Australian musicians Jack River and Josh Pyke have stood behind ACT Senator David Pocock’s proposed bill to remove limits on how much Australian recording artists can be paid when their music is played on the radio.
The ‘Fair Pay for Radio Play’ bill would overturn a cap on the royalties commercial broadcasters pay singers.
The cap stems from a Copyright Act, written fifty-four years ago, and is unique to sound recording in Australia as no other type of copyright anywhere in the world has a cap.
Advocating for artists and labels in Australia, Australian singer-songwriter Holly Rankin (who goes by the well-known stage name ‘Jack River’) explained in an Instagram post that “right now, the Copyright Act (our piece of federal legislation that determines rights and protections for works of any kind) states that Artists and their rights holders (labels) can’t be paid above 1 per cent of gross annual commercial radio revenue for use of sound recordings.”
“Artists and labels aren’t asking to increase royalties right now- all they’re asking for is that this very ridiculous cap is removed so they are free to negotiate their value.”
On Wednesday, River stood alongside fellow Australian musician Josh Pyke as well as Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, Independent MP Dr Sophie Scamps and leaders from the PPCA and the Australian Independent Records Association to support Pocock’s bill at Parliament House.
No Labor senator spoke on the bill, leaving it without government support.
Commercial Radio Australia (CRA) opposes the change, arguing the limits are compensation for the fact that commercial radio stations are required to play a set amount of Australian music.
A new report from Deloitte Access Economics placed the value of the Australian commercial radio sector at close to $1 billion.
The Music reports that from 2023-22, commercial radio paid just $4.4 million, which is equal to 0.4 per cent of gross industry revenue.
“The big commercial radio networks rake in millions of dollars in ad revenue, they pay big bucks for their biggest radio stars, but [they] pay pennies for the music they play,” wrote Hanson-Young on Instagram.
“But if they didn’t have music, no one would listen. It’s time artists [and] musicians were paid fairly for their work,” she said.
Speaking at Parliament House, Hanson-Young said: Every time there are songs played on the radio, there is a sense that, ‘Oh, Jack River has got her song on the radio, she must be raking it in.”
“If anything, she’s been ripped off and it’s time we fix that.”