Your radios and cell phones

[sfc_oliver]

Where would the great music artists of yesterday be without the radio time they received? You might know how dumb this bill is just by seeing where it's coming from. And these same people called others greedy.

I can't remember buying a record as a teenager that I hadn't heard on the radio first.

(WHOT 1330)........

[Towntalk]

Could your favorite local music radio station suddenly go off the air or become another all talk station?

Congress is working on a bill under the leadership of Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) that would force local radio stations to pay for the right to play music on their stations. The annual flat rate would be calculated according to a radio station's revenue, with the smallest paying $500 a year, medium-size stations paying as much as $5,000 and the largest paying more.

But foes of the legislation -- including the National Assn. of Broadcasters, which represents about 6,500 radio stations -- say airplay gives "promotional value" to artists because radio reaches more than 235 million listeners a week, providing free advertising that produces $1.5 billion to $2.4 billion in music sales annually.

Dennis Wharton, NAB's executive vice president of media relations, called the Performance Rights Act "the biggest threat to radio in 50 years."

The millions -- and probably billions -- of dollars in annual performance fees could prompt stations to lay off workers, decrease charitable donations, convert to all-talk formats or go dark, Wharton said.

Leahy  recently said the bill would be a priority for the committee this summer. In May, the House Judiciary Committee approved the act after adding an amendment to protect smaller and noncommercial broadcasters by creating a sliding-scale fee.

The Performance Rights Act is cosponsored by Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Senator Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), and Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). The Senate Judiciary Committee, which Leahy chairs and of which Hatch is a former chairman, held a hearing on performance rights parity in November 2007. Lyle Lovett and Alice Peacock, both singer-songwriters, testified before the panel.

Since playing music constitutes publicity for the singers and bands, should the radio stations be allowed to charge advertizing rates for promoting the music?

The fact of the matter is that music radio stations already pay fees to ASCAP and BMI for playing music on the air.

To add insult to injury, The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) filed suit against AT&T asserting that ringtones qualify as a public performance under the Copyright Act. ASCAP, which has 350,000 members, collects royalties and licenses public performances of works under copyright. You could be forced to pay a royalty fee for the ringtone on your cell phone.

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/167761/when_your_phone_rings_the_copyright_police_may_come_calling.html