Posted by anthonyberet on 03/11/06 01:10

bigscreen@operamail.com wrote:
> A US radio giant took payment from record companies in exchange for
> playing songs on air, New York's attorney general has said. US
> regulator the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) began to
> investigate "pay-for-play" practices in the music industry - also known
> as payola - last year.
>
> Last July music firm Sony BMG agreed to pay $10m (£5.75m) and stop
> paying radio station employees to play its artists' songs.
>
> In November Warner Music Group agreed to pay $5m (£2.87m) to settle a
> "pay-for-play" investigation.
>
> In his legal action he said he had evidence that Entercom executives
> discussed strategies for supplementing radio station budgets with
> payola cash from record companies. Mr Spitzer said one of Entercom's
> country music stations was given a $2,500 (£1,400) laptop computer in
> exchange for playing songs by artists Joe Nichols, McHayes and Liz
> Phair. He said payola violated New York state civil law and radio
> station licences, and sometimes resulted in the same song being played
> on air every hour.
>
> "The decisions are being made as to what to put on the airwaves based
> on bribes to be paid and extracted, rather than on judgments based on
> artistic merit," Mr Spitzer said.
>
I never understood how they are so happy to pay radio stations to
distribute their stuff but wont pay p2p users for doing the same thing...

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