Azoff’s Group Takes On Radio ‘Cartel’

Global Music Rights (GMR), founded by veteran artist manager/activist Irving Azoff has filed an antitrust suit against the Radio Music Licensing Committee (RMLC) in federal court suit on behalf of its 71 songwriters. The suit alleges that over 10,000 U.S. radio stations wrongfully colluded to underpay songwriters to play songs on the radio. According to GMR’s complaint, the RMLC, quaintly referred to in the release as a “cartel,” controls over 90% of radio industry revenue, reaches more than 245 million listeners weekly and represents more than 10,000 U.S. radio stations. GMR’s repertory includes songs performed by ‪John Lennon, ‪Justin Bieber, ‪Smokey Robinson, Steve Miller, ‪Shakira, Drake, ‪Randy Travis and ‪Kenny Chesney. “This is the most important fight of my professional life,” Azoff said. “I will not stop the fight for fairness to artists and songwriters.”

Attorney Daniel Petrocelli of O’Melveny & Myers, who represents GMR, claims that radio station owners conspired to exercise their “collective muscle” and keep their music costs low rather than compete with one another for content. “This cartel has been a smashing success,” Petrocelli said. “Music is the lifeblood of terrestrial radio but, because of the conspiracy, owners of terrestrial radio stations pay only about 4% of their revenue — a tiny fraction — to the songwriters who create that music. Other media distributors such as streaming music services, which are not part of the terrestrial radio cartel, pay substantially more money to songwriters.”

According to the suit, “everyone is harmed by this radio industry conspiracy. Songwriters aren’t compensated fairly for their works, new composers are not incentivized to write new hits, and radio listeners could be blocked from hearing their favorite songs.” Petrocelli added, “That’s where the law steps in. Incentivizing creativity is the basic tenet of copyright law and the reason Irving started GMR.” GMR is seeking antitrust damages, which are tripled under the law, and an injunction forbidding the cartel from continuing its anticompetitive conduct. You are advised to stay tuned.