Music artists must be paid for radio play time

Everyone deserves to be compensated fairly for their hard work — and music creators are no exception. However, 2023 has started off as yet another year in which artists will not receive a single cent when their songs are played on AM/FM radio.

For decades now, artists have been attempting to call attention to this blatant injustice. And in 2022, the drive for music fairness reached record-high levels of support. More than 100 prominent music artists joined together to call on Congress to pass the American Music Fairness Act (AMFA) — bipartisan legislation that would finally grant creators performance royalties for the use of their music on radio.

The American people stand with artists on this issue, with a recent poll finding that roughly 6 in 10 Americans would support Congress passing a new law that would require broadcasters to pay artists for radio airplay.

Paying artists for using their music seems like common sense. How has this been allowed to go on for so long? Well, in almost every instance, it hasn’t. Virtually every other type of music source at least pays something to artists when they use their songs. Streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music pay artists. Digital platforms like YouTube and TikTok pay artists. Satellite and internet radio providers like Sirius XM and Pandora pay artists.

AM/FM radio stations in every other developed nation also pay artists. It is only American AM/FM radio broadcasters who are stiffing the people who make the music that makes their profits possible — and the worst part is, they’re doing it legally, thanks to a loophole in federal law that large corporate broadcasters have fought tooth and nail to preserve for decades.

We should close the outdated radio loophole, level the playing field, and finally secure fair treatment for the artists who make the music we love. But Big Radio and their legions of lobbyists are not going to go down without a fight — and their preferred method of combat continues to be half-truths and misinformation.

For example, the National Association of Broadcasters — the D.C. lobbying machine that represents the interests of the biggest corporate broadcasters — continue to erroneously claim that doing right by artists will hurt small radio stations across the country.

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. If enacted, the AMFA would do right by both everyday music creators who are struggling to make ends meet and small radio stations that are fighting for survival in a rapidly changing media landscape. Those ideas are not mutually exclusive, no matter what the NAB and its allies may say. And in truth, Big Radio consolidation is a far graver threat to small radio stations than anything contained in the AMFA.

On the one hand, you have Big Radio corporations like iHeartMedia and Cumulus, who continue to gobble up countless small stations and strip them for parts — firing local DJs and station employees and nationalizing their programming, all in service of becoming an even bigger corporate behemoth that banks millions upon millions in profits (while refusing to share any of it with the music creators whose songs made it all possible.)

And on the other hand, you have a common sense piece of legislation like the AMFA. While the bill’s primary aim is to finally get artists paid when their music gets played, just like they are in literally every other medium, it also includes significant protections for small, noncommercial and college radio stations — the truly local stations that do so much to serve our communities.

Under the AMFA, these stations would pay no more than $2 per day (and many would pay even less than that) for all the music they need to play. And that amount would be enshrined into law in perpetuity and could not be changed without a separate act of Congress. This would give these beloved and much-needed community resources the affordability and certainty they need to thrive.

That’s why many community radio broadcasters have joined the musicFIRST Coalition, an organization I chair, in endorsing the AMFA once again this year. Because we understand what most Americans do: that it’s not only possible to stand up for artists who have been exploited for far too long while also standing with the small stations who do so much for our communities, it’s also just the right thing to do.

And if Big Radio corporations can’t grasp that, maybe the problem is with them and not the rest of us.

Crowley, chairman of the musicFIRST Coalition, is a former member of Congress who represented parts of Queens and the Bronx for 20 years.