iHeartRadio will receive $100 million from the sale of BMI to New Mountain Capital. The irony of a radio giant profiting millions while refusing to pay performers highlights why passing the American Music Fairness Act (AMFA) is vital for #MusicFairness.https://t.co/AGDKUlbFEF
— Michael Huppe (@MikeHuppe) November 27, 2023
Category: Fair Play Fair Pay
Press Release: @MarshaBlackburn, @SenAlexPadilla Reintroduce Bipartisan Bill to Ensure Artists Are Paid for Their Music Across All Platforms #irespectmusic
[Editor Charlie sez: Anyone who tells you that artists can’t pass legislation to get fair pay for radio play is either a charlatan or full of shit and they are not on our side of the football.]
U.S. Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), along with Senators Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), introduced the bipartisan American Music Fairness Act to ensure artists and music creators receive fair compensation for the use of their songs on AM/FM radio. This legislation will bring corporate radio broadcasters in line with all other music streaming platforms, which already pay artists for their music.
Congressmen Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) led the legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives.
“From Beale Street to Music Row to the hills of East Tennessee, Tennessee’s songwriters and artists have undeniably made their mark,” said Senator Blackburn. “However, while digital music platforms compensate music performers and copyright holders for playing their songs, AM/FM radio stations only pay songwriters for the music they broadcast. This legislation takes a long overdue step toward leveling the music industry playing field and ensuring creators are fairly compensated for their work.”
“California’s artists play a pivotal role in enriching and diversifying our country’s music scene, but for too long, our laws have unfairly denied them the right to receive fair compensation for their hard work and talent on AM/FM radio broadcasts,” said Senator Padilla. “As we celebrate the accomplishments of our musical artists at the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles this weekend, we must commit to treating them with the dignity and respect they deserve for the music that they produce and that we enjoy every day.”
“Protecting one’s intellectual property is the signature right of every American who dares to invent. Every artist who first picked up a drumstick, sang to their mirror, or wrote lyrics from the heart did so because they had a dream and wanted to share it with the world. I look forward to working with stakeholders and colleagues to achieve this overdue reform,” said Congressman Issa.
“The United States is an outlier in the world for not requiring broadcast radio to pay artists when playing their music, while requiring satellite and internet radio to pay,” said Chairman Nadler. “This is unfair to both artists and music providers. I’m proud to sponsor the American Music Fairness Act which would finally correct this injustice. This is what music creators want and deserve.”
“It’s clear that the movement for music fairness continues to gain momentum, bringing us closer than ever before to ending Big Radio’s ability to deny artists the fair pay they deserve. This week’s House and Senate introductions of the American Music Fairness Act is evidence of that. We thank Senators Padilla and Blackburn and Representatives Issa and Nadler for their leadership in the effort to secure economic justice for our nation’s music artists and creators, and look forward to working together to drive continued progress in the coming months,”said Congressman Joe Crowley, Chairman of musicFIRST.
“Music creators have been forced to give away their work for far too long. It is time for Congress to demonstrate that they stand behind the hard-working Americans that provide the music we all love by finally passing the American Music Fairness Act. This bill has the broad support of artists, labels, small broadcasters, unions, and others because it strikes a fair balance by respecting creators for their work and protecting truly local broadcasters. No more excuses, no more waiting in line for their turn. Music creators demand the economic justice AMFA provides,” said Michael Huppe, President and CEO of SoundExchange.
“As we prepare to focus our attention on celebrating music this weekend at the GRAMMY Awards, the Recording Academy also renews its commitment to ensuring music creators are always compensated fairly for their work. We applaud Reps. Issa, Nadler, McClintock, and Lieu and Senators Padilla, Blackburn, Feinstein, and Tillis for reintroducing the American Music Fairness Act and look forward to working with them to build on the historic progress we made last year on this important legislation,” said Harvey Mason jr., CEO of the Recording Academy.
“The American Music Fairness Act is practical compromise legislation that has already passed the House Judiciary Committee with bipartisan support last Congress. It takes a smart, calibrated approach towards solving a decades old problem in the radio industry. When enacted into law, AMFA will ensure recording artists and copyright owners are paid fairly for recorded music regardless of the technology used to broadcast it while carefully protecting small and noncommercial stations to preserve truly local radio our communities depend upon,” said Mitch Glazier, Chairman and CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America.
“For far too long, our broken and unfair system has let AM/FM radio stations — many of which are owned by just a few massive media corporations — get away with refusing to pay artists when they play their music. While these big corporate broadcast companies gobble up billions upon billions in advertising dollars, the session and background musicians, whose work makes all of it possible, receive no compensation whatsoever for their creations. It’s time to right this wrong, and the American Music Fairness Act aims to do just that. It’s vital that Congress protects the livelihoods of those who create the music we know and love,” said Ray Hair, International President of the American Federation of Musicians.
“I want to thank Congressman Jerry Nadler, Congressman Darrell Issa, Senator Alex Padilla and Senator Marsha Blackburn for their leadership on this crucial legislation. When you consider the billions of dollars the big radio corporations generate in revenue and profits, it’s shocking that recording artists, vocalists and musicians don’t receive a penny when their work is played on AM/FM radio. Since when do workers in America get exploited without pay? This is an unfair and egregious loophole especially since both streaming and digital services pay for the use of artists’ work. AM/FM radio has had a free ride for decades and it’s time to put a stop to it! I urge Congress to fix this outdated practice by passing the American Music Fairness Act,” said Fran Drescher, President of SAG-AFTRA.
“We are grateful that our champions are making it crystal clear that the fight for fairness continues in this new Congress. By reintroducing the American Music Fairness Act, Senators Blackburn and Padilla, along with Representatives Issa, Nadler, McClintock, and Lieu, as defenders of property rights and supporters of artistic expression, have put the mega broadcasting conglomerates on notice that it is time to erase their stain on America’s history,” said Dr. Richard James Burgess, President and CEO of the American Association of Independent Music.
Currently, the United States is the only democratic country in the world in which artists are not compensated for the use of their music on AM/FM radio. By requiring broadcast radio corporations to pay performance royalties to creators for AM/FM radio plays, the American Music Fairness Act would close an antiquated loophole that has allowed corporate broadcasters to forgo compensating artists for the use of their music for decades.
In recognition of the important role of locally owned radio stations in communities across the U.S., the American Music Fairness Act also includes strong protections for small, college, and non-commercial stations.
The American Music Fairness Act will positively impact artists and the music industry at large by:
- Requiring terrestrial radio broadcasters to pay royalties to American music creators when they play their songs.
- Protecting small and local stations who qualify for exemptions — specifically those that fall under $1.5 million in annual revenue and whose parent companies fall under less than $10 million in annual revenue overall — by allowing them to play unlimited music for less than $500 annually.
- Creating a fair global market that ensures foreign countries pay U.S. artists for the use of their songs overseas.
The American Music Fairness Act is endorsed by: the AFL-CIO, the American Association of Independent Music (A2IM), the American Federation of Musicians, the Recording Academy, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), SAG-AFTRA and SoundExchange.
Full text of the bill is available here.
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@theblakemorgan: American middle-class musicians are worth fighting for #IRespectMusic
[Editor Charlie sez: Our friend and supporter Blake Morgan has an important opinion post on the bi-partisan American Music Fairness Act (AMFA) in The Hill, a long-time and influential DC insider journal. Blake tells the human story of why artists need the AMFA legislation and the #IRespectMusic campaign.]
We musicians are used to fighting. For our livelihoods, our families, our dreams. In recent years we’ve fought battles we’ve neither sought nor provoked, against powerful corporate forces devaluing music’s worth. Streaming companies, music pirates, and AM/FM radio broadcasters who, in the United States, pay nothing––zero––to artists for radio airplay.
It’s shocking, but true: The United States is the only democratic country in the world where artists don’t get paid for radio airplay. Only Iran, North Korea, and China stand with the United States in this regard. ADVERTISEMENT
Broadcasters make billions of dollars each year off our music, and artists don’t earn a penny. This impacts not only the artist, but session musicians, recording engineers, songwriters. Virtually everyone in music’s economy.
Isn’t being paid fairly for one’s work a bedrock American value?
Read Blake’s post on The Hill and sign the #IRespectMusic campaign and tell Congress you want fairness for artists!
@MusicFirst: New Poll: Americans Support Bold Actions to Get Artists Paid for AM/FM Radio Airplay #IRESPECTMUSIC
TO: Interested Parties
FROM: musicFIRST Coalition
DATE: September 22, 2021
RE: NEW POLL: Americans support bold actions to get artists paid for AM/FM radio airplay
A new national poll commissioned by musicFIRST — the voice for fairness and equity for music creators — shows that the American public backs bold action to ensure that artists are treated with respect and paid when their songs are played on AM/FM radio.
For decades, dominant corporate broadcasters like iHeartRadio and Cumulus Media have refused to pay artists despite raking in billions of dollars in advertising revenue every year. While these corporations use music creators’ work to fill their airwaves, and in turn bring in advertisers, they claim they cannot afford to give compensation to the artists.
At a time when America is focused on the plight of hard-working Americans, this is exploitation of the tens of thousands of working-class singers and musicians.
These same broadcasters then turn to their lobbyists at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) to do their dirty work on Capitol Hill to maintain the unjust status quo, claiming that providing fair compensation to artists for their work would harm “local radio.” The truth is that the six largest broadcast conglomerates have wiped out local jobs at the 2,000 radio stations they own across the country.
While most Americans are unaware of these injustices playing out between broadcasters and music creators, once they learn of this issue they not only agree it is unfair, and that music creators deserve to be paid when their music is played, but they support artists and advertisers taking strong action — up to and including boycotting AM/FM radio stations or supporting artists from withholding their music — to force broadcasters to do the right thing.
Hopefully, it won’t come to that. That’s why musicFIRST is supporting the American Music Fairness Act (AMFA), bipartisan legislation introduced by Reps. Ted Deutch and Darrell Issa in June of this year and backed by a majority of Americans, according to this survey. If passed, the AMFA would require broadcasters to, would finally, fairly compensate artists when they play their songs on their radio stations, while protecting truly local radio stations by exempting small and noncommercial broadcasters.
Most Americans don’t know that artists aren’t paid for radio airplay — and they side with artists when they find out
One key reason that broadcasters have been able to get away without paying artists for so long is that most Americans simply don’t know it’s happening. .
In this survey, only 30% of Americans said they were aware that artists aren’t paid when their music is played on AM/FM radio. Meanwhile, over half reported that they knew that streaming services like Spotify and Pandora do pay artists for streams.
The NAB is banking on the public remaining in the dark on this issue. Because once they do become aware, Americans overwhelmingly believe it’s unfair that music creators and artists are not paid when their music is played on the radio — by a 2-to-1 margin, 54%-22%. Once average people start speaking up, standing, alongside leading artists and voices in the music industry, the pressure to finally provide fair compensation may be too much for corporate broadcasters to withstand.
Americans support strong actions by artists, advertisers and Congress to overturn the unjust status quo
But American music fans don’t stop at simply finding this situation to be deeply unfair. This new survey also shows that they believe artists, Congress and even advertisers should take bold steps to upend the status quo.
By a more than 40-point margin (60%-16%), survey respondents say that artists should be able to withhold their music and not allow radio stations to play their songs if they’re not being paid for it. And big corporations like iHeartRadio and Cumulus may have some difficulty selling ad space if they no longer have music to bring people to their stations, since nearly 3- in- 5 Americans (57%) say that music is what attracts them to listen to the radio. And one step further, roughly two-thirds (65%) of Americans say they would also support Fortune 500 companies and other major brands engaging in a boycott of advertising on traditional radio stations if they continue to refuse to play fair.
But most immediately, this is an issue that Congress can remedy by updating our outdated and unjust laws — and Americans are urging lawmakers to do so. In this survey, over half of respondents (54%) said they would support Congress passing a bill that would require radio stations to compensate artists when they play their songs, such as the AMFA, with only 20% opposed.
Most Americans are turning to streaming services and digital platforms to discover new music and artists, contradicting the NAB’s “promotional value” myth.
Since the beginning of radio, broadcast corporations and their executives have claimed they are doing artists a favor by providing “promotional value” to artists for free. This may have been the case in the 1960s when Americans mostly discovered new music through the radio, but this outdated and exaggerated myth no longer flies in 2021.
The new survey shows the truth: Times have changed and roughly two-thirds of Americans now use digital sources, such as streaming services and digital platforms, as their primary means for finding new artists and music. Meanwhile, only 1- in- 5 (21%) of Americans say they use traditional AM/FM radio stations to discover new artists they like — and that number will only continue to drop. Of the coveted younger generation (18-29 years old), only 7% point to AM/FM radio as the most likely place to discover new music.
These days, songs and artists are much more likely to go viral on platforms like TikTok or get featured on a popular Spotify playlist, which helps them shoot to the top of the charts. In turn, these same songs are then played on the radio. These are 2021’s order of operations, not vice versa.
This so-called “free exposure” from radio stations is merely more exploitation. Yet the NAB continues to use this argument to defend why they shouldn’t have to pay artists. However, the data is clear: their claims on this and many other issues are, at best, outdated and, at worst, intentionally misleading — and music fans have had enough.
Americans want music creators — those they already know and those they haven’t yet discovered — to be paid for their work. It’s time for the NAB and the corporate broadcasters they represent to finally listen.
About This Poll
This poll was commissioned by musicFIRST and conducted online via SurveyMonkey from August 30-31, 2021, with a national sample of 1,455 Americans. The margin of error was +/- 2.5%.
About musicFIRST
musicFIRST works to ensure music creators get fair pay for their work on all platforms and wherever and however it is played. We rally the people and organizations who make and love music to end the broken status quo that allows AM/FM to use any song ever recorded without paying its performers a dime. And to stand up for fair pay on digital radio — and whatever comes next.
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