What Will Congress Really Do When It’s Time to Vote?

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On Friday it was announced that the House Judiciary Committee will markup the American Music Fairness Act this week. A markup is the first step a bill goes through on the path to becoming a law. The American Music Fairness Act would mandate a new performance fee on radio stations for playing music.

While the NAB says it has over 250 members of Congress that now support the Local Radio Freedom Act, that is non-binding support. You never really know what politicians will do when an actual vote on a bill comes before them.

Former Congressman Joe Crowley, Chairman of the musicFIRST Coalition, said the momentum is now on his side. “Our movement towards equity for artists has grown in strength because people grasp its basic principle: That Americans deserve payment for their work. The American Music Fairness Act ends a decades-long injustice of not paying artists performance royalties when their songs are played on AM/FM radio. We applaud Chairman Nadler for his leadership on this important issue and thank the members of the committee in advance for their thoughtful consideration next week.”

The NAB has been fighting this battle for radio for years. And, ever time a new slate of lawmakers is elected, it’s like starting over. The NAB has to lobby new members, who most likely used their local radio stations to help them get elected through interviews or utilizing the lowest unit rate rule to bombard the public with ads.

NAB President and CEO Curtis LeGeyt said, “More than 250 bipartisan cosponsors of the Local Radio Freedom Act, including a majority of the House of Representatives, stand with America’s local broadcasters against this onerous performance fee that would irrevocably damage local radio. In spite of this, the recording industry continues its uncompromising pursuit of this one-sided proposal that would upend the relationship between artists and broadcast radio. NAB remains committed to working to find a mutually beneficial solution to this decades-old policy disagreement, but this AMFA proposal is not the answer. A markup of this legislation as drafted simply ensures that yet another Congress will pass without meaningful progress on this issue.”

Crowley said this is not complicated. “Everyone, including artists, should be paid fairly for their hard work. I am confident that my former colleagues will stand firmly behind this bedrock American value and support artists in this crucial moment.”

 

5 COMMENTS

  1. Hey, remember the payola scandals of the 50s and 60s when the artists and record companies used to PAY stations and DJs to add their songs? How times have changed! How many stations will end up switching to spoken word formats if this atrocity becomes law?

  2. Musicians are free to tell local radio stations: “Please don’t play our songs.”
    That doesn’t happen because radio airplay jump-starts and sustains their careers and generates millions in sales for them and record label execs.

  3. There’s nothing “new” about the performance fee – its just that AM/FM have and want to keep an exemption. Fair is fair – people deserve to be paid for their work

    • FYI: There is no “exemption.” There never was any proposal for radio stations to pay labels or artists a fee. Only songwriters. They would have to start from scratch to do this. The digital laws require payments to labels and artists, but on-air radio is not digital. The only reason digital media is required to pay is because they knew digital would replace CDs. But radio is analog, and therefore isn’t in the same category.

  4. FM radio stations should have the “freedom,” to exploit recording artists and their labels without whom FM would be dead, finished & done-for. 95% of FM’s content is music which they still want for free. Pay up, deadbeats.

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