Later today, the House Judiciary Committee will hold a markup of HR 4130, the American Music Fairness Act, which will require terrestrial radio stations in the US to pay royalties to artists for playing said music. If you fell asleep reading that sentence, wake back up. This issue is causing a lot of pushback in Washington, DC, including from some players you might not expect — Big Tech companies who seemingly have no reason to care about a bill that doesn’t impact them — but who, according to Capitol Hill sources, have taken an interest due to what lobbyists describe as a very unhealthy dose of paranoia.
Here’s the short version of what’s happening: Under current US law, radio stations pay royalties to songwriters, but not to artists, when they play music on their stations. In addition to industry groups representing music artists, some very conservative lawmakers and conservative groups want to make a change and strengthen intellectual property rights. The original thinking behind the “no need to pay royalties” law was that when radio stations play a song, it’s a “promotional tool for artists to get their music out to new listeners for free” and encourages people to go buy their albums. While that may once have been how things worked, that is no longer the case.
The pro-musician side of the argument highlights three wrinkles with the current setup. First, musicians believe they are being shortchanged with regard to content that they have labored to produce. And they are. The system is bad for property rights, which underpin capitalism (though of course, many musicians wouldn’t phrase it that way because capitalism, yuck—and yes, undoubtedly, people do pay to download songs or albums because they heard a song on the radio).
Second, a lot of Top 40 radio has been being called out for years for just playing the same songs over and over and not actually introducing listeners to as much new music as the stations might want you to think.
Third, and perhaps most importantly, people have increasingly turned to non-terrestrial radio, which does have to pay royalties, to discover new music. Some of the drive for terrestrial radio to pay royalties is driven by music industry concerns that they’re being shortchanged by the likes of Spotify and, worse, sites like YouTube where piracy continues to be a big problem (as does illegal downloading, including from pirated streams) outside the US, where the platforms are sometimes more dominant. Where piracy occurs via YouTube, remember, zero royalties are paid—and that’s when they’re actually, currently, legally owed.
This is where this debate gets interesting. Ostensibly, the House considering having terrestrial radio pay royalties for the first time in over a decade is just a fight between the music industry and radio. But because other Big Tech firms have found it so profitable to routinely take a lax approach to copyright law compliance, they’re watching this debate, too. Any strengthening of intellectual property laws, even ones that don’t affect Google arms like YouTube, is viewed unfavorably by the high-powered, well-connected DC lobbyists repping the Big Tech giant. Indeed, the word from consultants working on the issue is that while yes, radio obviously opposes this bill, Google is also quietly hoping it goes down in flames.
That’s one reason some conservatives might be minded to support it: Even though Google wouldn’t be directly impacted by this bill, it would bother them to see it pass because passage could theoretically pave the way for tougher action against them, to force them to do a better job of protecting intellectual property rights on its platforms, especially YouTube. YouTube is currently the target of a class action lawsuit brought by indie artists, who say the platform provides them with “vastly inferior” anti-piracy tools when compared to big record labels and movie studios.
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By the way, the music industry isn’t alone in wanting more vigorous enforcement of IP rights — Fox News isn’t wild about its content illicitly appearing on YouTube, and the Murdoch Empire reportedly still bears a grudge for Google’s old “beat the subscription” hack that enabled users to access subscriber-only Wall Street Journal content if they just, well, Googled it.
Another reason is that conservatives have traditionally favored strong intellectual property rights. This is likely why a bunch of conservative groups have written members of Congress in favor of the legislation and also why you have people like Rep. Tom McClintock co-sponsoring it.
In addition, some deeply conservative members represent parts of the country where the music industry is a big deal, and where musicians are actually conservative—specifically Tennessee. This is probably a significant reason Sen. Marsha Blackburn and several House Freedom Caucus members from Tennessee want terrestrial radio to pay up: It’s what conservative Country music figures believe is owed to them.
On the flip side, the radio industry really doesn’t like this. It would obviously entail them paying out money they don’t currently have to pay out, and they already feel they’re acting as the de facto publicists for musicians. The raw financial cost would undoubtedly be much higher for pure music stations — the ones usually accused of playing songs from five years ago on repeat as if they’re new singles — as opposed to the talk radio stations, especially since the bill would not require royalties to be paid on bumper music. Irrespective, the industry, in general, does not like this. And fans of the radio industry, of whom there are also many in Congress and among conservatives nationwide, similarly will not like it.
What’s really interesting here is observing who cares about the issue beyond the obvious players with skin in the game. After all, if terrestrial radio is finally made to pay royalties, there’s absolutely no reason that Congress wouldn’t move to legislate something more intellectual property rights-protective than the current notice-and-takedown regime that applies to YouTube. And, there’s no reason they won’t go harder after Google on other topics that disrupt its business model and revenue stream (think: Privacy). And remember, by some estimates, about a third of music piracy occurs via stream-ripping—leveraging YouTube, or indeed Spotify, often with tools found by, you guessed it, a simple Google search.
Ultimately, whatever happens with this debate—and whichever side prevails—the consequences will likely be felt far beyond the actual terrestrial radio industry itself. So even if it seems dry and weird, it’s worth checking in on, because whichever side of the debate you fall on, conservatives in Congress and nationwide will probably not line up uniformly in one camp or the other.
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