The bill that would create a new performance royalty for recording artists in the United States looks like it has majority opposition in the House of Representatives. Unfortunately, this seems to be the result of the same fallacious arguments that anti-performance royalty apologists have been spouting for awhile.

“‘The members of Congress just simply aren’t buying the argument that radio stations ought to be taxed to make up for the struggling business model of the record labels,’ NAB spokesman Dennis Wharton told the Associated Press Tuesday.”

This is a classic fallacy of straw man. The recording right should not be created because the recording industry simply needs more money, but because it is the morally correct thing to do. As I’ve written previously, the radio industry generates plenty of revenue from their advertisers. This is a well-established model that has proven to be very successful. In order to generate this revenue, they require content to broadcast. That is simply a normal cost of doing business.

No one would think twice about this in any other industry; the reality is that the recording industry has been so demonized due to the actions of major labels that even the House has been unbelievably biased.

Would they mandate that J.J. Abrams pay ABC when LOST is aired? After all, ABC helps him get DVD sales for his show, right? This inane logic can be extended to any number of situations where any rational person would reject it instantly. The same critical thinking should be applied to the music business.

Here’s another tidbit from Wharton:

“‘If this issue were about ‘fairness to artists,’ ” he continued, ‘why would 50% of the proceeds from this new fee go directly to the record labels? Aren’t these the same record labels that have abused artists for decades?’”

This could be described as ad hominem, another logical fallacy. Rephrased, “major record labels are bad, therefore they’re wrong and shouldn’t be supported.” Bzzt. Bogus reasoning. This isn’t a criminal or civil proceeding where a judge and jury are trying to decide what party gets a monetary reward.

It doesn’t matter if some record labels have acted in bad judgment (not to mention the vast majority of music being released is not on major labels, so to imply that all labels should be punished for the actions of a few is a fallacy unto itself.)

This is the creation of legislation. In this country, we extend legal and Constitutional protection even to those who have not obeyed the law in the past. In fact, those are the instances where fairly and equally applying protections matters the most. Yes, some labels in the history of recording industry have engaged in scare tactics and underhanded legal maneuvers. They’ve certainly ripped off artists.

However, when we can determine the moral necessity of a given right, we must extend that right to everyone.

Should radio pay a performance royalty to artists? [accessAtlanta]

Tags: performing royalty, royalty issues, traditional radio

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 6th, 2009 at 1:11 am and is filed under Industry trends. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.