MusicFIRST Taunts National Association of Broadcasters with Fake Coupon

MusicFIRST, a lobbying backed by SoundExchange, the RIAA, music industry unions, and over 80 individual artists, thumbed its nose at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) by issuing a coupon jokingly meant to be good for the promotional items on sale at NABStore.com.

Here's the text of the coupon:

Valid: When Turkeys Talk

At NAB, Promotion Equals Free

No limit per customer. No minimum purchase (after all, theydon't purchase the music they use). May be combined with a 70-yearhistory of refusing to pay artists for their music. Your copyright mustbe surrendered. No cash/no credit for your work. Not valid outside ofthe U.S. - every other major country actually pays a performance right.
Subject to common sense and basic fairness. For more information: www.musicfirstcoalition.org.

And here's why it's supposed to be funny: MusicFIRST, which representslabels and artists, wants terrestrial radio stations to pay up every time they play a song, the same way online radio stations do.

NAB, which represents the radio stations, claims that such airplay compensates record labels with increased album sales and artists with tour publicity, so that further compensation is not necessary.

MusicFIRST'scoupon is supposed to turn the tables on NAB, by essentially saying, "if these T-shirts are meant to promote your organization, you should be required to give them out for free, because songs and trade groups should be promoted in exactly the same way, being so similar."

It's good to see MusicFIRST taking such a mature approach; hopefully NAB will respond with a similarly rationalstatement, something like "I'm rubber, you'reglue."