Performance Rights Act - Essay Example

Performance Rights Act Performance Rights Act/ The Debate If there hadn't been free radio, there would not have been a Loretta Lynn. She was one of many new recording artists that used the radio to get the word out. Without them to play her records for free she would not be what she has been since which is the Queen of Country. Recording artists have not been paid for the time their songs have been played on the radio but they also have not paid for the play time. This paper will discuss the new Performance Rights Act and what that might mean to both sides of this story. The Performance Rights act bill is presently under discussion in Congress. It is actually one of nine bills headed for the same thing but with a little different wordage. The plan is to require all radio performances including terrestrial radio, to pay performance license fees to artists for the broadcast of music (ecoustics.com). At this point in time webcasters , satellite companies, and cable companies all pay artists and others for the right to play recorded music but terrestrial radio is not required to do so. The nine bills that are now in Congress are meant to try to equalize this situation. Some of those bills are HR4788 sponsored by Representative Howard Berman, HR 848 presented by Representative John Conyers and another by Senator Partick Leahy. Senator Leahy states that presently it is very unfair and unjust for the radio companies not to have to pay for recordings. To them, it is there livelihood and it is unjust to not get paid for what they do as artists. The Performance Rights bill is meant to stop that unfairness(ecoustics.com). The Performance Rights bill will close an ancient loop hole in the copyright law that was created and allowed AM & FM radio stations to earn $16 million a year in advertising revenue without compensating the artists and musicians who have brought them the music in the first place. These artists bring the music to life and the music brings the listeners to the radio dial (ecoustics.com). AM & FM radio because of the loop hole is the only platform of music that does not pay the artists and musicians a fee for the use of their music, in fact this is the only country in which this occurs. According to the artists, AM & FM radio have received a free pass. Sam Moore says, that American broadcasters have earned billions of dollars by playing the music created by these artists and all the artists want is to receive what artists in every other country around the world receives when their recordings are broadcast, fair compensation for the performance of their work. All the Performance Rights Act does is to bring the United States into line with other countries in the world. The major provisions of the act include providing a statutory license for making one payment annually under a set rate through negotiations or by the Copyright Royalty Board for all the music they play. This would be in place of the original thought of having to negotiate every copyright owner for each use of their music. This Act would accommodate small broadcasters and others by assuring balance and fairness that is not presently there. More than 75% of all commercial radio stations would pay only $1,000 per year. People like talk radio who only use music incidentally would not have to pay the fee and neither would religious radio. Most of the other 8 amendments read very close to the same way. The Future of Music Coalition has many issues going on at this point and only one of those is the Performance Rights Act. The future of the web and what it means to the music industry is part of their concern at the moment. Many artists are now using the internet to do their own open bookings of live concerts as well as selling merchandise, and booking tours. Almost all of them are building fan bases on the web. The Live Nation and Ticketmaster controversy and merger has concerned many of the artists enough to cause them to find ways to take on some of this business venture themselves. This does not mean that the Coalition is not interested in the new Performance Rights Act, in fact, they are. They land squarely on the side of the perfumers of course and their argument would be that the radio is not longer the great advertising medium for new or old artists that it once was, that distinction has been taken over by the net. (futureofmusic.org) The other side of the argument is held by the National Association of Broadcasters and all of the radio broadcasters throughout the country. They feel that for more than 80 years radio has been playing recordings in a mutually beneficial relationship. The artists have had free play and they have received free promotion. Being played on the radio has always led to more record sales, in fact there is barely a gold record out there that did not start on the radio(nab.org). It seems ludicrous to them that suddenly the record industry wants a fee. If those records do not get played on the radio what will happen to their sales The other issue for them is that many smaller radio stations will be financially hurt by this situation in such a way that it could lead to their demise and like the record industry itself, it is very difficult to hang on with the changing industry. New artists would be stifled without anywhere to go to get new play and a new chance, like Loretta Lynn. The listening public will become angry with not being able to hear the artists that these stations may not be able to afford. The law is supposed to be about leveling the playing field and fairness to everyone. On the one side the bill is being lobbied by MusicFirst and on the other side by the Free Radio Alliance (askcbi.org). Music First is the founding member of the alliance that has been pushing this bill forward and of course Free Radio Alliance is working with the radio companies and broadcasters themselves. Radio at this time pays only songwriters for the music they play. There has been a long time controversy about the contracts that record labels have with the artists and the new fees would end up going to the record labels and not the artists. When music is played on the web, cable network or satellite radio, station owners need to pay both the songwriting and the recording artist. Again the money goes to the labels. US. radios presently pay nothing to foreign artists and foreign broadcasters are forbidden by their governments to pay for music from our artists. This will all cause quite the conundrum with the new law if it is passed (arstechnica.com) The argument is a difficult one. If the radio companies are to pay the recording artists to play their songs, should the artists like everyone else not pay the radio stations for air time. Certainly if I go in and want to talk about my new book on the local radio, I am going to pay air time. For this writer, this all seems like a wash t me. Why is the radio play time less valuable to an artist now than it has ever been. Are they not worried that the more expensive these contracts get, the less likely the radio stations are to pay them and play those songs. Then what Granted the web and the cable are important methods of both communication and advertising in this day and age but we must also realized that Americans love their cars. Americans have always loved their cars and always will love their cars. They love to drive through everything including, banking, eating, post office, pharmacy and anything else, just so they do not have to get out of their cars. Where are they then hearing their music. On the radio, just like for so many years, on the radio. Where are they most likely to hear a new artist for the first time, on the radio. There are still millions of sales generated through the listening time(driving time) on the radio. More Americans listen to the radio than get on the internet. 90% watch TV, 80% listen to the radio, 60% get on the internet, 38% read the newspaper, and 24% read magazines. In other words, if you want to get the word out you better be using the radio and television because the internet is hardly getting to the majority, including music lovers. Increasing profits has had to become an issue for the record companies as their dealing with the internet channel has not always proved favorable for their business. The internet as we have talked about was supposed to be the be all end-all to generate a new outlet for income. This whole idea was based on the customer buying music downloads from the online stores. However, this has not worked out the way that was hoped and large pieces of the music business have been lost in the trial. As we have already seen, statistically more people still listen to the radio. So the next effort would be to increase income through the stations themselves, hence the new Act. (Waddell, 2009). This writer believes that the radio agreement as it has always been is mutually effective and changing that method at this point is probably not the answer. In fact, with the loss of sales through other venues that were attempted and failed, this could be the downfall of the business. If new artists cannot get play time because of the new Acts and fees, then Americans will have lost their trusted radio stations and new artists will have lost the major baby step into the business. Who will this then profit. Most of the research shows that the profiting will be done by the record labels and not the artists. Possibly there needs to be another look taken at how this new segment of the industry is to function and whether this is truly a win or loss before it actually becomes law. In conclusion, it is easy to see both sides of this argument. The record companies and recording artists want to be paid fairly for the work they do and they feel like they have not. In fact income in this business has been greatly decreased with the iPod and so many other electronic methods of using music. The artist seldom gets paid like he did when records were being sold. At the same time, much money has been spent attempting to assure that the Web worked for the industry and in the end, it did not turn out to be as profitable as it was thought it would be. The radio stations feel like they have paid their dues too. Yes, they do get to play music that they have only paid the writer for but they also provide free play time for the artist. The radios feel that they should not be penalized for the losses felt elsewhere by the industry as they have also had losses. They feel that the money paid to the contracts that would be forced to be forged would go to the recording companies and not the artists, anyway. The artists are presently getting free advertising which would go away under the new agreements. However this argument comes out, it will again change the industry, and industry that is struggling from the recent changes already made, including the internet, electronics and more recently the merging of record companies as well as companies like Ticketmaster and Live Nation. We shall soon see as the new bill continues to move through the Congress. References Peoples, G. (2009). The Decade in Music. Billboard.biz. available at http://billboard.biz. Waddell, R. (2009). The Decade in music. Billboard biz. available at http://www.musicnews.com http://www.ecoustic.com http://www.nab.org http://wwwfuturofmusic.org Read More