As If Performance Royalty Threat Wasn't Enough, ASCAP, BMI Want To Increase Radio Royalties

from the squeeze-squeeze-squeeze dept

Mon, Oct 12th 2009 9:43am — Mike Masnick

While the RIAA keeps pushing and pushing for a performance tax for radio stations, it looks like ASCAP and BMI on the songwriter/composer side are apparently now looking to increase their existing tax on stations (via Michael Scott). As you probably know, right now, stations do pay royalties to ASCAP and BMI for the "performance right" on music they play on the radio, which gets distributed to the composers and songwriters. But performers don't get a royalty, as Congress recognized (correctly) that radio was free advertising for musicians. So, the first battle is about adding another tax, but this newer battle would be about increasing the existing one.

Again, this shouldn't be a surprise. As we've been detailing lately, ASCAP, BMI and other similar groups around the world have gone on something of a rampage lately, trying to get larger and larger fees from just about any use of music -- including ringtones, the 30-second previews on iTunes, and YouTube videos embedded in blogs (despite the fact that YouTube already pays a fee). Sucks to be a terrestrial radio station these days. Not only do you have a ton of new competition from other sources, but the rest of the industry is looking to tax you until you're gone.

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Filed Under: copyright, radio, royalties
Companies: ascap, bmi

29 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 12 Oct 2009 @ 10:08am

1 word
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Oct 2009 @ 10:08am

1 word
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Oct 2009 @ 10:08am

Re: 1 word
= payola
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Oct 2009 @ 10:09am

1word
payola

(holy crap, as i totally fail at commenting today)
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Oct 2009 @ 10:24am

So, 4 words then.
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Steven (profile), 12 Oct 2009 @ 10:50am

I don't feel for them at all.
No I don't think it's right. I do feel for the individual radio stations, but this is what happens when NAB tries to use these same fees to kill off Internet radio.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10052221-93.html
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R. Miles (profile), 12 Oct 2009 @ 11:00am

If it wasn't for revenue...
...radio stations should buck the trend at carrying label music and work with artists who want airplay but can't get it without a label contract.

It strikes me as odd the music industry isn't paying radio to air their goods. After all, it's an advertising platform, so when did this model get backward?

Unfortunately, the teenagers out there will still want their idols who can't think, and without them, it's hard for a station to make change.

Music's success shouldn't be based on what label the artist is contracted with.

Here's hoping radio station owners help with "piracy" by playing music freely available, by the artist, online.
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R. Miles (profile), 12 Oct 2009 @ 11:01am

Re: If it wasn't for revenue...
err: who can't sing, not think...oops
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Chronno S. Trigger (profile), 12 Oct 2009 @ 11:05am

Re: Re: If it wasn't for revenue...
Seemed valid to me the first way. Eh, ether way is true.
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Biz Raid, 12 Oct 2009 @ 11:19am

irrelevant
Either way radio is becoming dead in the music community as the viewership has been down dramatically for almost all stations and genres. The increase is royalties is greed from an industry that has been loosing around 17% market share per year for the last 5 years and they are trying to grasp whatever they can.
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Guglielmo Marconi, 12 Oct 2009 @ 11:19am

More NEWS!
I think the music stations should switch to an all news format and then they could charge everyone an information tax for using their news(ala AP). The first story they could run is how the music industry is a bunch of DBags.
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Dark Helmet (profile), 12 Oct 2009 @ 11:31am

Re: More NEWS!
"The first story they could run is how the music industry is a bunch of DBags"

I believe you're confusing news with common knowledge...
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j. wyatt (profile), 12 Oct 2009 @ 11:31am

payola
So if the radio stations have to pay higher royalty rates, does that mean the record companies have to pay more payola to the stations so their artists get more air play? Cheez-it (that's how it's done).

That is how it works isn't it?
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Lucretious, 12 Oct 2009 @ 11:56am

Don't these idiots realize that if they keep nickle-and-diming radio stations that they'll essentially put them out of business which, in turn, will hasten the demise of themselves?
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Oct 2009 @ 12:00pm

Re:
So, 4 words then.
------

No not 4. 4 posts, 11 words ;)
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John Fenderson (profile), 12 Oct 2009 @ 12:43pm

Re:
No, they don't.

As near as I can tell, they (along with "news" companies) really believe that they have a product that is so compelling that the only possible reason they might see their revenues fall is because somebody somewhere is stealing from them in some way. They don't believe they need anything -- better product, better service, better business plan -- nothing. In short, they got used to having a de facto monopoly and can't conceive of a universe where that isn't the case, where they might need others more than others need them.

They are dinosaurs, the meteor has hit, and their brains can't understand what's happening.

In the end they will go extinct and the newfangled mammals will take over.
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NullOp, 12 Oct 2009 @ 12:50pm

Hmmm...
Gee, more greed, I'm so effing surprised...
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Glenn, 12 Oct 2009 @ 5:09pm

Easy...
make the labels and artists pay for all of that "free" advertising they get. Of course, I stopped listening to the "radio" many years ago because they stopped playing actual music most of the time: 50+% non-music (commercials, yak-yak-yak, etc.) and what "music" they did play was crap. Yeah, go ahead... tax them out of existence... see what kind of money you get then.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Oct 2009 @ 6:21pm

Re: If it wasn't for revenue...
And the collection societies would STILL get to collect, but they wouldn't have anyone to pay the money out to, so they win even bigger!
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Oct 2009 @ 6:29pm

I noticed something, a very interesting trick of words:

"looking to increase their existing tax on stations"

There is no tax. The use of the word tax is done to create a negative concept of what the fees are about. They are not a tax. Only the government can collect taxes. Nobody else can create a tax. They create a fee structure, a rate table.

Taxes are NOT optional. Rates are optional - a station can go to an all talk format and not use any music, and not have to pay a fee. However, no matter what the station does, they will have to pay a property tax, etc.

Tax. Sneaky word.

Sort of like this:

http://www.stopthetvtax.ca/

It's not a tax.
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1DandyTroll, 12 Oct 2009 @ 6:38pm

Funny
ain't it, that certain collection societies, today, still, internet and all, aren't willing to share the income of a performers collection tax to actual performers?

Talk about copyright infringement, with back pays due!
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Mike Masnick (profile), 12 Oct 2009 @ 7:04pm

Re:
There is no tax. The use of the word tax is done to create a negative concept of what the fees are about. They are not a tax. Only the government can collect taxes. Nobody else can create a tax.

The gov't created this tax. Copyright Royalty Board. Look it up.
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Oct 2009 @ 12:44am

The fact "songwriters" get paid and "musicians" is very wrong. Name me a single mainstream "singer" who isn't a "songwriter". They don't exist. If your not a "singer-songwriter", no label will sign you, and you'll never earn anything. The so called "singer-songwriter" always have co-writers on all their songs because they lack the talent themselves, but by industry rules, they must be "songwriters" to collect that royalty.
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..., 13 Oct 2009 @ 5:13am

Royalties Killed the Radio Star
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Anonymous Coward, 13 Oct 2009 @ 9:27am

Re: Re:
But it is not a tax - it's a fee.

Very different game.
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vastrightwing, 13 Oct 2009 @ 10:47am

Let 'em charge what they want.
I say, let 'em charge all they want. I've dropped cable/satellite due to the high cost. I've stopped listening to over the air radio anyway because I don't like the programming. Here's another one for you, fine people to hum a tune. I'm sure you can post listening devices all over the cities and fine people for humming a copyrighted song in public. If people are going keep stealing IP by not paying for creative works over and over, then as a civil society, we owe it to artists and designers to coerce money from its denizens. We should also stop allowing people to wear designer clothes without paying for the design to the designer over and over. This madness must stop now!
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Vincent Clement, 13 Oct 2009 @ 1:23pm

Re:
Taxes are most definitely optional.

If I choose to not work or invest any money, I don't pay income tax.

If I choose to not own land, I don't pay property tax.

If I choose to buy only goods that are tax exempt, I don't pay sales tax.
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Brain (profile), 13 Oct 2009 @ 7:02pm

ascap bmi perf royalty
ASCAP and BMI charge for a blanket license. The license pays for access to all the pro repertory, not avtual us of repertory. It is a crock, a con, right out there in the open. Radio and TV pay for a lot o music they never brioadcast. And the member or affils of ascap and bmi get cheated becaus their music is used to generate the license, but thy wion't get paid for it.

What a crock. And musicians buy it.
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charly, 28 Nov 2009 @ 12:42pm

ASCAP, BMI and SESAC = PIRATES!
These organizations are nothing more than parasites on the backs of their host artists. They threaten clubs, radio stations, even people whistling tunes at work, with lawsuits if they don't cease from playing music. Fine. Let's just say goodbye to music as we know it. I used to work in radio and there was something called payola. That was when the record companies actually PAID stations to play their artists. Now they have subverted and perverted the music industry by forcing stations to pay them??? And you wonder why there aren't any good music stations anymore? It's not because there isn't good new music out there, because there is -- it's because ASCAP..et al, charge so much that stations can't afford it anymore. Are you a band looking for someone to actually play your music on the air? Then I'd suggest you register your music with the Library of Congress and get out there and promote your music. Don't give it to ASCAP, BMI or SEISAC because they'll make sure NOBODY plays it. And if anyone does, they'll take the money and you won't see a dime. There are no regulations on how much they have to give you -- which means they can keep it all and say that no one was playing your music. They're the ones supposedly holding the proof, and you actually trust them to admit it, when they can keep it all for themselves, if they don't?
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