{"id":23250,"date":"2015-10-30T10:06:12","date_gmt":"2015-10-30T14:06:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=23250"},"modified":"2015-10-30T10:06:12","modified_gmt":"2015-10-30T14:06:12","slug":"cfif-in-wall-street-journal-govt-shouldnt-pick-winners-in-music-creatordigital-broadcaster-negotiations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/23250\/cfif-in-wall-street-journal-govt-shouldnt-pick-winners-in-music-creatordigital-broadcaster-negotiations\/","title":{"rendered":"CFIF in Wall Street Journal:  Gov&#8217;t Shouldn&#8217;t Pick Winners in Music Creator\/Digital Broadcaster Negotiations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This morning, <em>The Wall Street Journal<\/em> kindly included <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/hitting-the-right-digital-music-royalty-note-1446145073\" target=\"_blank\">CFIF&#8217;s take<\/a> on the ongoing compensation rate negotiations between music creators and digital broadcasters. \u00a0Simply put, our position is that the federal government shouldn&#8217;t be in the business of favoring one side or the other. \u00a0In an optimal world, the free market would dictate rates and the federal government would play no role. \u00a0Because current law mandates that federal regulators at the Library of Congress determine the rate that music creators receive when digital broadcasters play their songs, however, it is critical that regulators remain neutral rather than unfairly favoring one side or the other:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>We agree with Bartlett Cleland that free-market negotiation between music creators and Internet broadcasters, not federal regulators, should optimally determine broadcast compensation rates. \u00a0Until that time, however, we respectfully disagree that regulators should artificially favor the streaming services industry. \u00a0Digital broadcasters possess no inherently superior right to their business model than do musicians, but Mr. Cleland&#8217;s suggested course unjustifiably favors the former over the latter. \u00a0If anything, artists possess the superior claim, since without their creations digital radio wouldn&#8217;t have that product to offer consumers. \u00a0And if streaming services consider payment requirements excessive, then they can adjust what they charge advertisers or subscribers to sustain their model.<\/p>\n<p>The federal government should not be in the business of playing favorites.<\/p>\n<p>Timothy Lee<\/p>\n<p><em>Center for Individual Freedom, Alexandria, Va.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This morning, The Wall Street Journal kindly included CFIF&#8217;s take on the ongoing compensation rate negotiations between music creators and digital broadcasters. \u00a0Simply put, our position is that the federal government shouldn&#8217;t be in the business of favoring one side or the other. \u00a0In an optimal world, the free market would dictate rates and the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3983,4767,4766,4768,4672,4704,4769,413],"class_list":["post-23250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-copyright","tag-creators","tag-digital-broadcasters","tag-internet-radio","tag-music","tag-performance-rights","tag-streaming","tag-wall-street-journal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23250"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23251,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23250\/revisions\/23251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}