Ok this is my attempt to distill what I know down to a coherent post. It has been several years since I've had to deal with any of this.
The Copyright Royalty Board sets the rules for royalty rates a whole lot of broadcast/performance works in the US.
Sound Exchange (in conjunction BMI and ASCAP) manage the actual collection of fees and redistribution of said funds to the artists.
I don't know the exact rates for Sound Exchange, but ASCAP has about a 12% overhead. They collect and redistribute hundreds of millions of dollars a year
(if not billions).
The point of contention is that while radio stations pay licensing fees to the composers and songwriters, but not the performers (anyone who doesn't write
their own music gets screwed in this system). If the bands in question wrote their own songs instead of being mouthpieces for others, they most certainly would
get payed by the stations.
Part of the problem arises from the fact that radio started up in 1920 and the Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel (predecessor to the Copyright Royalty Board)
was established in 1993. Radio used to be the only method artists had to get heard by large amounts of people, and was viewed by many in the business as free
promotion for the artists. It was even common for artists to pay radio stations in order to get higher play counts (payola), which would increase awareness
and, hopefully, raise sales of physical media and concert tickets.
The fall in popularity of traditional radio (in part due to alternate forms of consumption like portable media players and internet radio) means that radio has
lost the power in this equation, and the RIAA now wants the stations to pay more than they currently are to broadcast the music.
Personally I think they are trying to squeeze blood from a stone, radio in general has been suffering as advertisers are leaving to find much more targeted
methods of reaching their audience. Charging them more will only hasten their death.
Not that the death of radio would be a bad thing. All that glorious bandwidth could be put to better use, but that is a topic for a different thread.
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy
The Copyright Royalty Board sets the rules for royalty rates a whole lot of broadcast/performance works in the US.
Sound Exchange (in conjunction BMI and ASCAP) manage the actual collection of fees and redistribution of said funds to the artists.
I don't know the exact rates for Sound Exchange, but ASCAP has about a 12% overhead. They collect and redistribute hundreds of millions of dollars a year
(if not billions).
The point of contention is that while radio stations pay licensing fees to the composers and songwriters, but not the performers (anyone who doesn't write
their own music gets screwed in this system). If the bands in question wrote their own songs instead of being mouthpieces for others, they most certainly would
get payed by the stations.
Part of the problem arises from the fact that radio started up in 1920 and the Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel (predecessor to the Copyright Royalty Board)
was established in 1993. Radio used to be the only method artists had to get heard by large amounts of people, and was viewed by many in the business as free
promotion for the artists. It was even common for artists to pay radio stations in order to get higher play counts (payola), which would increase awareness
and, hopefully, raise sales of physical media and concert tickets.
The fall in popularity of traditional radio (in part due to alternate forms of consumption like portable media players and internet radio) means that radio has
lost the power in this equation, and the RIAA now wants the stations to pay more than they currently are to broadcast the music.
Personally I think they are trying to squeeze blood from a stone, radio in general has been suffering as advertisers are leaving to find much more targeted
methods of reaching their audience. Charging them more will only hasten their death.
Not that the death of radio would be a bad thing. All that glorious bandwidth could be put to better use, but that is a topic for a different thread.
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy