Fair royalties and record promos
It now appears nearly certain that the compromise settlement which
established a flat annual $8 per box jukebox royalty fee is again standing on
shaky ground this year, as Senate Copyrights Subcommittee Chairman John
L. McClellan (D·Ark) has re·opened the issue with a letter suggesting the
possibility of raising the fee as high as $20.
McClellan's fact·and·opinion finding mission, in which he opined that all
royalty fees should be periodically revised, was initiated several weeks ago
when he sent a letter to music operators, music licensers, jukebox
manufacturers, ASCAP, BMI and SESAC.
While we respect Sen. McClellan's efforts to ascertain exactly what is fair
to all parties involved in the matter, Play Meter feels the $8 compromise
agreed upon last year is more than fair to the music publishers.
It is important to remember that, in the recording industry, the name of
the game is selling records. So let us consider the promotional benefits
derived from jukebox play of those records at thousands of locations which
daily reach millions of potential record buyers in the United States. While it
is certainly impossible to determine how many records are sold each year via
the natural promotion of jukebox programming, it takes no economic genius
to realize that jukebox play helps sell countless albums and singles.
Record manufacturers annually spend billions promoting the wares of
their artists. They advertise heavily both in the print and the broadcast
media, trying to condition record buyers to automatically recognize the
names and sounds of their artists. But when you reali~ically consider what
sells records, you've got to admit that it is simply the music those records
offer to the listener. And a potential record buyer can hear the new offerings
of recording artists from only a limited number of sources: his friends'
record collections, concerts, radio, television - and jukeboxes.
And for reaching the masses most consistently, jukeboxes probably rank
second only to radio - a medium which is daily bombarded with public
relations experts who do nothing but plug their product in an effort to get
air time and a medium which pays no performance royalties to music
publishers.
Talk about massive exposure and you talk about jukebox play. Often,
business is a game of helping each other. The way we see it, if there were no
jukebox royalty at all, music publishers would still be profiting where it
counts - in the sale of records.
We agree with Bill Valenziano, director of marketing at Island Records,
who said recently in projecting his firm's 1975 outlook: "There's vast, pure
singles market out there, not the least of which is the jukebox trade that
consumes more products than most people in our industry would believe."
When deciding finally upon the jukebox royalty fee, we think
Valenziano's statement should be considered.
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