Re: Legal Payola?

[Shawn Mamros <mamros@MIT.EDU>]

>I call legal payola that huge sum of monet radio stations must pay to ASCAP
>and the other licensing "services" in order to play its recording artists'
>songs.  Without radiom hardly any music ould be sold, yet radio stations
>dole out thousands of $$ to those "services" for the right to, in effect,
>advertise their products - FREE!

Oh no, not this discussion here...

ASCAP/BMI/SESAC/etc. provide compensation for the *songwriters*, not the
recording artists.  The songwriter and the recording artist are not always
one and the same person.  Even in cases where they are, don't those people
deserve compensation for doing two different jobs?

I'm not saying that some of ASCAP/BMI/SESAC/etc.'s practices don't seem
absurd at times, and I'm not saying that there isn't overhead in what the
licensing agencies do.  But given that that's the only way that songwriters
get paid for their work...

- -Shawn Mamros
E-mail to: mamros@mit.edu

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