A parade of Motown’s who’s-who said a controversial bill that would provide royalties to all artists and musicians who participated in the recording of a song when it is played on AM and FM radio was long overdue payments to entertainers who have not been fairly compensated for their work.

"This is basically allowing those dollars -- that are rightfully ours -- to be paid to us. I will not allow them to take advantage of me," singer Dionne Warwick said at a Town Hall meeting sponsored by Reps. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) about the Performance Rights Act.

The act sponsored by Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, which already has voted to approve the bill, would require radio stations to pay a fee to everyone who performs on a record, from the composer to the artist(s) to background musicians and singers to the person or company that owns the copyright to the song.
 
Warwick was joined Tuesday by founding Four Tops member Duke Fakir, Martha Reeves and Sam Moore of Sam & Dave fame. The artists, along with rapper Rhymefest also met Monday with The Detroit News to explain why they supported the bill. Joining them were Jennifer Bendall, executive director of the advocacy group MusicFirst, which organized artists to get them behind the bill, and John Simson of Sound Exchange, a nonprofit group that would handle payouts to artists and musicians.

Supporters of the act say performers are paid by radio in Europe and by satellite, Internet and cable radio in the United States and that requiring radio stations to pay is an issue of fairness. U.S. radio stations pay royalties for songwriters and music publishers, not performing artists.

So, for example, the songwriters Holland-Dozier-Holland, who were responsible for a string of Motown’s biggest hits, and the publishing company Jobete get paid every time, say, the Four Tops’ “I Can’t Help Myself” hits the airwaves. But the individual group members do not.
Fakir told The News it seemed unfair, especially when he noticed the songwriters were getting paid each time the song played. 

"We brought that song to life," he said of himself and his fellow Tops.

Radio station owners, professional broadcast associations and other groups who oppose the measure say that rather than rewarding the performers, background musicians and writers, as much as 50 percent of the new fees collected will go directly into the pocket of record label owners -- many of which are headquartered outside the U.S.

Cathy Hughes, founder and board chairman of Radio One, and radio personality Tom Joyner say the bill, also called the "performance tax," could almost certainly spell the end for urban radio because the additional costs would discourage the activities that help promote artists' work.

Joyner has said that DJs are less likely to risk losing their audiences by trying out new songs on listeners when they could continue to play tried and true hits. And record industry veteran Clive Davis recently rejected the notion that the Internet had supplanted radio as the place to break new music.

"Radio is still the leading force of determining what songs and artists break through,” Davis told USA Today.

According to a story in Radio Business Report, the National Association of Broadcasters, which opposes the legislation, is amassing support for the Local Radio Freedom Act, a measure that opposes "any new performance fee, tax, royalty or other charge" on broadcast outlets. The bill has 14 co-sponsors, including Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, and, according to RBR, has the support of 214 members of Congress.

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Dionne Warwick , us folks here on BAW, know good and darn well you want this bill passed, so you can pay off your overdue taxes!!!!

by   
4462GS
June 3, 2009, 9:44 am
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It seem to me these artists are for it because they never got their just due from the record companies in the first place. Want to bet if this bill passes, watch the IRS take all of the money from these performers in some way or another!!!!!!

by   
4462GS
June 3, 2009, 8:11 am
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I am totally against this bill and wouldn't attend a concert performance by an artist supporting this bill.

by   
Mkrep
June 3, 2009, 7:40 am
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