[NewMusic] Save Internet Radio

[Michael Zelner]

On 5/1/07, J. Segel wrote:

>i've been following the upsurge of indignation at the new internet 
>royalty rate
>ruling with some interest, because i seem to be on both sides of it. i have in
>the past made a somewhat meager living as a composer and performer, but have
>seen that entirely go away in the past couple of years. i understand that
>people want to listen to the radio, and in the past 20 years or so that i have
>had songs that were played on the radio, i actually got paid broadcast
>royalties (i'm talking college radio here, like maybe i made $1000 a year
>maximum. i don't understand tim westergren from pandora's assertion that
>broadcast radio doesn't pay these royalties at all...? 
>http://blog.pandora.com/
>) but with the advent of satellite radio, where they purposely didn't make
>contracts with the performance rights groups for a couple years, they didn't
>pay for a while. now they do. same with internet radio.

As I understand it, traditional radio play is seen as a benefit for 
record labels by promoting sales of recorded music. Thus, while 
royalties for air play do go to the composer/performer (via 
organizations such as BMI, which of course stands for "Broadcast 
Music, Inc."), the record labels themelves get nada. This goes all 
the way back to the early days of music radio. (History repeated 
itself in the early '80s with MTV, which the labels saw as a 
promotional vehicle and so they did not negotiate royalty payments 
for the use of music videos.)

The newer "Internet radio" royalties only cover digital transmissions 
of music, and don't apply to terrestrial radio stations (because that 
ship sailed many years ago). The record labels don't want to make the 
same mistake three times.

MZ



--------------michaelz at zoka.com---
             Michael Zelner
---Oakland CA USA------------------