The United States Register of Copyrights, Maria Pallante, has confirmed earlier this month that she intends to provide a full public performance right for sound recordings. This in turn will require broadcasters (including radio broadcasters) to pay music artist(s) a fee for everytime their song is broadcasted. Although in reality most of this money will prbably go straight to the label.
Funny enough, we can thank Pandora, an online music streaming service, for the change. Even before this measure will come into practice, Pandora was already required to pay record labels and publishers around fifty percent of its revenue. They have since been in negotiations with the music industry to lower this rate. In an attempt to get Congress to interject Pandora pointed in a Senate hearing the obvious inconsistancy in them being required to pay a boistorous amount to the labels and publishers while other broadcasters paid nothing.
While in the end the Government did intervene, this was probably not the result that Pandora was hoping for.
If implemented, this change may have some unintended consequences. While at first, it may result in more revenue for the artists and their label, it may be argued that over time this fee may deter a broadcaster from playing the artist’s songs. While the mainstream artist’s may not be heavily affected, independant artists who, even in this age and time often rely on the radio to spread their popularity, will be.
However, this is on the assumption that independant artists will charge the same amount as the mainstream artists to broadcast their music. In reality it is unlikely that most independant artist will charge a radio broadcaster a fee. This may actually encourage broadcasters to promote the independant artists more than they do now in order to keep their costs low.
Source:
http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2013/20130604copyrightoffice
