As Radio Royalties Battle Heats Up--Black Women Lead on Both Sides

The musicFirst coalition, the group of record labels and artists supporting a fee for music airplay on terrestrial radio, has released what it calls a handbook filled with "lies and mistruths" used by radio to distort the issue.

Under current law, stations only pay copyright royalties to artists who compose hit songs, not those who perform them. Other media, such as satellite and Internet radio, must pay royalties to performers.

The group says the Performance Rights Act would bring fairness to artists and to Internet and satellite radio. Opponents, most prominently NAB, say that if passed, such fees would force many stations, struggling in this economy, to go out of business. The Raben Group headed by former Department of Justice official and openly gay man Robert Raben represents MusicFirst and former DC Black Pride president Courtney Snowden (pictured right) has been active on this issue on behalf of the firm.

Black radio stations and the Congressional Black Caucus are sharply divided over a music industry-backed effort to impose a performance fee on radio stations, with the NAACP reportedly stepping in to try to make peace between the two sides.

Radio One founder and Chairwoman Cathy Hughes (pictured left) has run a series of ads critical of the proposed fee and House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, D-Michigan., who is the chief sponsor of the bill. Hughes's stand on the legislation is shared by the Rev. Al Sharpton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, while the American Federation of Musician of the United States and Canada, the NAACP and the League of United Latin American Citizens have sided with Conyers.

Writing on the Huffington Post, the soulful signer and AIDS activist Dionne Warwick says it is about economic justice for African American artists.