Performance Rights Act Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Performance Rights Act - Essay Example It is actually one of nine bills headed for the same thing but with a little different wordage. The plan is to require all radio performances including terrestrial radio, to pay performance license fees to artists for the broadcast of music (ecoustics.com). At this point in time webcasters , satellite companies, and cable companies all pay artists and others for the right to play recorded music but terrestrial radio is not required to do so. The nine bills that are now in Congress are meant to try to equalize this situation. Some of those bills are HR4788 sponsored by Representative Howard Berman, HR 848 presented by Representative John Conyers and another by Senator Partick Leahy. Senator Leahy states that presently it is very unfair and unjust for the radio companies not to have to pay for recordings. To them, it is there livelihood and it is unjust to not get paid for what they do as artists. The Performance Rights bill is meant to stop that unfairness(ecoustics.com). The Performance Rights bill will close an ancient loop hole in the copyright law that was created and allowed AM & FM radio stations to earn $16 million a year in advertising revenue without compensating the artists and musicians who have brought them the music in the first place. These artists bring the music to life and the music brings the listeners to the radio dial (ecoustics.com). AM & FM radio becau AM & FM radio because of the loop hole is the only platform of music that does not pay the artists and musicians a fee for the use of their music, in fact this is the only country in which this occurs. According to the artists, AM & FM radio have received a free pass. Sam Moore says, that American broadcasters have earned billions of dollars by playing the music created by these artists and all the artists want is to receive what artists in every other country around the world receives when their recordings are broadcast, fair compensation for the performance of their work. All the Performance Rights Act does is to bring the United States into line with other countries in the world. The major provisions of the act include providing a statutory license for making one payment annually under a set rate through negotiations or by the Copyright Royalty Board for all the music they play. This would be in place of the original thought of having to negotiate every copyright owner for each use of their music. This Act would accommodate small broadcasters and others by assuring balance and fairness that is not presently there. More than 75% of all commercial radio stations would pay only $1,000 per year. People like talk radio who only use music incidentally would not have to pay the fee and neither would religious radio. Most of the other 8 amendments read very close to the same way. The Future of Music Coalition has many issues going on at this point and only one of those is the Performance Rights Act. The future of the web and what it means to the music industry is part of their concern at the moment. Many artists are now using the internet to do their own open bookings of live concerts as well as selling merchandise, and booking tours. Almost all of them are building fan bases on the web. The Live Nation and Ticketmaster controversy and merger has concerned many of the artists enough to cause them to find ways to take on some of this business venture themselves. This