By Samuel Rubenfeld

Agreements were made between four major radio broadcasters and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) over a scandal that has wracked the radio industry for years.

That scandal is payola, and its influence over radio stations. The problem required action first by former New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer before the FCC would step in. Payola is the practice of record companies paying radio stations to spin their records without disclosing that they received payment to do so.

Record labels were Spitzer’s primary target while in the attorney general’s office. The “Big Four” -Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, the EMI Group and the Warner Music Group – signed settlements out of court totaling more than $30 million to stop the practice. CBS Radio and Entercom, two companies that settled with the FCC Monday, also settled cases with Spitzer’s office for a combined $6.25 million.

Clear Channel Communications, CBS Radio, Entercom Communications and Citadel Broadcasting all signed an agreement to pay a total of $12.5 million to the FCC in fines for accepting bribes and gifts for playing songs on their radio stations.

These companies are the largest radio station owners in the nation. The companies also signed a separate agreement pledging to play music from artists not signed to the four major record labels.

The companies would accept bribes through a loophole in the U.S. Code, which allows for the use of “indies,” or independent promoters (not to be confused with independent record labels), to accept funds on behalf of the broadcaster, enabling them to still accept payment without having to disclose sponsorship. The “indies” would funnel the money to broadcasters, and “General Managers” would choose playlists, not the deejays themselves. This deal will purportedly stop that practice.

The broadcasters, of course, love the deal. They can now claim that the scandal is behind them and that no explicit violations were found, just as Andrew Levin, Clear Channel’s executive vice president and chief legal officer, did. In essence, they save face while the practice continues unabated.

As much as the big broadcasters love the deal, the independent labels, and those that lobby on their behalf, hate it. The agreement, which they signed, requires that the radio companies will broadcast the equivalent of 8,400 half-hour segments of music from independent artists between 6 a.m. and midnight any time of the week during the year. However, the independent labels see the deal as insufficient, feeling that it is an insignificant punishment for meta-conglomerates that will continue to shut independent voices out.

Payola dates back to the beginning of rock and roll. Alan Freed, an early disc jockey, and the man who coined the term “rock and roll,” saw his career end because of payola. Dick Clark avoided scandal by cooperating with authorities. Why would things change now?

Other industry insiders are working to undermine indpendent voices as well. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) works in concert with these labels and broadcasters to enforce a landscape in which independent thoughts, ideas or actions are shut out and shut down.

The RIAA has recently accused a highly promoted mix-tape artist, one touted by many hip-hop acts, of copyright infringement. DJ Drama was arrested Tuesday, Jan. 16 by a SWAT team from the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office. They came with a warrant on the grounds that they had violated the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations law, or RICO, a charge often used to lock up people who make a business of selling drugs or extorting money, according to the Sunday, Feb. 18 issue of The New York Times.

Recently, the RIAA has targeted college students for illegally downloading music, which they claim is a dire threat to the business of record companies. The industry should be more concerned with the decrease of CD sales because of legal downloading from services such as iTunes, which has seen a huge jump in sales, especially in the form of single tracks, as opposed to what they are doing now.

By preoccupying itself with petty issues of students downloading illegally while sitting in their dorm rooms wearing pajamas, the record companies are missing the ball on a huge opportunity, and a potential boon for business by regulating legal downloading services.

All of this comes back to simple facts: music is nothing more than organized sound, and to prosecute for the infringement of acquiring sound is ridiculous. To accept payment for specific songs is a form of propaganda and claiming that only certain songs are fit for play is just plain idiotic. The control over the minds of the nation is at stake! Don’t allow for a few companies, and their zealous executives, to tell you to what you should and shouldn’t be listening.

Samuel Rubenfeld is a sophomore print journalism student. You may e-mail him at [email protected].