On the eve of a House Judiciary Committee hearing to examine legislation that would terminate a longstanding royalty exemption afforded to AM and FM radio, the National Association of Broadcasters slammed the music industry-led effort as being "founded on an incomplete and therefore misleading comparison of U.S. and international copyright law." Proponents of the bill have argued that in every other democratic free market country, radio stations compensate musicians when they play their music. The countries, however, do not compensate artists and musicians within the United States because the United States does not provide a performance right for their artists.

"The record labels have devised a lobbying strategy that relies on cherry-picking international examples that paint a distorted picture of copyright law," NAB spokesman Dennis Wharton said in a press release. "The U.S. protects sound recordings for 45 years longer than Canada and many countries in Europe and elsewhere; if it's 'international parity' that RIAA is looking for, they ought to examine the entire landscape," he said. NAB's analysis also points out that other countries' broadcasting systems are or were government-subsidized while the U.S. business was built by private commercial entrepreneurs.

But the MusicFirst coalition, which supports the legislation, bit back by claiming the analysis is suspect and stale. According to the coalition, the NAB's Canadian counterpart submitted the same study to support its claim that radio play promotes album sales in a proceeding before the Copyright Board of Canada. In November 2008, the board threw it out because the underlying data was destroyed. The same analysis was released by NAB last June and again Monday, officials said. Wharton scoffed at the notion that NAB destroyed data and added: "MusicFirst should get its facts straight before making unfounded allegations." Read more in CongressDaily's AM Edition (subscription required).