Posted on 02/19/2010 6:23:49 AM PST by GailA
Awoke this moring at 7:30 to a ad was running on 104.9 The River here in Memphis, asking the public to FIGHT this Radio Performance Tax...seems most of the money would go to foreign owners. More of Bambi's wealth spereading.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2454527/posts
Performance Rights Act (Introduced in House) HR 848 IH JOHN CONYERS
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.848:
Stop the Radio Tax
http://www.noperformancetax.com/registration/register.aspx
Proposed Performance Tax Could Be Black Radio’s Death Knell
http://www.blackamericaweb.com/?q=articles/news/the_state_of_black_america_news/9299
Broadcasters: Act now to defeat a proposed tax that could kill local radio as we know it.
Performance Right Act Reintroduced To Congress
http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/content_display/industry/e3i040c1ac9536ad53cd5b20962dcf8d5b8
But radio station owners, with the the National Assn. of Broadcasters leading the fight, oppose the bill. "Local radio broadcasters consider this fee a 'performance tax' that will not only harm your local radio stations, but will threaten new artists trying to break into the business as well as your constituents who rely on local radio," NAB president and CEO David Rehr, said in a statment. "Although the proponents of H.R. 848 claim this bill is about compensating artists, in actuality at least half of this fee will go directly into the pockets of the big record labels, funneling billions of dollars to companies based overseas." Three of the four largest record label conglomerates -- Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and EMI -- are internationally-based. "Although the big record labels have seen their revenues decline over the last decade, local radio broadcasters are not the reason the recording industry is losing money, and it should not be the industry to fix it," he added.
NAB said a measure opposing today's Congressional action is expected to be introduced shortly.
Likewise the Radio Free Alliance said, "Congressman Conyers' re-introduction of a performance tax bill on local radio is disappointing, especially since the bill doesn't reflect the views of the majority of his colleagues. Last year, the more than 226 members of Congress stood with local radio in opposing any measure that would tax local radio to benefit the big, foreign-owned labels. Especially in the dire economic times we all face, any measure which will threaten the family-supporting jobs of more than 125,000 people employed by radio, the more than $6 billion in local community support of non-profit and service organizations, and the ability to introduce more diversity in station ownership is a short-sighted approach and bad public policy."
But the proposed legislation accommodates small broadcasters, public and religious radio stations, according to a musicFirst press release. For example, small commercial stations would pay only $5,000 per year; while noncommercial stations such as NPR and college radio stations would pay only $1,000 per year; stations that make only incidental uses of music, such as "talk radio stations, would not pay for that music; and Religious services that are broadcast on radio would be completely exempt."
Where the money would go: Nielsen SoundScan reported that the big four accounted for 81.87% of the US music market in 2005: Universal Music (France) owns 32 percent of the market; Sony (Japan) owns 26 percent of the market; EMI (UK) owns 10 percent of the market; Warner Music (US) owns 15 percent of the market. The rest are independents. So the question is, how much was Conyers paid for this legislation that would send these enormous amounts of American money abroad, while bankrupting US radio stations?
Who knew there was music worth listening to now days.
Here I thought the radio was a great advertising avenue to get these artists’ latest recording out there for the public. This tax will bring on more talk radio. With less advertising, the artists will suffer but so be it.
So lefty radio gets its music practically free?
What’s lefty radio?
NPR
Well, this little American indy record company owner is FOR the bill. Songwriters and music publishers, many foreign owned, get paid through ASCAP and BMI when their songs get played on the radio. Why not me and my artists? Pay us all or none of us.
well even FM stations now are going all-talk or all-sports, so they should be careful what they wish for
Taxes suck because government destroys about 50% of any wealth they get their hands on. Taxing music airplay will not be any different and shows a lack of understanding of how commercial radio works.
National Public Radio.
Yes of course, but they don’t play music do they? Who knows noone listens
True, in the case of music radio; in the case of talk radio, let’s face it, it’s there to sell ads too. Conservative talk gets higher ratings and attracts more advertising/ gets more money than progressive talk. If a station reaches the proper demos, it can prosper.
There are ads running on some music stations and even some
talk stations (like Boston’s WTKK) urging a defeat of the performance tax, saying it would cost station owners more money and they wouldn’t be able to do quality programming
(WTKK’s owners also own stations in town that have country,
classic rock-pop, and adult contemporary, and all do fairly well in the ratings). So, say, country WKLB wouldn’t like paying huge royalties to RCA-Nashville. Right now they provide a service to these labels: play their music and the labels get promotion for the artists. They get the music,
the labels get free advertising.
I have been a volunteer DJ for years at a college radio
station, playing blues music; most of our material for my
show comes from smaller labels with names like Alligator,
Delmark, Blind Pig, Delta Groove, etc. and a few majors
(such as MCA who re-issues music on the famed Chess
label). We get em for free, play em, and help to promote
the music both on our terrestrial signal and online. How would a small college station deal with having to pay a label, on top of already paying fees to BMI/ASCAP, etc.?
A few days ago several stations in Wisconsin stopped playing music for an hour to show what might happen if the so-called performance tax came about. Instead they had a one hour panel discussion on the issue.
The website that opposes the perf tax, as they call it,
says many stations might have to switch to talk radio
if this happens. But how many talk stations could a market
support? Sooner of later, the stations would have to go out of business.
Good point, admittedly; a music promoter & critic on my facebook, who’s a big lefty, started a thread in which he says: “The dumb Radio Performance Tax site blocked me again for saying this: Don’t believe the lobbyists. Artists get paid this royalty (not a tax) in Europe and the earth hasn’t stopped moving; on the contrary, more money is now in the hands of the people who have earned it, not big Corporations that take advantage of the Public airwaves. These are, after all, “public” airwaves...which is why we have the FCC (ostensibly)”
Question: aren’t the big record labels huge corporations, too?
They may fit under the talk-show exempt format, but a number of them have limited musical programming. Usually jazz, folk, and the like.
I saw something on public TV about how musicians get sampled by other artists, including Clyde Stubblefield, “the funky drummer”. Should he get re-imbursed when someone samples him?
>> college radio stations would pay only $1,000 per year;
Oops, just saw that part...hopefully my station (a 130-watter in Boston area) could swing that, but we already pay royalties to music publishers as it is and have a very, very limited budget
If radio stations already pay fees for the purpose of broadcasting music, what are these fees doing?
So Rush and Glenn take voice lessons and sing their shows...or have a choir do so. Really long singing parodies.
Guess they’ll have to compose their own music, though.
It is not really a tax. The government gets none of it. It is a licensing fee paid by radio stations to the copyright owner of the material, the record company and the recording artist, for the use of the material to sell airtime. If the songwriter/publisher gets paid, why not the performer/record company? It is a business expense for the broadcaster and I want my share just like the songwriter. Again, if you are going to pay the copyright owner of the song you should pay the copyright owner of the recorded performance of the song.
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