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Fresno Group one of three companies sued over music licensing

Here is what attorney David Oxenford says...

Global Music Rights (GMR) has sued three radio groups for allegedly playing GMR catalog songs but not paying the associated public performance royalties to GMR. As we have written many times, GMR is a performing rights organization (a “PRO”) representing what they term in the complaints filed against these companies “an elite roster of just over 100 songwriters.” The complaints specifically note that the songwriters include Bruce Springsteen, Bruno Mars, Drake, Pharrell Williams, John Lennon, and The Eagles. The full list of songwriters and songs represented by GMR is available on their website here. As these songwriters are no longer represented by ASCAP, BMI or SESAC, for a company to publicly perform any of these songwriters’ music, they either need a license from GMR or they need to directly license the music from the songwriters or their agents (or fit into one of the limited exemptions that we wrote about here, exceptions that would typically not cover commercial radio broadcasting).

More at Lawsuits Filed Against Three Radio Companies Alleging That They are Playing Global Music Rights Songwriters Without a License – Background for the GMR Claims
 
All you have to do is ask Ed Stolz how judges and courts respond to lawsuits from rights holders such as GMR. They almost always rule in favor of the rights holders and not the radio stations. Stoltz ended up in receivership, and is now in bankruptcy. Plus he still had to pay the music companies.
 
boombox4 said:
How much do they typically charge per spin? Just curious.
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Author and composer rights for terrestrial radio are not spin based. They are based on a combination of station revenue size, station class and market. Basically, the smaller the station the less they pay in a blanket license.

The rights fee collection agency allocates monies to composers based on total airplay, with the most played songs getting the most revenue.
 
GMR has been somewhat secretive about their rates. I would like to know more about that and how they're calculating those rates.
 
Oh, great. KYNO is actually broadcasting a format I like (Despite having growing up in the late 90s, I discovered oldies and had a strong affinity for them ever since), and now it might get shutdown by a lawsuit over licensing?

Am I wrong I hope?

c
 
PTBoardOp94 said:
No. It is probable that One Putt is put out of business by this.
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They will settle off the record. While GMR has, among the rights organizations, the most aggressively anti-radio attitude, they don't want to "break" a station as doing that would cause an industry-wide reaction to create an updated database allowing stations to totally exclude all the GMR songs.

Personally, I don't think that GMR wants to kill a small local radio group of the kind that own 80% of US stations. If I am wrong, they are simply not realistic in their demands against a shrinking industry.

Most of us believe that "what you don't play can't hurt you" and we can see that simply blacklisting all GMR songs could be an alternative to dealing with such a vehemently anti-radio organization is not worth it. GMR's founder, Irving Azoff, has never been highly regarded in the broadcast industry as he has never taken into account the declining revenue base of radio in the last two decades as he tries to get a much higher "per song" rate than ASCAP and BMI for a much more limited catalog.

A bit about Azoff is at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_Azoff Note that he has been sued by the radio industry licensing committee over "monopolistic practices".

Here is a brief description of the recent industry settlement with Azoff which took five years to negotiate and was filled with accusations and bitterness: GMR
 
DavidEduardo said:
Personally, I don't think that GMR wants to kill a small local radio group of the kind that own 80% of US stations. If I am wrong, they are simply not realistic in their demands against a shrinking industry.
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The fact that they really tried to prevent this from going to court makes me agree with you. The station group ignored all the warnings, the same way that Ed Stoltz did. Until it was too late.

On the other hand Azoff started this because he wanted to stick it to radio. Fifteen years ago, he was on the front end of forcing radio to pay labels & artists. When that strategy failed, he figured he'd get his money another way.
 
TheBigA said:
The fact that they really tried to prevent this from going to court makes me agree with you. The station group ignored all the warnings, the same way that Ed Stoltz did. Until it was too late.

On the other hand Azoff started this because he wanted to stick it to radio. Fifteen years ago, he was on the front end of forcing radio to pay labels & artists. When that strategy failed, he figured he'd get his money another way.
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The question is; will they want to make an example out of 'Putt-Putt'? It's happened before. And that's when radio was much more healthy.
 
TheBigA said:
The fact that they really tried to prevent this from going to court makes me agree with you. The station group ignored all the warnings, the same way that Ed Stoltz did. Until it was too late.
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That is a good point. I wonder what sort of windmill tilting the Ostlunds are on? They are sole owners of just two stations that bill only a tad more than $1 million a year, so they are in no position to spend money on litigation.
TheBigA said:
On the other hand Azoff started this because he wanted to stick it to radio. Fifteen years ago, he was on the front end of forcing radio to pay labels & artists. When that strategy failed, he figured he'd get his money another way.
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We really do not need a "Weinstein of Music", focused on harassing radio and media instead of actresses.
 
Hmm, well then I guess I'll just expect that sometime within the next year or so, KYNO will be sold and converted into yet another religious, conservative talk or Spanish language format (why on earth must we have something like 5-10 stations in most markets broadcasting the same religious and conservative programs at the same time?!)

c
 
cc333 said:
Hmm, well then I guess I'll just expect that sometime within the next year or so, KYNO will be sold and converted into yet another religious, conservative talk or Spanish language format
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Well, the market is less than 30% non-Hispanic white, so expect a lot of service to Blacks, Hispanics and Asians. As to religious stations, most tend to be facilities that can no longer compete, like daytime and high-on-the-dial AMs. Were it not for religious groups, they would mostly be off the air.
 
cc333 said:
Hmm, well then I guess I'll just expect that sometime within the next year or so, KYNO will be sold and converted into yet another religious, conservative talk or Spanish language format (why on earth must we have something like 5-10 stations in most markets broadcasting the same religious and conservative programs at the same time?!)

c
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These stations won't be sold. All 3 of the companies involved will settle out-of-court just as David said.
DavidEduardo said:
That is a good point. I wonder what sort of windmill tilting the Ostlunds are on? They are sole owners of just two stations that bill only a tad more than $1 million a year, so they are in no position to spend money on litigation.
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I suppose it may be just a matter of principle. An expensive one at that. Maybe they feel that broadcasters are being nickel-and-dimed to death, and this is their way of standing up to these licensing companies. Certainly someone like Paul Stone can more easily afford a court battle than the other 2 groups, but he is too experienced to believe that he will break GMR when 99% of other broadcasters have simply signed the licensing agreements and paid the fees. GMR could have filed a Billion dollar damages suit, and they know it won't get that. They'll get actual damages and maybe court costs, and ultimately the 3 groups will pay up and add this to the cost of doing business in today's world.
 
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