MusicFIRST Blasts MIC Coalition's Music Licensing Agenda via Parody Website
MusicFIRST said its launch Tuesday of a website that parodies the Music. Innovation. Consumers. (MIC) Coalition’s own website is a bid to highlight the MIC Coalition’s “real agenda,” which MusicFIRST described as “fighting against fair compensation for musicians and halting…
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all progress on performance rights.” MusicFIRST backs passage of the Fair Play Fair Pay Act (HR-1733), while NAB and several other MIC Coalition members oppose the bill. The MIC Coalition hasn’t taken a position on HR-1733, which would require most terrestrial radio stations to begin paying performance royalties and would require digital broadcasters to begin paying royalties for pre-1972 sound recordings. The bill also would require satellite broadcasters to pay royalties at market rates (see 1504160050). The “Moneymakers Ignoring Creators" Coalition is “an anti-artist coalition of radio giants and some of the biggest and wealthiest corporations” that are lobbying to “reduce payments to artists and musicians,” MusicFIRST said on its parody website. A MIC Coalition spokeswoman disputed MusicFIRST’s characterization of the group’s mission. MIC Coalition members “are working towards a growing music marketplace that balances all interests, while MusicFirst pursues a strategy that misrepresents and misinforms,” the MIC Coalition said in a statement. “While it's not surprising, it is unfortunate, in poor taste and breathtakingly short-sighted.”