HR 848 is effecting radio stations all across the country.  Debbie Bush, Vice President and General Manager of WFIE in Indiana gives her take on how the passing of the Performance Royalty Tax will effect her station.

For decades, record companies have been begging radio stations to play their music. Sometimes they do more than beg: Few sorts of scandal reappear as reliably in the music business as a payola scandal, in which agents of the labels are caught bribing broadcasters to air their wares. In the Internet age, the AM and FM dials aren’t as important to promoting music as they used to be, but they continue to play the preeminent role in the process.  

H.R. 848 or The Performance Royalty Rights Act can be summarized in the following:

Performance Rights Act – Amends federal copyright law to: (1) grant performers of sound recordings equal rights to compensation from terrestrial broadcasters; (2) establish a flat annual fee in lieu of payment of royalties for individual terrestrial broadcast stations with gross revenues of less than $1.25 million and for noncommercial, public broadcast stations,(3) grant an exemption from royalty payments for broadcasts of religious services and for incidental uses of musical sound recordings;and (4) grant terrestrial broadcast stations that make limited feature uses of sound recordings a per program license option.  Click here to read the full text of the bill…

If this bill is allowed to pass, it will put Black Owned Radio out of business.  Browse the site and see what you can do to help Cathy Hughes save Black Radio!