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Now there is a newswire headline that caught my eye, and the article itself is fairly interesting:
U.S. lawmakers on Tuesday introduced legislation to undo a 50-year-old exemption that lets big radio companies like Clear Channel Communications Inc and CBS Corp air songs without paying record labels or performers any royalties.
For decades, the $20 billion radio broadcasting industry has paid royalties to songwriters and music publishers for the underlying rights to the songs played on the air, but have been excused from paying royalties to artists or labels for when their sound recordings were used.
It was a long-held view within the music industry that radio airplay was a critical and necessary marketing expense.
But with music sales in a protracted decline and with new types of broadcasters, like satellite and Web radio operators, being forced to pay performance royalties, the music industry has begun pushing for compensation from terrestrial radio.
At first glance, I think this is a very interesting development. XM Radio, a long-time supporter of our music, has been required to pay royalties on every spin from the start - and the checks we receive are reasonably good income. It’s not enough to justify a master recording, but multipled by 200 or 500 additional radio stations and it would go a long way towards artist development and renewed viability in the musicsphere.
And the fees do not appear to be a burden for XM or Sirius, although any additional expense for existing radio (or any business, for that matter) will certainly be felt by those closest to the action - and likely impact the smaller, and more supportive, stations where margins are thin already. Public radio will probably remain exempt, and I’m sure dozens of other details will emerge if the NAB doesn’t shoot it down with their DC gang first.
But frankly, I think the NAB deserves some grief; they played dirty in trying to block the Sirius/XM merger, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the two satellite firms aren’t “educating” our elected officials on the business discrepancies themselves as a form of retaliation against Big Radio. Good for them.
I’m not certain if I am for-or-against proposal at this point, but in general I like a level playing field with equal rules. And since “50-year old exemptions” tend to reek of deals struck in dark and smoky rooms, at first glance the review sounds long-overdue.
Update: I found another article on Take Country Back that goes into more depth regarding fee structures, etc. I should have known - they are great about keeping up with news like this. See also: Wired Digital Music News
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