HelpSaveRadio.org, aka Big Radio's online effort to deny performers fair compensation, makes this interesting claim about the Performance Rights Act:

"This is how they [the music industry] intend to cover the decline in revenue caused by falling CD sales."

THE FACTS: CDs have only been around for 25 years. The fight for a performance right by artists and musicians has gone on for more than seventy years.

In the past seven decades, there have been dozens of new technologies and, like most industries, the music industry has seen periods of growth and decline. The "decline in revenue" argument is bogus; broadcasters have refused to pay even in good times. As NAB stated 16 years ago, the "recording industry continues to be very successful and, frankly, we believe has no demanding need for more broadcaster money." (Testimony of Edward O. Fritts, President and CEO of NAB, during House Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property and Judicial Administration, March 25, 1993.)

A performance right has never been about sales of CDs, LPs, cassettes or 8-track tapes. This is not about good times or bad times in the market. A performance right has always been a matter of fairness and justice - the right to be fairly compensated for your hard work.