The MIC Coalition was formed to remind the powers that be that there is a monetary value to radio airplay that justifies radio’s exemption from performance royalties. Once again, a pro-royalty organization is trying to sow seeds of radio dissension.
The organization is c3, and it’s trying to convince NPR to abandon MIC.
The MIC Coalition is said to be “fundamentally anti-artist, anti-music” by c3.
It stated, “MIC exists to deny fair pay to artists plain and simple – hiding its anti-artist agenda behind platitudes about ‘balance’ and ‘sustainable’ business models while working to derail reforms that music creators need to survive. NPR is in shameful company indeed, working in Washington to deny fair pay to the very artists it purports to celebrate on the air.”
It woos NPR by noting that fees for public stations are capped at $100 per year.
Royalty activists recently tried to get college stations to abandon rest of the industry using similar arguments.
RBR+TVBR observation: If pro-royalty organizations are so concerned about compensating “creators,” that’s what the bills introduced in Congress would be all about, don’t you think?
Wouldn’t money collected in the name of performance royalties go to all the performers who have acquired the skills and the art to make music possible in the first place?
For the most part, performers are ignored by these bills. Labels and headliners will get almost every penny.
On top of that, there must be a suspension of reality under which legislators must act as though there is no value attached to the free-of-charge three-minute commercial musicians benefit from every time one of their songs is played over the air.
We happened to watch a documentary the other night that detailed how record companies were devastated by the onset of Napster, and how their response under RIAA was not to adopt new distribution methods, but rather to sue their biggest fans. And of course they also looked to radio to replace lost revenue.
We think the big record companies would do better to grow their business through their long time partnership with radio, rather than hide behind musicians who they in fact intend to leave behind in an effort to wring extra money out of the radio business.
