The RDS display on my car radio has recently started displaying SAVE YOUR RADIO DOT ORG where the song title should go, on several stations. So I looked it up.
Apparently, owners of the music want radio stations to pay for playing their music. Radio stations are opposed to this, of course. But the music owners, according to this site, want to get money through a “performance tax” on radio stations, apparently with the money somehow being funneled back to the artists and record companies.
It’s a little confusing to me, because normally a tax collected by the government doesn’t get funneled back to a specific group. I’m all for the right of the IP owners negotiating whatever arrangement they want with the radio stations, but I’m foursquare against using the government as their hired goon.
Do I understand this correctly? That web site is pretty darn slanted and I’m not sure I trust it.
It’s not really a tax. The bill would require that radio stations playing music would have to pay recording royalties on recorded music. Here’s an articleabout it.
So it’s not a tax, and the web site lied. Well their credibility just plummeted.
But I don’t see why the government needs to get involved. Record companies already get royalties from businesses that play music in their stores and restaurants. It seems this could be covered by the same kind of arrangement, and much more easily - they don’t have to hire people to go into radio stations to see what they play - it’s broadcast over the air!
If there’s a law standing in the way of that, it should be done away with. But it doesn’t seem right to have the government mandate the arrangement.
I think your looking at it the wrong way around. Companies get royalties for businesses playing their music because the gov’t, through the 1972 law, got involved and passed a law making such performances illegal without payment. Because the gov’t didn’t get involved with radio stations, they can avoid paying. Without further gov’t involvement through the proposed act, they will be able to keep playing the music without paying royalties. Copywrites are created by the gov’t to encourage innovation, if their is no law creating a copywrite, then there isn’t any reason for people to pay royalties.
I’m sort of interested what effect legislation like this will have. If artists and labels are able to opt out of payments, then I’d suspect radio stations might be incentivized to play more lesser known bands, since they’d be the most likely to forgo payment in return for the free publicity. On the other hand, the effect may just be less music on the airwaves.
Right. It’s the law that mandates who should pay royalty payments and to whom. The RIAA’s position is that the radio stations are broadcasting the music and profiting from doing so, and so should pay royalties. The NAB’s position is that playing such much benefits the performers by providing free advertising for them, and leads people to buy their recordings.
Would that radio would play more interesting artists/independent/unsigned artists. But based on my years in the business I’m almost certain stations would program more nationally syndicated, profit proven, ratings stable talk. Or infomercials. Or ads.
For most run-of-the-mill radio stations, music is just a means to get ratings and thus set advertising rates. Listeners tend not to listen to music they don’t get/don’t already know is popular/comes in a package they recognize. Unfortunately, new/independent/lesser known music = ratings drops = lower ad rates.
Most people not in the industry think FM radio is about the music. It’s not. All radio is about selling advertising.
A variety of those ‘save radio’ commercials have been playing on the AM stations for a while now. Some are funny, some are scary (complete with Twilight Zone music), some are pity pleas (‘who will host the fundraisers for starving children?’) and some are slightly threatening stating that you could turn on your radio soon and hear this …(dead air).
Since the commercials were playing so heavily on AM, I just assumed whatever they were saying was a lie. The website I have been hearing advertised is TalkPac.
I’m not familiar with how record companies get compensated right now for their performance copyrights. I had assumed that they had the rights to it, so got to decide when they let someone else have access to it. I’m somewhat familiar with patents, and it seems like a similar IP idea.
It seems like if stores want to play copyrighted music, they need to negotiate with the owners, else the owners can sue them for using their stuff without permission. I thought that’s how the record companies currently worked it with stores playing music, and they had some general blanket agreement that everyone would have to agree to or not participate. I didn’t know Congress was involved. I don’t see why Congress needs to get involved.
And I don’t see why Congress needs to get involved with radio stations either. If the recordings are copyrighted, the owners get to set the terms for their commercial use. Seems simple enough to me, but I’d appreciate someone explaining to me what I’m missing, because I’m sure it must be something.
It’s too late to save the radio. It’s already controlled by vast monopolies that have made radio a vast wasteland of sameness. Even Satellite Radio has very little variety to choose from.
Fuck the radio, fuck Clear Channel and fuck the RIAA.
The bill makes sense logically. There’s no reason why an internet or cable radio station should have to pay royalties to performers while a terrestrial station doesn’t.
But it’s pretty cheeky, considering that only a few years ago labels were compensating stations to play their music via the independent promotion system. Now that the labels aren’t making money like they used to and radio play isn’t the overwhelming factor in record sales anymore, radio has ceased to be useful for the labels, so they want to get that revenue stream back.
It’s mostly a fight between the major radio conglomerates and the big record conglomerates, which AFAIC are equally odious. I’m more concerned with how it affects independent labels and noncommercial and small time radio, and it doesn’t seem to be too harsh on them. I wish they would just exempt noncommercial radio entirely, though.
Actually, that’s not really true any more. The model of a national company holding stations across the country (the “Clear Channel” model) isn’t really viable. What you see now is smaller regional broadcasters owning 5-15 stations.
AIUI, the beef is that under the current system, all royalties go to the songwriter, with the recording artist getting nothing. Radio stations enter into agreements with ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, or some combination of these for the right to play music represented by these agencies. Once a year, the station has to submit additional logs to show what they played so royalties can be distributed.
The argument as presented is disingenuous for a couple of reasons. First, it’s not uncommon for the recording artist to claim a songwriter credit, at least for new songs, so they’re getting paid anyway. Second, radio is merely a promotional tool. It’s intended to introduce music to the public, who will then purchase the song or the album and attend concerts, which do benefit the recording artist. It’s a loss leader and it’s always been treated as such. Methinks it’s another grab for money on the part of the recording industry, and it’s a desire for a struggling industry not to have to pay more than they already do.
AM stations sometimes have unsold ad time. They fill in their breaks with public service announcements. :shrug: