Re: Legal Payola?

["Shel Swartz" <shel@lotsofun.com>]

>>I call legal payola that huge sum of money 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!
>
>
>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?


Okay...tell you what. Open a retail (or wholesale) store somewhere.  Would
you pay additional money to mnufacturers of goods "just so you could have
the right to sell them"? In real-life business, it works the other way
around: Manufacturers often pay what's called "co-op money" to sellers of
their product, which they may use toward advertising same in their favorite
media.  In fact, radio benefits from that.

In his early days, the late Sam Walton became tired of paying a surcharge to
distributors "just so he could do business with them".  So he went direct.
A good portion of the money his company saves is passed along to the
consumer, and as a result, he has the most successful chain of stores in the
world.
:) shel

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