Digital Radio Stations: Recorded Before 2/15/72? No Royalties for You

[Anderton]

Seriously, I wasn't aware of this. Apparently there's a loophole in the law that allows digital radio not to have to pay royalties for songs they play that were recorded before 2/15/72. This explains some of my missing royalties...they aren't missing; technically I'm not owed anything.

 

It goes deeper than that, of course, with terrestrial radio not paying the artists who recorded the work, only the songwriter. Here's a relatively unbiased article that presents the lay of the land. The bottom line I get from this is that radio stations have a better lobby than artists. I found this quote particularly interesting:

 

"Because the U.S. doesn’t pay artists when their songs are played on the radio, they also do not receive compensation when their songs are played in other countries. The only other countries other than the U.S. which do not pay a master recordings royalty on terrestrial radio broadcasts are North Korea, Iran and China."

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Dendy Jarrett]

As we get older, I read more and more musician biography's and see documentaries on artist who had influential impacts on music with their songs but due to record label lawyers, they found themselves broke or even destitute.

 

We can seemingly find enough money to pay benched athletes multi-million annual salaries, but we want to rob income from musicians. We certainly have our priorities in order ... NOT!

 

 

[AlamoJoe]

"Because the U.S. doesn’t pay artists when their songs are played on the radio, they also do not receive compensation when their songs are played in other countries. The only other countries other than the U.S. which do not pay a master recordings royalty on terrestrial radio broadcasts are North Korea, Iran and China."

 

Unreal...We're in really good company aren't we?

[Anderton]

The Axis of Music Industry.

[AlamoJoe]

It's kind of strange, having grown up when I did...That China seems the most benign threat compared to the other two...or Maybe three nations to World peace. China's economy is running the show over there right now. They are prospering and don't want anything like some stupid war to interrupt their prosperity. I hope.

[blue2blue]

I knew about everything except for the pre-1972 recording-performance royalty exclusion for non-demand Internet radio.

 

But, in fact, one of the things that has interested me in the evolving musician community discussion of streaming and other Internet music related issues is just how many musicians outraged over supposedly microscopic stream payments have brought up radio play -- without even ever having realized that only publishers (and by extension, songwriters) get money for terrestrial radio play in the US -- a fact drummed into our heads in my music biz class -- only suckers don't get a cut of songwriting, one of the key points of the whole class.