Mike Hall at the AFL-CIO writes about an issue not many of us are aware of: Musicians don't get paid for their work when terrestrial radio plays it.
AM and FM radio stations that broadcast songs over the air to your cars and homes have had a free ride for more than 80 years. They don't have to pay the musicians and singers who make the music. A good deal for corporate radio, a bad deal for working musicians.
Legislation in Congress, the Performance Rights Act (S. 379 and H.R. 848), will make sure the band gets paid by requiring the stations to pay royalties to the performers whenever their work is aired. The bill, says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, "would correct an injustice that has been 80 years in the making." In a letter to the U.S. Senate urging passage of the legislation, he says the bill
would guarantee that performers whose work is played on AM/FM radio can finally secure the right to be compensated for their efforts. This is an issue of basic fairness for working families.
You can tell you lawmakers to support the bill by clicking here.
While musicians are shafted by terrestrial radio, they receive their rightfully earned royalties when their music is played over satellite, Internet and cable radio. But the United States is one of only a few countries that do not provide fair performance rights on radio. The others include Qatar, Iraq, Iran, North Korea and China.
Also, because U.S. radio stations do not pay a performance royalty for foreign artists either, American artists are not compensated when their music is played on stations around the world.
Opponents of the bill claim that requiring AM/FM broadcasters to make fair royalty payment to the performers would cause the stations a financial hardship, especially for small and minority-owned stations. But as Trumka points out:
This argument has no basis in fact: amendments passed with bipartisan support in both the House and Senate Judiciary Committees have addressed these concerns. In fact, the amendment approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee would guarantee that the smallest broadcasters would pay as little as $100 per year for the right to utilize performers' intellectual property.
This summer, the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU), the A. Philip Randolph Institute (APRI) and the NAACP endorsed the legislation, saying it would not hurt black radio and that musicians, like all workers, deserve to be paid a fair wage.
After winning committee approval in October, the bill could come to a vote anytime and Trumka urged lawmakers to act quickly.
The American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada (AFM) and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) and other performance groups have formed the Music First Coalition to mobilize in support of the legislation.
Crossposted from AFL-CIO Blog.