Recording Industry Calls Radio 'A Kind Of Piracy'

from the and-mocks-broadcasters dept

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

It would appear that the recording industry now likes to call any sort of business model it doesn't like "piracy." At least that's the only explanation I can come up with in its latest battle, where it has referred to traditional radio as "a form of piracy." It's almost too bizarre to be true, and that's before we even explain how this involves a (literal) can of herring.It's difficult to pick a side to cheer for in a dispute between the RIAA and the NAB -- as we're talking about two organizations with a history of saying the most outrageously incorrect things in misguided attempts to "protect" the industries they represent (which almost always ends up backfiring and hurting the industry). However, in the latest battle between the two, it seems pretty clear that it's the RIAA that's being more ridiculous. This is the latest skirmish in the battle that the RIAA started last year, in trying to get radio stations to pay royalties to musicians. If you're not familiar with the details, as it stands now, radio stations have to pay royalties only to songwriters and publishers for the music they play. The musicians themselves don't get royalties, with the (very reasonable) explanation that having songs on the radio acts as a strong promotion for the musicians. This explanation is supported by the history of radio, in which "payola" has almost always played a large role. The record labels have always paid the radio stations to play their bands -- a rather overt admission that radio helps promote new artists.But with the recording industry confused and struggling to adopt new business models, it wants to force radio stations to pay it, rather than the other way around. What's funny is that, normally, it's the party that has more leverage that gets to demand payment. Yet, here we have a case where it's the weakest party demanding paymentit's so weak. Despite all those years of payola as proof that radio is a promotional vehicle, the RIAA actually tried to put out a totally bogus study claiming that radio play decreased the demand for recorded music. Apparently, that wasn't convincing enough, so now it's claiming that radio is actually a "form of piracy."To make this even more ridiculous, this group called musicFirst, representing the recording industry, sent the NAB a can of herring (yes, an actual can of herring), a dictionary and some free songs in an attempt to mock the group. The herring was supposed to suggest that the radio stations' argument is a "red herring" (very clever, guys). The dictionary was so that the NAB could supposedly understand the difference between "fees" and "taxes" -- since the NAB refers to the move to get radio stations to pay musicians as a "tax," while the RIAA would prefer to think of it as a "fee." As for the digital songs, they were all mocking titles: "Take the Money and Run" by the Steve Miller Band; "Pay me My Money Down" by Bruce Springsteen; "Back In the U.S.S.R" by Paul McCartney and "A Change Would Do You Good" by Sheryl Crow.Of course, the recording industry is wrong on just about all of this. The idea that radio is a form of piracy is simply laughable. We've already pointed to the industry's own proof (payola) that radio helps promote artists. As for the definitional difference between fees and taxes, fees are agreed upon between two parties. A tax is a fee required by the government. Since the recording industry is asking the government to set this new rule, it would seem that the NAB is correct again that this would represent a tax, rather than a fee.

Filed Under: fees, publicity, radio, recording industry, royalties, taxes

Companies: musicfirst, nab, riaa