour that will draw an audience of tens.

[John Will]

The Record Companies are simply in the era before the internet, struggling to hang on to life. A new band could very easily “leak” their music onto the torrent networks increasing exposure faster than the old ways of the Record Companies.