David Byrne calls for increase in artist royalties from radio play

David Byrne has been increasingly outspoken in recent months, offering critiques on NSA surveillance, wealth inequality and Spotify. Now he’s turned his attention to the royalties artists receive from radio plays.

“Many musicians receive little compensation or struggle to pay bills despite having widely-aired recordings,” Byrne begins in a blog for Vloggerheads.

The problem is, Byrne says, that U.S law states that the copyright owners have to get paid but the musicians themselves do not. “Songwriters and publishers of songs do get paid a little bit, but there is nothing allotted for the folks who record and sing the versions of songs that we hear all the time and whose recordings are used to sell advertising on commercial radio,” he continues.

“It’s a pretty silly situation that has existed for decades, and it’s time to correct it.”

You can read the full piece here. David Byrne wrote about a wide variety of topics relating to music in his recent book How Music Works.