This is a pay-for-play scheme that lawmakers can publicly get behind.
Members of Congress from both parties introduced legislation this week meant to close a loophole that gets radio stations off the hook from paying artists for broadcasting their music.
The American Music Fairness Act would compel AM and FM broadcasters to compensate artists, in line with requirements already imposed on digital broadcasters and streaming services.
“The United States is the only democratic country in the world in which artists are not paid for the use of their music on AM and FM radio,” bill co-sponsor Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) told The Post in a statement.
“This legislation would close an outdated loophole that has allowed corporate broadcasters to take advantage of artists and their songs for decades.”
Musicians are bilked of at least $200 million in annual royalties due to the lack of payments from AM and FM stations, according to an estimate from Sound Exchange, a music tech organization that has pushed for the bill.
“Radio conglomerates operating thousands of AM/FM stations across the U.S., make billions in profits, employ legions of lobbyists, and spend millions each year to influence lawmakers, all while continuing to refuse to pay the artists whose songs they play on the airwaves,” SoundExchange CEO Michael Huppe said in a statement.
“For more than a century, American artists and producers have been denied the basic right to earn compensation for their own creation broadcast on AM/FM Radio,” Harvey Mason Jr., CEO of the Recording Academy, said in a statement.
“We urge Congress to finally pay creators for their work.”
Broadcasting organizations oppose the bill, arguing that radio stations are already forced to pay fees that digital services do not.
“This legislation would impose a new performance royalty on local radio stations on top of the huge royalties that our local radio stations already pay,” the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters previously said of the legislation, versions of which have been proposed in the past two sessions of Congress.
“Such additional royalties could potentially financially cripple many local radio stations and harm the millions of listeners who rely on local radio for news, emergency information, weather updates and entertainment.”
Advocates of radio stations also argue that they have to operate on slim margins to provide free-to-air broadcasts.
“The recording industry continues its uncompromising pursuit of this one-sided proposal that would upend the relationship between artists and broadcast radio,” the National Association of Broadcasters previously said of the bill in December 2022.
The proposal imposes a sliding royalty scale for smaller stations, on the condition that their parent companies also take less than $10 million annually.
For example, radio stations that earn under $100,000 a year in revenue would be expected to pay a royalty rate of about $10 a year.
That figure would get bumped up to $100 per year for public stations with annual revenue between $100,000 and $1.5 million.
Larger radio organizations would be subject to rates determined by the Copyright Royalty Board, which operates under the auspices of the US Copyright Office of the Library of Congress.
“Now is the time for the United States to finally adopt the proven global standard of compensating our artists for music broadcast over the radio,” Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the bill’s main sponsor in the House, told The Post in a statement.
In tandem with reupping the American Music Fairness Act, Blackburn raised concerns with the Federal Communications Commission about radio stations giving certain artists more airtime in exchange for a free performance.
“We have heard the new scheme works in this manner: Radio stations and networks offer more airtime for an artist’s songs if the artist performs a free show,” she told FCC Chair Brendan Carr. “There is often an implicit suggestion that declining to perform could result in reduced airplay.”
“Those just starting out in their career will often perform more, while those that have had more success will have to perform fewer,” she added. “This practice is exploitative and should not be tolerated.”
Blackburn has been joined by Sens. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Cory Booker (D-NJ) in sponsoring the Senate version of the bill.
