Pig Invades Capital
The music industry is taking their fight for performance fees to their adversaries' doors Wednesday. The music industry has begun portraying broadcasters' opposition to legislation that would require AM and FM radio stations to pay a fee to performers for playing their music on the air as "piggish."
To highlight the point, the Radio Accountability Project, sponsored by several music industry groups, is launching a cross-country tour featuring a giant inflatable pink pig. The pig's first stop Wednesday was the Washington headquarters of the National Association of Broadcasters. The pig also will visit the headquarters and top stations of radio corporations across the country over the next few months, the project said.
"The radio companies are being piggish by refusing to pay musicians for their work while big radio corporations make billions of dollars in profits," Radio Accountability Project spokesman Mark Corallo said. "The inflatable pig will showcase the most piggish radio broadcasters across America--like Clear Channel and Cumulus."
NAB has countered that the legislation would primarily benefit large record companies, not musicians and would place a major financial burden on already struggling local radio stations.
"It's no surprise that [the Recording Industry Association of America] is now employing silly frat-boy stunts, given its well-documented practice of suing college kids to rescue a bankrupt business model," NAB spokesman Dennis Wharton said in a statement. "It also seems appropriate for RIAA to use an inflatable pig as its mascot, since its foreign-owned members would be the biggest beneficiaries of performance tax pork. RIAA is losing this issue on Capitol Hill and in the court of public opinion, and today's demonstration represents a new low in a campaign of utter desperation."
In the spirit of the event, NAB said it served sausage pizza to the protesters at the event.
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