Performance Fees Dominate Grammy Town Hall
By Jeffrey Yorke
It's not that Mary Wilson doesn't enjoy the radio airplay of her vintage hits with the Motown wonder group the Supremes, but "it doesn't really translate into money. Artists do not get paid money for every time records are played on the radio," she told a group of more than 300 who packed into a Grammy Town Hall meeting at Staples Center in Los Angeles late Friday afternoon (Feb. 6).
The meeting, produced by the Recording Academy, featured three influential U.S. House of Representative members who earlier in the week were instrumental in reintroducing the Performance Rights Act that seeks to force terrestrial broadcasters to pay artists and performers for airing their recorded works over the air. Wilson, 64, who joined Motown Records in 1961 and had her first top 40 hit with the Supremes, "Where Did Our Love Go," in 1963, acknowledged that radio pays composers but argued, "We should be compensated for our part."
Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee who has long been a strong advocate of winning payments for artists, told the enthusiastic audience that he began pushing for payments decades ago but that in the 1990s "we began to enjoy small victories" with performance fees levied on Internet radio and later satellite radio. "We are trying to make this a work in progress," Conyers said. "This is a cultural issue, first of all. The people who make a song gold or not gold have never been compensated." He added that artists all over the world are compensated by radio, "except here" in the U.S.
Conyers recognized the power of the NAB, broadcasters' advocate in Washington, D.C., fighting against the measure. "This is going to be a serious struggle," he said. "On the surface it seems so simple: Who wouldn't want performers to be compensated? But still there are people who aren't ready for that." Conyers then encouraged a widespread campaign to help influence the bill's passage.
House member Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), who represents both Nashville and Memphis, said, "This is an issue of private-property protection." She stressed that with the measure's passage, artists and performers could then also collect fees for foreign airplay, arguing, "This is also an issue of foreign trade balance." Added Wilson, "It's also a moral issue."
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who has been an active and vocal House member pushing for passage of the performance rights bill, knocked the NAB's resistance to voluntarily talking about setting fees. "Free is not a hypothetical number," said Issa. "It is a number reached by people who do not want to pay." Noting that broadcasters have not budged from that position for years, Issa cracked, "Very clearly, broadcasters have fought this legislation for longer than I have been in Congress. We're asking for parity."
Famed artist manager Simon Renshaw, who represents the Dixie Chicks, was also on the panel for the discussion, and several well-known artists were in the room, including Sam Moore of "Sam & Dave" fame and recording artist Josh Groban.
The 51st Grammy Awards will be presented Sunday (Feb. 8) in Los Angeles.