THE WAY THE MUSIC DIED?

Emotional feedback
On a timeless wavelength
Bearing a gift beyond price ---
Almost free...
-Rush Spirit of Radio

Local radio is a rarity these days. Smaller, locally owned stations are bought out by huge corporations such as Clear Channel which run the station more on a template than based on the interests of the local community. It isn't that they are tone deaf to the market; the station would collapse if they paid no heed, it is that they have a type of station that they plug into the area and adapt the play list to what locals want to hear rather than having a station that grew from the area organically. Maybe the area will support a reggae/calypso/zydeco radio station, but there's no such category at Megacorp Radio, so that never shows up.

One local station recently had a public service announcement thanking Congressman Greg Walden (R-OR) for fighting something I'd not heard about previously: the "performance tax." The bill is called the Performance Rights Act of 2009 and it requires a "tax" on each time a song is played over the radio. The bill does not involve a true tax in the sense of it being a government levy, it is rather a fee charged by the record companies. Annually, radio stations are responsible for an estimated $1.5 to $2.4 billion dollars in sales to artists and labels, but this isn't enough for the record companies who are suffering from poor product and digital downloads eating into their sales. Artists would get half of the fee, the labels the other half.

Radio stations already pay for the music they play. First, they purchase the content they play on the air, and second, they pay for a license to play the material each year, totaling over $500 million a year combined between all stations. This money, however, goes to songwriters, not the record labels. Any material played over the internet is also paid for, a royalty is paid for each song played on the internet in the theory that a perfect digital copy of a song is easier to capture and of higher quality than one over the air.

If this passes, radio stations will be forced to advertise more, play fewer songs, play fewer works by new artists because the risk may not be worth taking, focus more on "top hits" playlists to avoid content that might not be as popular, and even change format to exclude music entirely.

The usual suspects are all signed onto this. Representative Conyers (D-MI) and the NAACP is in support of the Performance Rights Act despite the fact that this would place a greater burden on black-owned stations which are already having trouble staying on the air. Conyers claims these stations would be exempt, the Radio Broadcasting industry says otherwise. The bill specifically states that all stations must pay, but limits the fee to a maximum of only $5000 a year - on top of already financially struggling stations. The broadcast industry estimates that a full third of minority owned stations would collapse under this burden.

This is a classic example of the left creating a problem they insist government must solve: fewer people are listening to some stations, we'll propose a bill that puts them out of business, then propose a bill to raise taxes and spend government money to put them back into business.

Why do the Democrats support this bill so much? It isn't clear, but there is no doubt that the record labels are big D contributors and they have a pretty loud lobbying voice with the Democratic Party. Yet that isn't enough of a reason, not for this bill.

One significant clue is that only radio stations are affected by this legislation; not hotels, restaurants, bars, and other small businesses who play music. All of these must buy the same license radio stations do, but play music all day long without the fee. That music played at the mall when you walk around? License paid, "performance tax" exempt. So it appears to be targeting radio rather than music play. It isn't so much the songs being played that is the concern, but that they're being played on the radio. Conyers in the house and Leahy (D-VT) in the Senate are pushing this bill so this isn't some minor crackpot effort; these are Democratic Party heavy hitters.

I can't read minds, but I get the impression that they consider this a lever to pressure clear channel and other major broadcast conglomerates. Perhaps from their perspective, crushing radio stations which might carry content they do not care for can open the door to government assistance which will permit content they do like to be broadcast. Supporters of the Performance Rights Act claim there is a loophole in the system:

"It's unfair, unjustified and un-American that artists and musicians are paid absolutely nothing when their recordings are played on AM and FM radio. Music is their work, their livelihood. They deserve fair pay for air play," Bendall said. "Artists and musicians across America thank Senator Leahy, Representative Conyers and their colleagues for introducing bills that will close the corporate radio loophole."

The Performance Rights Act will close an archaic provision of America's copyright law that allows AM and FM radio stations to earn $16 billion a year in advertising revenue without compensating the artists and musicians who bring music to life and listeners' ears to the radio dial.

This "loophole" is the fact that newer music delivery systems such as satellite and internet were nailed with fees to broadcast music. In other words, the system was set, and they came up with a new way to make money with new technology, and are now calling the standard system a "loophole."

You would think that record labels would want radio stations to be encouraged to advertise more of their product, not be penalized so they play less, but they're in a bind. The ocean of money they were getting from music sales has slowed, and they want to keep it going at the rate it was before. And they're ruthless about that cash flow, and they've found allies in congress to get them more of that money.

There are two bills opposing the Performance Rights Act that have been introduced in congress, with a broader effect. They are Local Radio Freedom Acts: Senators Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) and John Barrasso (R-WY) introduced Senate Respolution 14, and Representatives. Gene Green (D- TX) and Mike Conaway (R-TX) introduced House Continuing Resolution 49. So far more than 200 congressmen have signed on to the house version. In the senate bipartisan support is echoed, with Senators Tim Johnson (D-SD), Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) as co sponsors. These bills also make it illegal for any sort of "fairness doctrine" to be re-established by the FCC, which has only refrained from doing so by choice, not by law.

How this will play out is largely dependent on how much people hear about it and what pressure is brought on congress to counter the lobbying funds by the RIAA.