FM Washington

by Gato_Volador

RIAA + Broadcasters Lobbying For FM Radio In Every Cell Phone, PDA

Web access via your cell phone or PDA is a common capability these days, and from the music industry’s standpoint, that’s great; webcasters already pay full performance rights fees for the music they stream. It’s also pretty common for MP3 players to have built-in FM radio receivers, and so of course it was only a matter of time before the radio people said, “Hey — we could have it all!”

Meanwhile, the RIAA would also like to see old-fashioned radio expanded into cell phones and PDA’s, because not only would the exposure presumably boost album sales, but they’ve been trying to squeeze performance rights fees out of broadcasters for years. If radio’s audience expands through phones and PDA’s, so would the money the RIAA could get from broadcasters. This has turned out to be especially true because the Consumer Electronics Association isn’t too keen on the idea, and they certainly don’t like to be told what to do. It would take the beefy hand of Congress to get gadget-makers to fall in line, and so a common enemy has made for an awkward partnership: the RIAA and the National Association of Broadcasters have joined forces to ask Congress to override the CEA and mandate FM receiver chips into every cell phone and PDA.

It’s a pretty slick play on the part of the RIAA. The NAB has agreed to pony up roughly 0 million a year in royalties in exchange for the expanded audience that would come from mandated radio chips in the handheld devices. The princely sum is well more then the nothing they’ve paid up to this point, but still less then they’d feared the RIAA could get if its efforts toward performance rights legislation proved successful. The CEA ain’t takin’ it lying down, though. Ars Technica quotes CEA president Gary Shapiro as fuming, “The backroom scheme of the [National Association of Broadcasters] and RIAA to have Congress mandate broadcast radios in portable devices, including mobile phones, is the height of absurdity.” We’ll see how it all plays out when Congress reconvenes this fall.

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Tags: Broadcasters, Cell, Every, Lobbying, Phone, Radio, RIAA