This week, Congressman Jerrold Nadler floated the idea of a law requiring radio stations to pay a fee directly to artists for playing their music – in addition to the fees we already pay to music licensing organizations like BMI, ASCAP and SESAC.
According to Nadler, “The lack of a performance royalty for terrestrial radio airplay is a significant inequity and grossly unfair. Terrestrial radio companies have built into their businesses an exemption from paying a performance right.” He went on to say, “It is a violation of fundamental principles of intellectual property that artists would be denied the right to control their own creations, as is the case now with sound recordings over broadcast radio. The United States is the only industrialized nation that does not have a performance right for sound recordings over terrestrial radio.”