WILHELMS TELLS CORKER: “[ARTISTS] CAN’T BE COMPENSATED IF THE WEBCASTERS AREN’T THERE TO PLAY THE MUSIC”: Outspoken artist representative Fred Wilhelms has posted his thoughts on Tuesday’s Senate Judiciary hearing on Internet radio music royalties, specifically concerning his own legislative representative, Senator Bob Corker (R-TN). “It was clear Corker, my senator, wasn’t in favor of the [Internet Radio Equality Act], and had aligned himself with the forces of darkness marshaled behind the PERFORM Act, the competing bill endorsed by the RIAA and SoundExchange, which sets the royalties at ‘fair market value,’ which of course means the CRB gets to set them wherever they want.” Wilhelms was so disappointed by Corker’s stance, he wrote a letter to the Senator, and posted it in its entirety in his article. In it, he wrote, “I work for recording artists and songwriters. I firmly believe that artists deserve to be paid compensation for the commercial exploitation of their creations. Almost all of my clients are outside the present-day musical mainstream. They aren’t heard often on terrestrial radio, and that tells me they wouldn’t be heard often on an Internet radio landscape populated by only the same broadcasters. The high CRB rates insure that they will be unheard…Artists deserve to be compensated when their music is played by webcasters. They can’t be compensated if the webcasters aren’t there to play the music.” To read his comments on the hearing and his letter to Corker in full, click here.

MUSICFIRST: “NOT A PENNY FOR ARTISTS” AMONGST CC’S PRIVATIZATION: Performance royalties rights group musicFirst complained yesterday about the recent $24 billion privatization deal of Clear Channel, stating that it, “casts a spotlight on radio’s failure to compensate the artists and musicians…The contrasts could not be more stark — $24 billion for corporate radio’s ownership, not a penny for America’s artists and musicians.” The NAB’s VP of communications Dennis Wharton retorted, “Free radio airplay of music by Clear Channel and thousands of local radio stations has generated untold millions in wealth for the RIAA and recording artists. We continue to question why the RIAA would support a prohibitive tax on the very broadcasters who represent the recording industry’s number one promotional platform.”

RAIN ANALYSIS: What musicFIRST fails to recall in its sob story is that artists were also financially left out of major record label mergers, such as the formation of Sony/BMG or the Universal Group. Make no mistake. Major labels, which formed musicFIRST, aren’t really concerned with the welfare of artists. Their one-sided artist contracts, which are far more detrimental to artists’ welfare than low royalties, indicate that. The labels use artists as a “sympathy shield” in support of things like an outrageously high Internet radio royalty rate, which would benefit music industry corporations, not artists. Many artists realize this, and are speaking out against the royalties. More should. — PM, MS

RADIOPARADISE CEO BILL GOLDSMITH’S STATEMENT TO THE SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: Several small commercial Internet radio stations, to ensure their viewpoints and interests were not lost amongst those of record labels, large media webcasters, and recording artists, submitted written statements for Tuesday’s Senate Judiciary Hearing on music royalties. RAIN will publish several of these statements this week. Tuesday, we ran AccuRadio founder (and RAIN publisher) Kurt Hanson’s statement (here), Wednesday we heard from Rusty Hodge, founder of SomaFM (here), and yesterday we published GotRadio’s founder Val Starr (here). We conclude today with RadioParadise’s CEO Bill Goldsmith’s statement, excerpted immediately below:

Radio Paradise is a popular Internet radio station that caters to an audience that appreciates a diverse variety of music style and genres, blended together by a human DJ. I’ve worked in the broadcast industry for over 35 years, and what I am doing here at Radio Paradise does not differ in the slightest from what I did on FM stations. What I do is just radio, pure and simple. I pick songs I think my listeners might enjoy, and put them together into what I think will be enjoyable sequences, and every once in a while I talk about what people are hearing. The recording industry, back in the 90s, was able to convince a lot of people that if radio was happening over a digital circuit of some kind rather than via analog transmissions. But the experience is exactly the same. Radio is radio…

Keep reading here.

EMMIS HONORED WITH 4 INTERACTIVE MEDIA AWARDS: Emmis Interactive, a company that consults and directs design of clients’ online sites, received four Horizon Interactive Awards. Their work for the Ford Fuel Team and Puma French 77 won gold awards, while a silver was given to DiscoverADay.com and a bronze to Prison Break: Field to Freedom. Co-president of Emmis Interactive Rey Mena stated, “While this kind of honor is nice for Emmis Interactive, it’s gratifying to see our clients receive recognition and deserved exposure…It is truly their success.” For more, read the press release here.

CBS CEO PURSUING A DIGITAL FUTURE: As CBS Radio divests 50 of its stations, CBS CEO Les Moonves spoke with Radio Business Report, revealing that he wants CBS’s future to be digital—more specifically, online. “Right now, most online revenue is generated from search – but engagement, the amount of time consumers spend with their favorite content leads to significant revenue opportunities. We believe as the Internet develops as a new medium, advertising will follow entertainment and premier content sites like ours will be the best bet to reach consumers online,” Moonves said. CBS recently acquired CNet (RAIN coverage here) and Last.fm (RAIN coverage here). Moonves believes that through promotion on CBS’s traditional outlets, such as television, major traffic will be driven to the company’s online offerings. “The mass reach provided by broadcast television and our other core businesses are some of the greatest weapons that we have to drive traffic online.” For more, read Radio Business Report’s coverage here.

Comment

1. It’s just too bad that this entire issue is so clouded with confusion for the government. Webcasters and Label representatives (SoundExchange and the RIAA) are not confused. Labels want to put small webcasters out of business, using deceptive arguments that are designed to fool government officials- and it’s working. Government officials still have no clue.

   In the late 90s, I sold ad-serving systems and Internet advertising inventory in Silicon Valley. I had to ‘educate’ the market directors of massive corporations, such as Nike and Paramount Films- no small task. To take an individual who is subconsciously steeped heavily within the old media mind-set is a feat that requires a mind-bending realignment of those individuals, over a protracted period of time. The labels are ‘not’ trying to educate government officials, but are using their lack of ‘Internet comprehension’ to spin laws that will kill many important developmental elements of the Internet, not to mention killing playlist access to unsigned artists.

   Bill Wilkins, CEO
   Melted Metal Web Radio
   www.meltedmetal.com

   — Melted Metal Web Radio · Aug 1, 02:21 PM · #

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