http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-radio21may21,1,2106266.story?ctrack=1&cset =true

Artists and labels seek royalties from radio
By Jim Puzzanghera, Times Staff Writer
May 21, 2007


WASHINGTON — With CD sales tumbling, record companies and musicians are looking at a new potential pot of money: royalties from broadcast radio stations.

For years, stations have paid royalties to composers and publishers when they played their songs. But they enjoy a federal exemption when paying the performers and record labels because, they argue, the airplay sells music.

Now, the Recording Industry Assn. of America and several artists' groups are getting ready to push Congress to repeal the exemption, a move that could generate hundreds of millions of dollars annually in new royalties.

Mary Wilson, who with Diana Ross and Florence Ballard formed the original Supremes, said the exemption was unfair and forced older musicians to continue touring to pay their bills.

"After so many years of not being compensated, it would be nice now at this late date to at least start," the 63-year-old Las Vegas resident said in Milwaukee, where she was performing at the Potawatomi Bingo Casino. "They've gotten 50-some years of free play. Now maybe it's time to pay up."

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It's kinda fun watching the death throes of the popular music business model, it seems kinda sad that they are going to take radio down with it.

This will be an interesting discussion. When an artist or artists are no longer touring what is it that generates CD sales? Just sitting on the shelf at the store? Think Not. It sells because it was played on air and perked some fans memory enough to go out and buy it either in a music store or from online methods. Without airplay CD sales would go into the dumpers. GET OVER IT HAS BEEN! It is because of meeger royalties to artists from music sales that drives those no longer touring to support this. The only way a band ever makes any money is to tour. It is like the pro football player who has his 5 years of fame and good money, then his knees blow out and he is done. Sure hope to god he saved for this and planned a secondary career cause you know going in it will not be a lifelong profession! It is sad to see big arena bands falling from grace and appearing in poodunk casino's and small state fairs. I know they have to make ends meet and all but it is really sad. Why not push harder for royalites from sales and harder penalties for online piracy?

"Radio dies and kills the Pop Star"

That will be the future. This could get nasty. Artists wanting royalties to air music and stations wanting royalties in return to promote their music. Ain't gonna happen!

"...How can Mary tell me what to do, when she lost her love so true, and Flo, she don't know. cause the boy she loves is a Romeo..."

(besides, she's dead!)

hey, Artistes.... Wrong well.

Unfortunately, a whole lot of performers sign their royalty agreements at the time of their greatest vulnerability; they are unknown, near starvation, and a record company or management group is offering them fulfillment of their dreams.

Harder penalties for online piracy? This is a much tougher nut. After 2 annual guest lectures to a media awareness class at a local high school, I've seen a growing and strengthening belief among the students that downloading songs from peer-to-peer websites is absolutely not stealing, nor is uploading network shows to youtube. The latest Spidey opened at more theatres than any movie in history because Sony said that after the first few days it loses such a huge portion of sales to pirates that it has to maximize the first couple days to stay ahead of the counterfitters.

Today's young aren't getting the message that piracy is wrong. As more and more of life switches to a cyber orientation, we need greater focus throughout the education system on cyber ethics. Since there is virtually no punishment for the crime, understanding and accepting the "wrongness" of the behavior is the only hope.

Peer to Peer sharing also does harm, IMHO, to the product as well. A raw CD track has great audio quality and by the time that gets ripped and travels through several machines it winds up sounding like CRAP. Not really great for promoting an artists lifetime work! I own every CD that I have in my MP3 library (all of which are ripped at 320 kbps)! I don't have any bootleg DVD's either!
Bottom line is today's youth does not appreciate any copyright laws and said laws are not enforced.

Music is a multi-billion dollar industry! Before radio began playing its songs, it was a multi-thousand dollar industry! Who's helping whom?

> Music is a multi-billion dollar industry! Before
> radio began playing its songs, it was a
> multi-thousand dollar industry! Who's helping whom?

I think a clarification is needed here: When you are talking about the "music" industry, that refers exclusively to record companies, correct? I remember another discussion here a while back in which Craig or somebody else explained that one big reason why the broadcasting of recorded music was rare prior to the late 1940s was that the musicians' unions had rules in place that made it uneconomical for many radio stations to broadcast recorded music. If I understood the explanation correctly, the rules defined some monetary amount that musicians' unions could collect for each broadcast of a recorded work. Thus, before these rules changed, there was money going to studio orchestras and musicians (were these part of the music industry?). After the rules changed, some of this money went to the record companies in the form of royalties. However, a paradigm change occurred that, as you point out, allowed the recording industry to become a multi-billion dollar industry: people started to associate popular songs with specific artists.

And the fact that an artist got paid far less by recording someone elses song led to the "singer/songwriter" revolution of the 1960's.

Now that the Artists can sell directly to their audiences, perhaps who is helping whom, is a question that should be revisited.

I meant to say "the recording industry".

> Now that the Artists can sell directly to their
> audiences, perhaps who is helping whom, is a
> question that should be revisited.

It will be interesting to see how paradigms change because of this. This will be a great boon to hobbyist/DIY artists of the type that play small venues. However, I think that there will continue to be a demand for big-budget superstar type shows because for some people, the big crowd, the big sound system, and the idea that they are watching a performance by an artist who is known and loved by millions of people is an important part of the live music experience. In other words, they want their bands and musicians to be "larger than life." The superstar artists will continue to need some entity that promotes them, handles the logistics of the big concert tours, and manages the distribution of the musical product.

Yes, imagine a great new artist that signs with... a video producer and just skips the record company. Sells mp3s on the interent and does live concerts or maybe even live pay per view shows on the internet... or tv specials...

will be amazing to see how it works out, cause it sure is not staying the same.

Is this a sign of the end of free radio?

No, this is..............
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actually that's more of an ad than a sign, but I don't do graphic art.

Free radio isn't going anywhere. The expectation has been set for way too long.

IMHO, we will see more squeezing on the medium, and efforts to get people onto pay for play systems. These will work, but eventually, we will shift back to stronger value added programming.

If more artists go direct, or form their own co-ops to market, etc... radio would then see a niche where it could promote, filter and aggragate this stuff regionally. Of course that will take people in the know, who can perform this valuable function! Computers won't cut it, though they could easily empower regional people to split the middle, remain relevant and keep costs lower than they would otherwise be with people everywhere.

(yeah, that's VT tech working hard for all of us --sorry, but it's the most viable longer term solution to the people -vs- automation dilemma)

At some point I think a split will go deep and we will see megabigcos latest stars (all 50 of them), and then a whole ton of regional talent competing. (I cannot wait for this to more fully realize)

Both will co-exist, once the attorneys have all done their thing and better law gets written.

The younger crowd will be tuned into megabigco. As they mature, they will then find the alternative more appealing as they leave the primary "gold digging" demos.

This is happening today somewhat. Radio isn't a major part of it yet, as it's still really focused on megabigco, for the most part. As we all enter our thirties, we start to go digging for stuff we crave more than the latest greatest. Internet, P2P, streaming, etc... are all enabling that.

WHICH IS WHY RADIO IS STRUGGLING

Really, the older crowd gets more value out of radio than younger people do. This trend will continue, as the latest greatest will end up on the latest greatest tech.

As we age, the latest greatest tech might not make as much sense, thus radio and it's simplicity and robustness (assuming we keep that part), adds a lot of value for a lot of effort. (assuming it moves back toward adding value)

IMHO, having some significant fraction of the radio industry focus on this aspect would allow the industry as a whole to better compete. Too many stations all wanting the "gold mine" demos, means less overall value transfer for all involved and a vacuum for other technologies to compete.

Splitting this some, brings better coverage, a smoother transition for people as they age, and less of that vacuum in general to lose potential listeners to.

I'm nearing 40! (freaking 40 people!)

I'm finding only a few stations I really like. From the postings here and conversations with my peers, that's typical in general. Moving online for music experiences that appeal is a natural thing. It does take work however. That's work I'm happy to offload to some COOL PEOPLE that grok me and the music scene better than I, or my significant friends, do.

Ya,

Just another billing every month "autosucked" monthly from your Debit card. Like your cable and the internet and the cell phone. You will pay 14/mo. for radio, single reciever in your car or home. 128 channels to choose from. Its here and slowly taking over. And whats to stop it, HDR???

How do you explain cds stamped with 'for promotional use only'. I guess radio can charge the lables for playing the songs, the lables can charge radio for playing the songs - magic money with a zero balance in the end. One big tax write off!

free radio will never end.