Artists get support from the NAACP on issue of music royalities

Via EURWEB:

FMQB.com is reporting that the NAACP on Tuesday passed a resolution at their centennial convention saluting Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) and supporting performance royalties for musicians that would be provided under the Performance Rights Act (H.R. 848), which they view as a civil rights bill for musicians.       

The NAACP favors the bill since it only reaches big corporate radio while a specific provision protects small radio stations, including all small black-owned radio stations, it said in a statement.      

"The NAACP recognizes that many black musicians are penniless in old age because Radio One and Clear Channel don't pay royalties. Performance rights is a civil rights issue, it is a workers' rights issue," said Sean Glover, spokesperson for the musicFIRST Coalition, an artist advocacy group. "This civil rights for musicians legislation guarantees fair pay for musicians. This is a rebuke of Radio One and Clear Channel for exploiting musicians and smearing members of the Congressional Black Caucus."      

The resolution also saluted Rep. Conyers – a primary sponsor of the Performance Rights Act – as one of the founding members of the Congressional Black Caucus and the longest-serving African-American in Congress. It calls his bill both a labor issue and a civil rights issue.       

"H.R. 848 ends a decade's old, outdated exemption from the copyright laws that allows radio stations to exploit African-American and other musicians by not paying them for their music when it airs on radio," reads the resolution. "Every modern country requires radio stations to compensate musicians, and copyright law requires that artists be compensated in every other circumstance – when their music is played on satellite radio, downloaded from iTunes or even played at a local bar. H.R. 848 is about ending the exploitation of African-American musicians and paying them a fair wage for their work."      

The resolution concludes, "H.R. 848 is the only source of income for many older performers. They didn't write the songs – but they brought them to life. Without the performers, these songs would be nothing but words on a page. And for many of them, radio performances are their only source of potential income. Therefore be it resolved that the NAACP endorses and supports H.R. 848, The Civil Rights for Musicians Act of 2009 and call on the NAACP units and members throughout the country to contact its Congressional members and Senators and the President of the United States to pass this measure into law so America's performers can receive the respect they so long deserve."

Radio One, the largest U.S. minority-owned media company, came under fire from the House Judiciary Committee last week for refusing to testify at a hearing billed as a forum to examine H.R. 848, which owner Cathy Hughes argues would end a long-standing copyright royalty exemption for over-the-air radio, which broadcasters oppose.

Judiciary Chairman John Conyers and others scolded Hughes and her son, CEO Alfred Liggins, for being no-shows.

Other critics of the bill who Conyers said snubbed him include National Action Network President Rev. Al Sharpton; Rainbow Push Coalition President Rev. Jesse Jackson; syndicated radio host Tom Joyner; and the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council's David Honig.

Conyers and Judiciary ranking member Lamar Smith had amended the legislation to appease critics by delaying its enactment date and reducing the amount of fees radio stations would have to pay.

Their changes also directed the Copyright Royalty Board to consider the impact of their rate-setting on religious, noncommercial, minority-owned, and female-owned broadcasters.

They asked GAO to complete by November a study that would examine the bill's effects, particularly on minority, female and religious stations. Liggins called the hearing "misguided and disingenuous." He said he backed out as a witness after learning Conyers would focus on the royalty bill and had invited a supporter of the measure, R&B Foundation Chairman Kendall Minter, to testify.

 

Now ask yourself why this group of individuals would be so admanantly opposed to this bill.  I'm sure you have heard the rhetoric being played on every black station about how this bill is going to destroy black radio, but ask yourself is it fair that every time "R.E.S.P,E.C.T." is played in this country Aretha Franklin doesn't get a dime.  And don't think for a minute that this is a Black thing as some people are trying to make it out to be; this is a Right thing.