Wanna (be forced to) Buy a Radio?
August 22nd 2010 12:48
Corporations hate regulations – unless they’re in their favor. Back in 2002, the government’s Copyright Royalty Board rejected an appeal by web radio broadcasters to block a plan that required web radio (but not broadcast ratio) to pay a royalty to musicians whose work they play. This gives broadcast ratio an advantage in costs over web radio, and worse, stifles web radio stations that cater to a small audience. Some of these web radio stations are simply hobbies, people with esoteric tastes who want to share their own collections with others – but the copyright ruling imposes costs on these stations that don’t affect broadcast stations in Chicago, Los Angeles or New York. Musicians in genres that don’t get represented on the air, don’t have a chance to be heard at all. People who like types of music, or music from eras that don’t draw the maximum number of listeners are left with no idea what new performers are doing – what CDs would be worth buying or concerts worth attending.
The impact is far from trivial, and in some respects amounts to age discrimination, since broadcast radio stations, like every other medium that relies on advertising, wants a young audience. In 1998, Johnny Cash bought a full page ad in Billboard magazine. As described in USA Today: “Johnny Cash may be ailing, but his fighting spirit isn't diminished. His full-page ad in the March 14 Billboard magazine has country music reeling. The ad, touting Cash's Grammy win for his Unchained album, features a 1970 photo of Cash performing at San Quentin prison in California. In it, a glowering Cash is making an obscene hand gesture at the camera. The ad's message, placed directly above Cash's middle finger: "American Recordings and Johnny Cash would like to acknowledge the Nashville music establishment and country radio for your support."
The Australian supergroup, The Seekers, who have sold over 50,000,000 albums worldwide, have complained that radio stations won’t play their songs.
Contemporary composers of orchestral music and opera are effectively frozen out.
Probably the best approach would be to come up with exemptions for the smaller internet radio stations, or require major broadcast stations to subsidize broadcasting of under or unrepresented genres in major markets. So far, the closest thing to leveling the playing field is HR 848, the Performance Rights Act:
2/4/2009--Introduced.
Performance Rights Act - Amends federal copyright law to: (1) grant performers of sound recordings equal rights to compensation from terrestrial broadcasters; (2) establish a flat annual fee in lieu of payment of royalties for individual terrestrial broadcast stations with gross revenues of less than $1.25 million and for noncommercial, public broadcast stations; (3) grant an exemption from royalty payments for broadcasts of religious services and for incidental uses of musical sound recordings; and (4) grant terrestrial broadcast stations that make limited feature uses of sound recordings a per program license option. Prohibits taking into account license fees payable for public performance via digital audio transmission of sound recordings in any proceeding to set or adjust the license fees for the purpose of reducing or adversely affecting such license fees. (Current law prohibits taking those fees into account in such a proceeding without referencing the purpose.) Prohibits anything in this Act from adversely affecting the public performance rights or royalties payable to songwriters or copyright owners of musical works. Prohibits taking into account the rates established by the Copyright Royalty Judges in any proceeding to reduce or adversely affect the license fees payable for public performances by terrestrial broadcast stations. Requires that such license fees for the public performance of musical works be independent of license fees paid for the public performance of sound recordings. Revises provisions relating to proceeds from the licensing of transmissions.
Broadcasters seem willing to go along with this, as long as they get one little concession – an FM radio chip on every mobile phone. Their latest argument is that in an emergency, everybody should have access to broadcast radio. According to the Washington Post, a spokesperson for the National Association of Broadcasters said in an e-mail:
From a public safety perspective, it is critically important to have broadcast radio's unparalleled lifeline service available instantaneously in times of emergency. For that reason, NAB would oppose any legislation related to royalties that did not include that feature.
The Consumer Electronics Association has opposed the idea, saying in an August 20, 2010 press release:
“The backroom scheme of the NAB and RIAA to have Congress mandate broadcast radios in portable devices, including mobile phones, is the height of absurdity.
"Forced inclusion of an additional antenna, processor and radio receiver will compromise features that consumers truly desire, such as long battery life and light weight. Reducing product performance, mandating inclusion of features consumers don’t want, and replacing product innovation by companies like Amazon, Apple, Motorola and HP-Palm with government design mandates are not in our national interest.
"The performance royalty legislation voted out of the Senate Judiciary Committee does not include this onerous and backward-looking radio requirement. Rather than adapt to the digital marketplace, NAB and RIAA act like buggy-whip industries that refuse to innovate and seek to impose penalties on those that do."
Oh yes – there’s one indication that the broadcasters are less interested in public safety than they are in profits: they’re only demanding FM tuners in cell phones. AM radio can be staticy, and isn’t as well suited for music as FM, but it has a longer range. In an emergency, a single AM station would be able to reach more people than an FM station. Since most all-news stations broadcast on AM, these are the stations people naturally tune to in an emergency. In a few years, broadcast radio will have no listeners except old folks who still cling to their land-line telephones – except that these radio stations don’t play the music older listeners want to hear.
The impact is far from trivial, and in some respects amounts to age discrimination, since broadcast radio stations, like every other medium that relies on advertising, wants a young audience. In 1998, Johnny Cash bought a full page ad in Billboard magazine. As described in USA Today: “Johnny Cash may be ailing, but his fighting spirit isn't diminished. His full-page ad in the March 14 Billboard magazine has country music reeling. The ad, touting Cash's Grammy win for his Unchained album, features a 1970 photo of Cash performing at San Quentin prison in California. In it, a glowering Cash is making an obscene hand gesture at the camera. The ad's message, placed directly above Cash's middle finger: "American Recordings and Johnny Cash would like to acknowledge the Nashville music establishment and country radio for your support."
The Australian supergroup, The Seekers, who have sold over 50,000,000 albums worldwide, have complained that radio stations won’t play their songs.
Contemporary composers of orchestral music and opera are effectively frozen out.
Probably the best approach would be to come up with exemptions for the smaller internet radio stations, or require major broadcast stations to subsidize broadcasting of under or unrepresented genres in major markets. So far, the closest thing to leveling the playing field is HR 848, the Performance Rights Act:
2/4/2009--Introduced.
Performance Rights Act - Amends federal copyright law to: (1) grant performers of sound recordings equal rights to compensation from terrestrial broadcasters; (2) establish a flat annual fee in lieu of payment of royalties for individual terrestrial broadcast stations with gross revenues of less than $1.25 million and for noncommercial, public broadcast stations; (3) grant an exemption from royalty payments for broadcasts of religious services and for incidental uses of musical sound recordings; and (4) grant terrestrial broadcast stations that make limited feature uses of sound recordings a per program license option. Prohibits taking into account license fees payable for public performance via digital audio transmission of sound recordings in any proceeding to set or adjust the license fees for the purpose of reducing or adversely affecting such license fees. (Current law prohibits taking those fees into account in such a proceeding without referencing the purpose.) Prohibits anything in this Act from adversely affecting the public performance rights or royalties payable to songwriters or copyright owners of musical works. Prohibits taking into account the rates established by the Copyright Royalty Judges in any proceeding to reduce or adversely affect the license fees payable for public performances by terrestrial broadcast stations. Requires that such license fees for the public performance of musical works be independent of license fees paid for the public performance of sound recordings. Revises provisions relating to proceeds from the licensing of transmissions.
Broadcasters seem willing to go along with this, as long as they get one little concession – an FM radio chip on every mobile phone. Their latest argument is that in an emergency, everybody should have access to broadcast radio. According to the Washington Post, a spokesperson for the National Association of Broadcasters said in an e-mail:
From a public safety perspective, it is critically important to have broadcast radio's unparalleled lifeline service available instantaneously in times of emergency. For that reason, NAB would oppose any legislation related to royalties that did not include that feature.
The Consumer Electronics Association has opposed the idea, saying in an August 20, 2010 press release:
“The backroom scheme of the NAB and RIAA to have Congress mandate broadcast radios in portable devices, including mobile phones, is the height of absurdity.
"Forced inclusion of an additional antenna, processor and radio receiver will compromise features that consumers truly desire, such as long battery life and light weight. Reducing product performance, mandating inclusion of features consumers don’t want, and replacing product innovation by companies like Amazon, Apple, Motorola and HP-Palm with government design mandates are not in our national interest.
"The performance royalty legislation voted out of the Senate Judiciary Committee does not include this onerous and backward-looking radio requirement. Rather than adapt to the digital marketplace, NAB and RIAA act like buggy-whip industries that refuse to innovate and seek to impose penalties on those that do."
Oh yes – there’s one indication that the broadcasters are less interested in public safety than they are in profits: they’re only demanding FM tuners in cell phones. AM radio can be staticy, and isn’t as well suited for music as FM, but it has a longer range. In an emergency, a single AM station would be able to reach more people than an FM station. Since most all-news stations broadcast on AM, these are the stations people naturally tune to in an emergency. In a few years, broadcast radio will have no listeners except old folks who still cling to their land-line telephones – except that these radio stations don’t play the music older listeners want to hear.
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