Radio Is Killing Music

from the by-special-permission-of-the-copyright-owner dept

Someone going by the name of "quickbrownfox" sent over a link to a delightful rendition of the song "By Special Permission of the Copyright Owner," by Smith Ballew, which you can listen to below:
I'd never heard the song, but the specificity of the phrase, and the fact that it has absolutely nothing to do with copyright -- other than mentioning that phrase -- immediately sent me searching for more info on the phrase and the song. It turns out that it's from the Broadway show, "The Gang's All Here," which was apparently a total flop (23 performances). According to the notes on another rendition of the song the show tanked in part because the star of the show would come out and warn the audience that the script was horrible, and the show should have been a revue, rather than a "book show." That version of the song has a few more lyrics at the beginning, which provide another clue to the oddity of the lyrics. It starts out saying:
Every time a radio is playing
they're saying...
"and next... you will hear us play
something with the publisher's okay."
Listening to this great announcer trilling
this thrilling...
new text!
Told me what to do
Try this very notion out on you...
And from there it breaks into the same lyrics in the first version above. So we're a step closer to understanding the details of the phrase. And then... I found this fantastic Time Magazine article from August of 1932 that explains how the music industry was dying because of radio, and that our friends at ASCAP required radio stations to not just get permission to play any song on radio, but also to make the statement that was the title of that song, with "no facetious trifling":
The American Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers is Tin Pan Alley's clearing house. Its 800 composer & publisher-members own the copyrights to nearly all the music composed in the U. S. since 1914. It is affiliated with similar societies abroad. To many radio listeners and broadcasters the phrase "by special permission of the copyright owners" has been irksome. A. S. C. A. & P. used to insist upon it, permitting no facetious trifling with the announcement. Lately, however, it lifted this requirement. Most of its songs may be performed without special permission, but a number are restricted, for example musical comedy songs which the producers do not wish to be too soon familiarized.
That's ASCAP. Pissing people off for nearly a century. But what was a lot more entertaining about the article was the paragraph above this, in which it seemed to suggest that radio was absolutely killing music. Stop me if you've heard this before, but the refrain may be familiar:
Tin Pan Alley is sadly aware that Radio has virtually plugged up its oldtime outlets, sheet music and gramophone discs. The average music publisher used to get $175,000 a year from disc sales. He now gets about 10% of this. No longer does a song hit sell a million copies. The copious stream of music poured out by Radio puts a song quickly to death. The average song's life has dwindled from 18 months to 90 days; composers are forced to turn out a dozen songs a year instead of the oldtime two or three.
Has there ever been a time, ever, in which the music industry's established players weren't complaining about the industry dying?
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: history, music, radio


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • icon
    Hephaestus (profile), 6 Oct 2011 @ 8:09am

    With reference to political alarmism, 'when we are alarmed with imaginary dangers in respect of the public, till the cry grows quite stale and threadbare, how can it be expected we should know when to guard ourselves against real ones?'

    Samuel Croxall

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 6 Oct 2011 @ 9:41am

      Re:

      The politician/industry who cried wolf.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        Hephaestus (profile), 6 Oct 2011 @ 10:13am

        Re: Re:

        exactly ... but money makes the politicians fall for it every time. The population on the other hand is beginning to wake up to this.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

        • identicon
          Anonymous Coward, 6 Oct 2011 @ 9:00pm

          Re: Re: Re:

          Hopefully my wolf crying reference isn't an IP violation that's killing the children's book industry.

          link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Prisoner 201, 6 Oct 2011 @ 9:05am

    ...composers are forced to turn out a dozen songs a year instead of the oldtime two or three.

    Spoiled much?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 6 Oct 2011 @ 9:08am

      Re:

      Only peasants should be forced to work more then once for a living.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 6 Oct 2011 @ 9:07am

    Radio is Killing Music

    And the Internet is killing Radio, saving Music! YAY

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Lord Binky, 6 Oct 2011 @ 9:08am

    It happens...

    "Has there ever been a time, ever, in which the music industry's established players weren't complaining about the industry dying?"

    Yes. It happens quite often, although it is promptly followed by complaining about dying themselves.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Beech, 6 Oct 2011 @ 9:14am

    ...composers are forced to turn out a dozen songs a year instead of the oldtime two or three.

    Wait, you mean the state of the industry and copyright at the time was making musicians turn out more music? It almost sounds like they were being "encouraged" to make more "useful arts!"

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    cc (profile), 6 Oct 2011 @ 9:19am

    Larry Lessig told this story in his 2007 TED speech, didn't he? How the ASCAP cartel were being asses to the point that the radio stations were forced to circumvent them -- by starting BMI and recording public domain music that they played instead of ASCAP's stuff, thus pushing ASCAP out of the picture.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Tom The Toe, 6 Oct 2011 @ 9:31am

    The T-shirt

    "ASCAP, Pissing people off for nearly a century" I know there's a t-shirt in this.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    fogbugzd (profile), 6 Oct 2011 @ 9:37am

    None of these stories about how "AAAA is killing BBBB" ever explains one simple thing. Why should the businesses, employees, and artisans of the BBBB industry be entitled to guaranteed jobs and income? The stories always mourn hardships of the wholesome, righteous people of the BBBB business, but they never celebrate the creativity and new opportunities of the AAAA industry. Change is always hard on someone, but in a true free market progress is driven by new industries and technologies replacing old ones.

    Should we all still be burning whale oil for lighting and listening to our music on gramophones?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Chosen Reject (profile), 6 Oct 2011 @ 9:49am

      Re:

      Should we all still be burning whale oil for lighting and listening to our music on gramophones?
      Are you crazy? Whale oil? Are you trying to kill the dairy industry?

      And gramaphones? My word. If you really wanted to support an artist, you'd hire them as your court musician! Gramaphones! Hmph!

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      wvhillbilly (profile), 5 Nov 2011 @ 2:15pm

      Re:

      An analogy--RIAA is like a factory trying to squeeze more output from their rickety old steam engine by tying down the pressure relief valve and stoking up the fire some more. Sooner or later that overfired, overpressured steam engine is going to blow to kingdom come and their business with it.

      If they'd replace that rickety steam engine with electric motors they'd find things would run a lot more smoothly, but they're too stingy to put out the money to change.

      So it is with the record industry.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 6 Oct 2011 @ 10:02am

    "composers are forced to turn out a dozen songs a year instead of the oldtime two or three. "

    better get out the whoopin stick and *force* those composers to write more music.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    John Doe, 6 Oct 2011 @ 10:13am

    I feel bad for people in the music business

    The average song's life has dwindled from 18 months to 90 days; composers are forced to turn out a dozen songs a year instead of the oldtime two or three.

    Those poor song writers have to turn out a song per month. Oh the horror. How can any one person be expected to work that much? To sit down for a day per month and write a song?

    As for the performers, they have even a worse job. They have to tour this great country of ours in a luxury bus, perform for a couple hours 1 or 2 nights per week. And for what? Millions of dollars per year? Hardly worth it in my book.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    OPR8R, 6 Oct 2011 @ 10:36am

    Re: Forcing artists/composers to make more music

    You can't force an artist to art. It comes to them the way it does. This is why you spend $20 on a CD and only 3 of the songs are any good.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 6 Oct 2011 @ 10:41am

    Where... where are the trolls? Look at all the comments, but not a single troll yet.

    What is going on here? I'm going to crawl under my desk and hide for a bit just in case this really is the end.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 6 Oct 2011 @ 10:50am

    Personally I would be greatful if some of the popular "musicians" were only producing 2 or 3 works per year. If I never hear another Lady Gaga song it will be too soon.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Chris Hoeschen (profile), 6 Oct 2011 @ 11:10am

    The music industry must be dying of a really slow death.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    TheRockinDonkey, 7 Oct 2011 @ 8:00pm

    No longer does a song hit sell a million copies. The copious stream of music poured out by Radio puts a song quickly to death. The average song's life has dwindled from 18 months to 90 days; composers are forced to turn out a dozen songs a year instead of the oldtime two or three.

    The problem isn't just radio. It's the whole shebang. Artists that create disposable pieces are what's promoted by the industry at large (that includes MTV, radio, iTunes, etc). When you create something disposable, you're not going to turn a huge profit off that.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Jon (profile), 8 Oct 2011 @ 3:12am

    X Factor Generation?

    Look at X Factor (and its peers). Designed specifically to find some "talent" then promote then with the specific purpose of selling as many records (or whatever they are called these days) before people get bored and move on to the next trend.

    Also, businesses like this do not like change. People will always listen to music, if the businesses are not moving with the times then it is the death of music, but only for them.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 8 Oct 2011 @ 6:58pm

    Let's sing it!

    I heard you on the wireless back in...aw, forget it. Too easy.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    wvhillbilly (profile), 5 Nov 2011 @ 2:01pm

    This sounds rather a bit like the music I used to listen to on 78 RPM records when I was growing up. A lot nicer than the hideous noises that pass for music nowadays. They can keep their copyrights on their so-called music and the music too, I don't need or want any part of it.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    anonymous, 27 Nov 2013 @ 1:53am

    If anything else had been suffering on the verge of death as long the music industry, it would have been mercy-killed long ago.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.