Obama admin: time to make radio pay for its music; Ars Technica, 4/2/10

Nate Anderson, Ars Technica; Obama admin: time to make radio pay for its music:

"The recording industry scored a significant victory today with news that the Obama administration will provide its "strong support" for the Performance Rights Act. The bill would force over-the-air radio stations to start coughing up cash for the music they play; right now, the stations pay songwriters, but not the actual recording artists.

This has been a dream of the recording industry for decades, but it has taken on new importance as the revenues from recorded music have plummeted over the last decade. The broadcasters refer to the idea as a new "tax" that will largely benefit foreign record companies such as Universal (France), Sony (Japan), and EMI (UK).

Taking sides

Today, a letter from the Commerce Department's general counsel, Cameron Kerry, makes clear which side has the administration's support: the recording industry. (We double-checked with Kerry's office; this is no April Fools' joke.)

"The Department has long endorsed amending the US copyright law to provide for an exclusive right of public performance of sound recordings," says the letter. It pledges "strong support" for the current bill and approves the idea that radio's payment exemption is nothing more than "an historical anomaly that does not have a strong policy justification."

A copy of the letter was sent to Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. In the letter, Kerry says that making radio pay for music is really a matter of fairness—not just to artists, but to Internet webcasters and satellite radio, too.

That's because both webcasters and the satellite radio folks currently do have to pay a public performance right on the music they play; the exclusion granted to over-the-air broadcasters thus distorts the market and makes it difficult for new technologies to gain traction. "It would also provide a level playing field for all broadcasters to compete in the current environment of rapid technological change, including the Internet, satellite, and terrestrial broadcasters," says the letter.

In addition to rationalizing the performance rights scheme in the US, Commerce points out that the US is the only major industrialized country to have such an exemption for over-the-air radio. Making a change isn't just a case of bowing to peer pressure; real money is at stake, since many artists are unable to collect the public performance money due them in other countries because of "the lack of reciprocal protection under US copyright law.""

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/04/obama-admin-make-radio-pay-for-its-music.ars

Op-Ed: Nancy Sinatra; New York Times, 8/4/09

Op-Ed: Nancy Sinatra; New York Times:

"Terrestrial radio is the only radio platform that still doesn’t have to pay these royalties. Internet radio and satellite radio pay artists when they play their records, so do cable television music channels. In fact, AM and FM radio stations that stream their signal online pay performance royalties.

The United States is one of a small number of countries where artists and musicians are not compensated when their music is played on over-the-air radio. Because the United States doesn’t have performance royalties, radio stations in countries that do collect them do not have to pay American artists. In many of these countries, American artists make up as much as 50 percent of radio airplay, and this prevents millions of dollars — industry estimates are $100 million a year — from flowing into our economy.

I believe in a performance royalty because recording artists and musicians from every generation deserve to be compensated for their art."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/04/opinion/04sinatra.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=sinatra&st=Search

Discord on golden oldies' earning power, London Guardian, 12/21/08

Via London Guardian: Discord on golden oldies' earning power, Extending copyright on recordings would swell the labels' coffers, but the lure of selling old tunes may eclipse new signings:

"Record labels spend a huge amount of time and money searching for the artists of the future - but their profits are underpinned by the pop stars of the past. Back catalogues are big business for the major music groups, generating cash that can be ploughed into "A&R" ("artists and repertoire") - the inexact science of discovering and promoting tomorrow's big acts...

But all that could change if copyright on music recordings is not extended from 50 to 95 years, as the major music labels would like, and as the European Commission has recently proposed. Without the extension, early Beatles recordings such as Love Me Do will lose copyright protection from 2012, after which anyone would be free to use these versions of the songs free of charge. The implications for those who made the recordings are obvious.

In the UK, an artist earns a royalty every time their version of a song is sold or played publicly - a copyright that is valid for 50 years and generally administered through the artist's label. But there is also a separate copyright for the songwriter, currently valid for 70 years from the date of his or her death - the same rules that apply to authors outside the music industry. Those rights are generally held by music publishers, which exist both as standalone companies and as divisions within record labels. The music industry has been lobbying for several years to extend the copyright on performances and recordings so they are on equal terms with songwriting and other forms of copyright...

But not everyone agrees that a copyright extension would lead to more investment in new music, and some fear that it would encourage record labels to become more like music publishers and put yet more emphasis on their library."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/dec/21/beatles-copyright-royalties-extension-mccartney

Apple Threatens iTunes Shutdown over Copyright Royalty Dispute - Wired.com, 10/01/08

Apple Threatens iTunes Shutdown over Copyright Royalty Dispute:
"Apple has threatened to shut down the iTunes music store if an obscure three-person board appointed by the Librarian of Congress increase the royalties paid to publishers and songwriters by six cents per song.
The Copyright Royalty Board is scheduled to hand down its decision on these rates by Thursday."
http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/10/thursdays-copyr.html