Gene Simmons of KISS testified before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee about the “injustice” that artists are still not compensated when their music is played on radio stations.
Simmons, who was honored Sunday by the Kennedy Center along with his fellow panelists, told lawmakers, “Let's call this what it is – an injustice that has been going on for decades.” He noted that performers from Bing Crosby to Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra never received compensation when their performances were played on the radio.
He and other musicians and artists advocate Music Justice Actwhich would establish a music performance right that would require stations to license their songs for broadcast. Songwriters already get paid and performers get paid when their work is broadcast by satellite and streaming, but not on terrestrial radio.
Regarding the lack of pay, he said: “When you work hard and get to the top, what do you get? Zipper-Rooney. This is un-American. If you are against this bill, you are not an American. You cannot allow this injustice to continue.”
“It looks like a bit of a problem,” he added. “There are wars and all that. But our ambassadors to the world are Elvis and Frank Sinatra, and when they find out that we treat our stars wrong – in other words, worse than slaves. Slaves get food and water. Elvis, Bing Crosby and Sinatra got nothing for their performances. We have to change that now for our children and our children's children.”
Simmons said that Donald Trump will sign the bill if it reaches his desk. His administration, like previous administrations, supported the right to execution.
Because of a “loophole,” supporters of the law say, foreign radio stations also do not pay artists in return.
But this is still a big “if”. Sinatra himself lobbied for this idea back in the 1970s, and numerous versions of the law have been proposed over the years. However, broadcasters, led by the National Association of Broadcasters, have successfully pushed these efforts to the sidelines. In this Congress, nearly half of House lawmakers signed the Local Radio Freedom Act, a resolution prohibiting “any new performance fees, taxes, royalties or other charges associated with the public performance of sound recordings on a local radio station.”
The bill provides exceptions for small radio stations or those that have annual revenues of less than $1.5 million and whose parent companies generate annual revenues of less than $10 million. Those stations will pay $500 a year for the rights. Public, college and other non-commercial stations will pay $100 per year.
Radio broadcasters have long argued that they provided artists with a valuable marketing platform, helping to boost the popularity of new works.
Also testifying was Henry Hinton, president and CEO of Inner Banks Media, a small group of radio stations in Greenville, North Carolina. He said stations are already feeling the pinch, and “imposing several new free radio services would put jobs at risk, require stations to reduce local community participation and put more pressure on radio stations that are already struggling to survive. It harms not only radio stations, but also the local communities and artists who rely on radio's unprecedented reach to attract new and existing listeners.”
