Grammy group mounts grassroots effort to pass Performance Tax
posted on 10.10.2016- Enlists musicians for meetings with lawmakers
The Recording Academy, which presents the Grammy Awards, is mounting an election-season effort to gain congressional support for enacting a Performance Tax on radio stations as proposed by Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-New York, in his HR 1733. They plan to utilize as much star power among their musicians as possible in local district meetings to be held on or around October 26.
Nadler’s so-called “Fair Play Fair Pay Act” has garnered 36 cosponsors since being introduced in April 2015. In addition to the Performance Tax, the measure would allow the Department of Justice to regulate payments to songwriters and attempt to address ticket scalping for live concerts.
On the Performance Tax, the RIAA and the Grammy organization argue that local broadcast radio stations – the music industry’s greatest promotional tool – should pay yet another royalty in addition to the hundreds of millions of dollars the industry already pays annually to songwriters and composers through performance rights organizations like ASCAP, BMI and SESAC.
Congress has consistently disagreed that saddling local Radio with potentially hundreds of millions more in government-mandated fees to international record labels – which would keep most of the money and spare little for artists – is a good idea. Witness the overwhelming bipartisan, majority support for HConRes 17, The Local Radio Freedom Act, by Texas Representatives Mike Conaway, R-Midland, and Gene Green, D-Houston. The measure opposes a Performance Tax.
Another 21 members of the Texas congressional delegation support Conaway and Green’s resolution and local Radio broadcasters should contact these lawmakers to remind them why their support is so important to their local communities.
Questions? Contact TAB's Oscar Rodriguez or call (512) 322-9944.
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