Congress hears some sad songs from singers

Jack Ely, the singer whose 1963 version of “Louie Louie” still makes the rounds on oldies radio, lives with his wife in a mobile home on a horse ranch in Oregon. Ely says they share $30,000 a year from her teacher’s pension and his Social Security checks. They are paying down a mortgage.

So sometimes it bothers Ely, 65, when he hears his voice singing “Louie Louie” on the radio or in sports arenas, knowing he’s not getting paid.

“It gets played twice a day by every oldies radio station everywhere in the world. And I get nothing,” said Ely, who recorded the song with the Kingsmen before getting drafted by the U.S. Army and leaving the band. “I got one check for $5,000. That’s all I ever saw from the sale of ‘Louie Louie.’ ”

Since the advent of radio in the 1920s, songwriters have made a little money every time their tunes are played on stations in most industrialized countries. The six children of “Louie Louie” songwriter Richard Berry today share more than $100,000 in royalties every year.

But performers like Ely don’t get a dime.

A bill moving through Congress aims to change that. It would let performers and the recording labels get a share of the ad revenue that radio stations collect from playing their songs. This pool of royalties could be hundreds of millions a year -- which would be crucial for the record industry, as compact disc sales plummet and digital song sales aren’t making up the difference.

It could also unlock $70 million to $100 million per year that is collected by radio stations abroad for U.S. artists but never paid out because U.S. stations don’t pay foreign artists in return.

There have been more than half a dozen attempts since the 1970s to enact a performers’ royalty on Capitol Hill. All have faltered to a powerful radio station lobby headed by the National Assn. of Broadcasters. The association says performers and record labels are already compensated -- they sell songs and concert tickets because of the radio airplay they get. The NAB says the long history of record labels paying disc jockeys for extra rotations helps prove the point.

This time, however, the music industry thinks it can win. In the last two decades, recording companies have secured royalties from other formats: Internet radio, satellite radio and music channels on cable TV services. Mitch Bainwol, the chairman of the Recording Industry Assn. of America, says he’s prepared for a “multiyear” fight.

The bill has the support of the Judiciary Committee chairman, Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), and is set for final revisions this month before possibly being sent to the House floor for debate.

Radio stations say the renewed push couldn’t have come at a worse time.

The recession has pushed ad revenue at radio stations down by double-digit percentages from a year ago, and thousands of jobs have been lost.

“We’re not trying to take away from anybody, but we’re trying to stay in business,” said Randy Gravley, the co-owner of five small radio stations in northern Georgia.

He argues that unlike songwriters and their sales and collection agents, the publishers -- whom his stations pay about $32,000 a year -- performers can sell albums and go on tours to raise money. Without radio airplay, he said, performers would never have that ability at all.

Without negotiations, if the bill passes, the final royalty rate would likely be set by the federal Copyright Royalty Board.

The bill prevents songwriting and publishing royalties from being reduced to make room for the new fees.

On a given song, half the new fee would go to the copyright holder of the master recording, typically the record label; 45% would go to featured performers; and 5% would go to background performers and backup singers.

The recording labels have already made inroads. In the late 1990s, they won the right to collect royalties for performers when songs are played on satellite, Internet and cable radio. A body called SoundExchange collected $151 million for performers from those formats in 2008.

“All the other platforms in the U.S. make payments,” said Bainwol. Traditional radio, he said, “sticks out like a sore thumb.”