Performance Royalties

The explosive growth of music streaming services, satellite radio and social media have transformed the music landscape. Music services like Spotify, Pandora and Apple Music pay performers for playing their songs, yet there is exactly one music platform in the U.S. (actually, in the entire developed world) where the principle of fair pay for one’s work does not apply: broadcast radio.

Music services like Spotify, Pandora and Apple Music pay performers for playing their songs, yet there is exactly one music platform in the U.S. (actually, in the entire developed world) where the principle of fair pay for one’s work does not apply: broadcast radio.

The radio industry uses the music of hard working performers to attract listeners to their stations, but they don’t pay the musical performers for their work. This system is simply unfair. When someone does work, they should be paid for it, especially when others are making a profit off of it.

Between their profits and government help in the form of subsidies, there is no reason the radio industry can’t pay for using the creative property and work of music performers and artists the same way streaming services do.

The laws that govern music today were designed for a media landscape that no longer exists and have failed to keep up. Radio used to be one of the only ways consumers could listen to music, but times have changed. We have to fix America’s antiquated system that treats artists and their music differently depending on how we hear it.