ASCAP Petitions FCC To Deny Pandora's Purchase of Radio Station 229
chipperdog writes "NorthPine.com reports: 'ASCAP is firing back against Pandora Radio's attempt to get lower music royalty rates by buying a terrestrial radio station, "Hits 102.7" (KXMZ Box Elder-Rapid City). In a petition to deny, ASCAP alleges "Pandora has failed to fully disclose its ownership, and to adequately demonstrate that it complies with the Commission's foreign ownership rules." ASCAP also alleges that Pandora has no intention of operating KXMZ to serve the public interest, but is rather only interested in obtaining lower royalty rates. Pandora reached a deal to buy KXMZ from Connoisseur Media for $600,000 earlier this year and is already running the station through a local marketing agreement.'"
Fuck ASCAP (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Wait (Score:5, Informative)
Terrestrial radio is not required to pay musicians anything, and never has. Clear Channel has cut a deal to pay them something - no doubt very little, but just enough to keep them from lobbying to get legislation which would force CC to pay a fixed rate.
IIRC, internet radio pays something like 3-10x what terrestrial radio pays to the writers.
Re:Intentions (Score:5, Informative)
I'm a songwriter and to get a few cents from ASCAP I have to pay them.
OK, so I just read the brief... (Score:5, Informative)
The claim seems to hinge upon the assertion by ASCAP that if Pandora is able to acquire a brick-and-mortar airwave radio station, it will cause "significant economic harm on ASCAP." The fundamental flaw with that argument is that ASCAP is not entitled to have a bad business model protected by the laws or courts. Nor is ASCAP entitled to block anybody from making moves that give them an improved position from which to bargain.
The best comparison I can think of comes from the airline business.
This reminds me of American Airlines trying to sue Southwest out of Love Field in the early 1970s with claims that allowing Southwest to operate out of Love would hurt the newly-opened DFW International Airport (indeed, trying to force Southwest into the agreement between all the other airlines of the day to abandon Love and move to DFW, Southwest's service not having existed when the agreement was forged), and the much more recent United opposing Southwest's plans to go international from Houston Hobby on the grounds that it would adversely affect United's bottom line. Thankfully, the latter was basically shot down by the City of Houston, but the American Airlines fight against Southwest's operation at Love raged on for decades, with Congress getting involved more than once.
Re:Isn't the allegation irrelevant? (Score:5, Informative)
When you use the public airwaves, you have to follow the government's rules. Always part of those rules is your service fulfilling some form of public interest. With TV, this means a certain number of hours of children programming, regular news programming, and some emergency news and emergency alert capabilities.
If you don't like the rules, you don't get to use the radio spectrum for free, and can purchase some spectrum from the FCC yourself, at very high rates like the cell phone companies do, and then you can broadcast, to whoever has your proprietary receiver, whatever you want...
Clear Channel got in trouble a while back because their highly automated operations meant no-one was around to answer the phone at a local radio station, so they didn't broadcast the alert the local police wanted to get out to the public, until many hours later. That's the kind of thing that gets broadcasters shut down. That's the kind of thing ASCAP is accusing Pandora *will* do in the future.
If Pandora does a good job running the radio station, more power to them. But they DO have many obligations to the public that they need to fulfill to be licensed by the FCC.
Re:Intentions (Score:5, Informative)
You think the songwriters actually get more than a pittance from ASCAP?
Collectively? Yes.
But only the top tier artists are going to see a significant payout.
In 2012, ASCAP collected over US$941 million in licensing fees and distributed $828.7 million in royalties to its members, with an 11.6 percent operating expense ratio. As of July 2013, ASCAP membership included over 460,000 songwriters, composers, and music publishers.
American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers [wikipedia.org]
If you thought LMFAO and Bruno Mars were ubiquitous in this country, good luck trying to avoid them overseas. Songs from both artists, already massive hits at home, were huge earners outside the United States last year.
Of the top 10 earning songs of the year for ASCAP members, four were recorded by Bruno Mars. Although LMFAO's "Party Rock Anthem" scored the most revenue internationally, Bruno Mars swept the next three spots.
In 2012, the organization's foreign revenue topped 340 million, more than double its 2000 foreign revenue of 128 million. As that revenue has grown, it has also increased its share of ASCAP's total. Foreign share of ASCAP revenue was 36% last year, compared with 22% in 2000.
In all, ASCAP takes in about six times what it pays out to performance rights organizations in other countries.
ASCAP collects royalties from performances in foreign countries through its agreements with fellow rights organizations in those territories. It currently collects from 100 such groups, recently adding Uganda.
ASCAP's largest affiliate partner is Britain, from which it receives about 50 million a year for American songs
LMFAO, Bruno Mars top ASCAP's foreign royalties for 2012 [menafn.com]