[Infowarrior] - RIAA Takes Cue From The Onion on Music Promotion

[Richard Forno]

RIAA Takes Cue From The Onion: Wants Radio Stations To Pay Up For Promoting
Music

http://techdirt.com/articles/20070521/235819.shtml

You know your business is in trouble when you feel the need to start taking
cues from the Onion for ways to squeeze more money out of customers. Last
year, it was Verizon, who was found to have copied The Onion's satirical
"charge-you-at-a-whim" plan. The latest, as submitted by a few folks, is
that the RIAA is following the basic recommendation famously laid out by the
Onion five years ago to go after radio stations for "giving away free
music." It's not quite that bad, but pretty close. The LA Times notes that
the RIAA and some musicians are asking Congress to change the law to force
radio stations to pay up for promoting their music. Of course, radio
stations already do have to pay some royalties, but they're for composers
and publishers. The actual musicians are exempt from royalties because
Congress (correctly) recognized that they get the benefit of their music
being promoted. However, the new charge is being led by an original member
of the Supremes, Mary Wilson, with the support of the RIAA, complaining that
she can't just sit at home and collect royalties and actually has to (gasp!)
work to get paid these days. Oh, the horror. If only everyone else could sit
at home and get paid for work they did forty years ago. In the meantime, she
ignores the fact that radio play is a big part of what helped make the
Supremes famous allowing her to make any money from her music at all. It's
what drove people to buy the records. It's what drove people to go to the
concerts. This is just like the musicians in the UK whining about not
extending copyright. They're acting as if this is a welfare system, and the
government needs to make sure they keep getting paid for work they did
decades ago.