Singers, musicians finally getting paid when music moves digitally

Bradley, 79, part of the original “A Team” of Nashville session musicians, put his distinct sound on thousands of recordings by artists such as Elvis Presley, Hank Williams, Jerry Lee Lewis, Brenda Lee, Roy Orbison, the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly — the list goes on and on.

By some accounts, he’s the most recorded guitarist in history.

Yet, until recently, Bradley wasn’t eligible to receive royalties for his work in the United States. When a song is played on conventional radio, the royalties go to the songwriters and the publishers. Singers and musicians get nothing unless they also wrote the song.

Now, with the growth in digital technology, the rules are changing. A 1995 federal law says performers are entitled to royalties when their songs receive “non-interactive digital airplay” — primarily satellite radio, Internet radio and cable/direct TV radio.

The development is significant in Nashville, where the music industry is divided between the people who write the songs and those who record them.

“Nashville historically has a lot of interpreters of songs as opposed to singer-songwriters,” said John Simson, executive director of SoundExchange, an organization designated by the government to collect and distribute the payments. “Because of that you have people who weren’t getting paid, and that is real unfortunate.”

That’s certainly the case with Bradley, who also is president of the 3,000-member Nashville Association of Musicians.

While he does receive royalties when his work is broadcast in some other countries, in the United States singers and musicians like him have “fallen through the cracks,” he said.

“Everytime they play ‘Battle of New Orleans’ by Johnny Horton or ‘Crying’ by Roy Orbison or “Crazy” by Patsy Cline — and they still do — I don’t get anything,” said Bradley, who, with his brother, famed producer Owen Bradley, established Nashville’s first recording studio in the late 1940s.

Under the new system, 45 percent of the royalty for digital airplay goes to the primary artist — those listed on the album cover — and 5 percent to the other musicians and vocalists on the recording.

The remaining 50 percent goes to the copyright owner, usually the record label.

Those eligible must register with SoundExchange. If they don’t come forward by July 1, they will lose their share of royalties collected during the first distribution cycle — 1996-2000.

The job of giving money away isn’t as easy as it seems. First, there’s finding everyone owed since the first recordings were made some 85 years ago. The copyright owners have been easiest to track down; about 85 percent of them are registered.

The artists number more than 30,000 and are harder to find. Many are dead, so it falls on their heirs to register.

Then there’s the complexity of the task. Take for example a popular group like Fleetwood Mac, which has gone through multiple lineup changes over its 37-year history. Satellite radio might play one of the group’s early song like “Oh Well,” something mid-period like “Little Lies” or a recent tune such as “Peacekeeper.” In each case, there are different musicians to find and compensate.

Sometimes, even with well-known recording artists, SoundExchange will send them the paperwork, then never get it back.

“We’re finding that there is a huge learning curve,” Simson said. “In the first year of distribution we had many people who didn’t cash their check and it came back. They probably thought it was some sort of Internet scheme.”

Bradley learned about SoundExchange only about a month ago, from his attorney.

“She said, ‘Hey, I was looking on this Web site and you’ve got some money there and you need to fill out his paperwork to get it,'” he recalled. “It’s my own fault because I’m not computer literate.”

Simson estimates SoundExchange will collect $40 million this year, up from $17.5 million last year, largely because of the rapid growth in digital delivery.

The royalty only applies to non-interactive digital services, not to online downloading services like Napster. Those fees typically are negotiated privately between the record company and the service.

Royalty payments range from $10 and $6,000 depending on airplay. Every genre is represented, including music in foreign languages.

Bradley plans to write a column in the union’s newsletter and is looking for other ways to get the word out.

He’s pleased laws were established to address the digital issue early on, unlike illegal downloading on the Internet, which the music industry now finds itself trying to deal with on the back end.

“It’s a problem when technology gets in front of us and then you have to negotiate once they’ve already started doing it,” Bradley said.