The attempt to impose performance royalties on broadcasters has made it out of the subcommittee level, but we didn’t expect it would get much further this year. That’s especially true given the imposing firewall built by the NAB which includes over half the membership of the full house in opposition to the measure.
This is another of those broadcast issues in which support and opposition does not break down along party lines. Even more particularly, it’s an issue in which individual members find themselves with conflicting sentiments. During an earlier hearing, Howard Coble (R-NC) said he has friends on both sides of the issue "…and I want to make it clear that I’m with my friends."
The constricted legislative calendar is expected to prevent a return to the issue on Capitol Hill for the duration of the 110th Congress, and according to Reuters some House members with a strong interest in the bill are beginning to use the down time to find possible areas of compromise. Mike Pence (R-IN) is said to have suggested some method to get broadcast performance royalties to artists while finding a mechanism for broadcasters to reap some benefit for sales of music they’ve promoted.
RBR/TVBR observation: With all due respect to Pence, why in the world would we play ring-around-the-royalty-rosie? So broadcasters should begin paying to play music on the one hand, and then get paid for playing music on the other? Why not keep the banks out of it and barter free airplay for free promotion – just as it has been done for decades?
Of course, the Pence compromise initiative ignores the extreme likelihood that the labels will scream bloody murder. As it stands now, they expect to enjoy a large share of the royalty proceeds as rights holders to the music, since many artists have to surrender those rights just to get recorded in the first place. The Pence compromise would seemingly force the labels to pay a share of their sales revenues to broadcasters, which would ruin the one-way cash flow deal they’re salivating over in the current scheme.
The fact is that theoretically, airplay is good for both the artist and the label. The problem for artists is their noxious relationship with the labels – that is what is in need of a serious overhaul. And that should be the topic of the next Congressional hearing.
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