Minority Broadcasters Angry at Rep. Conyers over proposed Performance Tax

[ellacott]

Conyers' Royalty Fee Amendment Creates B'casters Uproar
By Jeffrey Yorke
Updated 12 Hour(s) 44 Minute(s) ago

Rep. John Conyers will be perched atop the middle seat in the top row of the House Judiciary Committee meeting Wednesday morning (May 13), banging the gavel as the chairman -- but he'll really be in the hot seat. Broadcasters, particularly minority broadcasters, are outraged with the Michigan Democrat despite word that he'll offer an amendment that will significantly cut the proposed fee that the smallest of broadcasters would have to pay if the controversial Performance Rights Act is passed by Congress.

Conyers, who for nearly four decades has supported the effort of performers and artists to get legislation passed into law that would collect a fee for recordings broadcast over the airwaves, will offer a managers' amendment to the act before the committee marks it up and sends it to the floor for a full House vote, where it is has a better than usual chance of becoming law. The original bill called for broadcasters with $1.25 million or less in annual revenue to pay $5,000 in annual fees to performers and artists for broadcasting their recorded works; Conyers' new proposed fee tier would cut the rate to $2,500 for stations billing between $100,000 and $500,000 annually and to $500 annually for stations with revenues of $100,000 a year or less. Payments would also be delayed for two years for stations billing $500,000 or less a year and delayed one year for stations billing more than that amount, according to a copy of the proposed amendment obtained by R&R.

"It's bullsh**," said Radio One CEO Alfred Liggins III, who is clearly fit to be tied over the performance royalty legislation. "All the minority owned stations are in major metropolitan areas. Seventy-five percent of all African Americans live in top 50 markets, so those stations do bill over $1.25 million annually. There will be only a very few stations that meet those exemptions." Liggins says that of the 53 stations in the Radio One portfolio, "only about three will be exempt. That threshold is going to capture 90% of all the revenue in the industry."

Conyers, Liggins tells R&R, is "trying to hide behind doing something for small broadcasters and, at the same time, getting done what he wanted to do."

The Rev. Al Sharpton, whose nationally syndicated radio program is heard through Radio One, has been encouraging his audience to phone Conyers' office and encourage him to reverse course and stop the legislation on Wednesday. Sharpton, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), headed by president/CEO Wade Henderson and executive VP Nancy Zirkin, have been pressing Conyers to authorize a GAO study on "the impact of the bill on media diversity and minority, women-owned and small broadcasters," according to letter they sent Conyers on Tuesday (May 12). On Tuesday evening, Jackson was reportedly meeting with Conyers in his Capitol Hill office, hoping to get the veteran legislator to change his position on the bill.

contd....
http://www.radioandrecords.com/RRWebsite20/Members/ShowHeadLine.aspx?ContentID=49425&ContentTypeID=101&Archive=0&FormatId=0

[Raineyb]

1. I'll admit that I don't know anything about this

So this may sound completely ignorant but why the hell do we need another fee schedule to cover the broadcast of shows over the airways? I thought they sold the show to the networks and the fees to broadcast were covered by the obnoxious ads I have to Tivo through when watching.

Am I missing something?

Regards

[ellacott]

2. I just found out about this yesterday

I don't understand why they need another fee schedule either. According to Cathy Hughes and others who met with Conyers he's trying to help his constituency. He represents a lot of old Motown artists who feel they are not getting their fair share of royalties.

The problem with this bill is that the majority of the tax would go to the record labels that already get a fee from radio stations.

This is another article:
http://www.blackamericaweb.com/?q=articles/news/the_state_of_black_america_news/9299

[Raineyb]

3. Oh this is radio.

Okay, I still don't get the reason for the fee schedule. I don't see how this is going to get more royalties to the artists as I was under the impression that the royalties are written into the contract and the record companies write up the contracts in such a way as to nickel and dime the artist out of as much money as possible.

Regards

[ellacott]

4. Supposedly this doesn't cover all performers on a record

The background singers don't get the same royalties than the main singer and writer. It's also supposed to cover the older artists who were never given royalties.

This would in effect be a double tax and, as you said, most of that money would go to the record companies.

[Fire1]

5. Yeah, but they're not making the money they are used to making

and in fact losing money b/c more people are 'burning' cds.

[ellacott]

7. I don't know how much they are actually losing

They're still making money but not as much.

[Fire1]

8. Yep and artists are getting screwed by their own managers

and label companies. Good example at Thisis50.com about Yung Joc suing Bad boy records (P Diddy), Big Block Ent.,9196 Management and
Bad Boy Management.

[ellacott]

9. They are definately being screwed by these managers

I remember when Toni Braxton sued Babyface. She was trying to get out of her contract because she said she wasn't being compensated fairly. Some artists only get a nickle or twenty five cents for every copy sold. That's why Prince is producing and distributing his own music.

[Raineyb]

10. I don't think this tax Conyers is talking about is going to help there at all.

I have a bad feeling about this proposal.

Regards

[Number23]

6. What the hell?!

Why would anyone sign on to this idiocy?? Minority broadcasters, which are damn near as extinct as the dodo in 2009, have enough of a hard time staying on the air. Why do artists and music companies feel that they should be paid to play their music over the radio and the public airwaves??

This seems to be an almost deliberate effort to kill radio.