Representative Melvin L. Watt, a Democrat from North Carolina, said on Thursday that he planned to introduce a bill requiring broadcasters to recognize the performance rights of record companies and musicians, the latest effort in a decades-old fight by the music industry to extract greater royalties from radio.
Radio broadcasters in the United States — almost alone in the world — pay royalties only to music publishers and songwriters for terrestrial airplay, meaning when songs are played over the air on AM or FM radio. They don’t pay royalties to record companies or performing artists, under the argument that the promotional value those parties receive is sufficient compensation.
The music industry has tried numerous times over the years to change this situation — Frank Sinatra was a leading advocate — but has always failed.
Mr. Watt said that he planned to introduce a bill before Congress’s recess in August that would establish this performance right for sound recordings. Mr. Watt told the Washington publication The Hill that this could lead to private licensing negotiations between broadcasters and record companies.
Such a bill would not go as far as the last effort at forging a performing rights bill. That bill was introduced in 2009 and would have mandated a royalty. It never came to a full vote in Congress, and although it led to negotiations between broadcasters and music groups, the talks fell apart in 2010 amid acrimony on both sides.
Music groups and broadcasters on Thursday quickly stated their opposing stances over the proposed bill.
“We applaud Ranking Member Watt for taking leadership to end the decades-long injustice that denies performers’ compensation when their work is played on AM/FM radio,” the musicFIRST Coalition, representing record labels, musicians’ unions and other groups, said in a statement.
The National Association of Broadcasters, which has been gearing up for a new fight by promoting a nonbinding resolution in Congress against a change, said that it “strongly opposes a new performance tax that would kill jobs at America’s hometown radio stations while diverting millions of dollars to offshore record labels.”
Mr. Watt’s announcement came just as more news of a growing alternative to royalty legislation emerged. Clear Channel Communications, which has struck a number of private licensing deals with independent record companies, paying royalties for terrestrial airplay in exchange for lower online streaming rates, announced on Thursday that it had made a similar arrangement with the label Innovative Leisure, whose acts include Bass Drum of Death, Crystal Antlers and Classixx.
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/26/business/media/congressman-vows-to-introduce-bill-on-radio-royalties.html?partner=rss&emc=rss