Debbie Hennessey: Blog

Even my closest friends are always surprised to find out how the music biz works…excuse me, doesn’t work. Here’s something that has been going on since the first radio station played the first recorded song and it’s not cool. For over 80 years corporate radio has not paid one cent to artists when they play their song over the air - the same songs that attract millions of listeners and millions of advertising dollars to their stations. This is the only business that gets away with this. Can you think of any other business that doesn’t have to pay its suppliers for their product? Can you imagine grocery stores not paying farmers for their fruits and veggies or your favorite Target expecting to get all their various products at no cost?

Bill HR848 The Performance rights act was introduced in Congress in 2007 and just this week past the Senate Judiciary Committee. This bill would finally close this loophole in the copyright law and ensure that AM and FM radio fairly compensate artists when their music is played on the radio. We not talking about a lot of money here, some stations would pay as little as $500 a year! Now the National Assn of Broadcasters would like you all to believe that they sell millions of records for artists…they don’t!!! That is a huge myth. Why would you buy something you can hear for free over and over again? Anyway, please, please, please visit the Music First Coalition website to get the facts and send an email or call your representatives and tell them you support this bill. http://musicfirstcoalition.org/

I'll explain more about the differences between Artist and Writers and what Radio does pay to the Writers in another blog.