EMERGENCY ALERT – PLEASE CLICK LINK AND SEND THIS LETTER TO YOUR SENATORS AND REPRESENTATIVE

Over-the-air radio has never paid royalties to performers when it broadcasts their recordings. For all the thousands of times that Patsy Cline's recording of "Crazy" got played on the air, Willie Nelson got paid as the songwriter (as he should have been), but Patsy never got a dime, and neither did the great session musicians who played with her, like Buddy Harman on drums, Bob Moore and Harold Bradley on bass, Floyd Cramer on piano and Walter Haynes on pedal steel. Our members have lost millions of dollars over the years, both in radio royalties at home and in performance royalties oversees, due to this fundamental unfairness. You probably know that the AFM has long supported a change in the law to correct this unfairness, and is a leading member of the musicFIRST Coalition which is seeking to correct the law.

The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) is trying to pre-empt our campaign by asking members of the House of Representatives and Senate to sign a Resolution that opposes what they call a "performance tax" on radio. But performance royalties are not a tax! They would be fair compensation to performers for the value that their work has broad to broadcasting, which has built a $20 billion a year industry selling radio advertising. Let's get real -- does anyone listen to radio for the ads? No! It is our music that radio listeners want to hear. It is our music that radio uses to draw advertising dollars!

Please click on the link below to send your Representative and Senator a letter asking them to support the Performance Rights Act and oppose the NAB’s resolution denying musicians the fair compensation you deserve!

If you have any difficulties, please call me or Ben Falk right away at 202-463-0772, and we'll provide you with any additional information.

Sincerely,

Hal Ponder
Director of Government Relations
American Federation of Musicians

Dear [ Decision Maker ] ,

I am a constituent and a professional musician. I am writing to ask you to cosponsor S. 2500/H.R. 4789, the Performance Rights Act, which is designed to ensure that musicians receive fair compensation for the broadcast of their recorded work on terrestrial AM/FM radio. Equally important, I am asking you to decline to support S. Con. Res. 82/H. Con. Res. 244. These resolutions seek to enlist your opposition to the Performance Rights Act. They mischaracterize the issue, and ignore the fact that S. 2500/H.R. 4789 is balanced legislation that helps musicians while also protecting "mom and pop" radio and public radio stations.

Commercial radio stations broadcast millions of recordings a year. Those recordings attract listeners and enable corporate radio to sell a whopping $16 billion per year in ads. But a loophole in our Copyright Act allows corporate radio stations to use recordings to build their businesses without paying any compensation to the musicians whose talent and hard work made the recordings. The United States is the only developed country that gives such a free pass to radio. And in the U.S., only AM/FM terrestrial radio has this free pass. Internet radio and digital satellite subscription radio (XM and Sirius) compensate copyright owners and performers for the value of their work.

Contrary to popular misconceptions, most musicians are not rich celebrities. All musicians deserve to be paid when corporate AM/FM radio stations broadcast their recorded work. The Performance Rights Act will ensure that musicians get fair compensation. At the same time, it will protect small and public radio stations by limiting the fees they pay.

S. 2500 and H.R. 4789 are balanced bills that deserve your careful consideration and enthusiastic support. Please agree to cosponsor S. 2500 or H.R. 4789, and deny your support to S. Con. Res. 82 or H. Con. Res. 244.

Sincerely,

Campaign Launched:
June 05, 2008