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Musicians are the backbone of several industries: recording, broadcasting, music publishing, live performance, etc. Several of those industries are currently waging a rhetorical free-for-all over what musicians get paid. It's like watching a pit full of weasels fight over a burger.

How much is the music industry really paying artists in royalties? That's the question the National Association of Broadcasters would like Congress to ask the Recording Industry Association of America. But this sudden interest in the well-being of musicians is little more than a thinly disguised strategic counterattack in an ongoing royalty dispute between radio broadcasters and record labels.

The RIAA is demanding performance royalties from the terrestrial radio industry, pointing out that satellite and webcasters already pay them. Currently AM and FM radio broadcasters pay only publishing royalties, which go to songwriters via music publishers--leaving the ailing record labels out in the cold. To make its point, the RIAA brought recording artists Judy Collins and Sam Moore (of Stax's Sam & Dave) to testify in July before the house judiciary subcommittee governing intellectual property.

Apparently Radiohead weren't available.

Declared Moore to Congress: "Without a huge promotional budget and massive marketing support, radio does absolutely nothing to promote sales of my records." So pay those performance royalties and let an old man rest easy, OK?

Having apparently been stewing about this for a couple of months, the president of the NAB has formulated his reply in a letter to Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA): "Over the years, how much did the various record labels benefit financially from the sales of the performer witnesses at the July 31, 2007, hearing?" And, while we're at it, "How does that compare to the compensation actually paid to the performers who testified on the 31st?"

The story doesn't end there. NAB's message reached the musicFIRST Coalition, which consists of the American Federation of Musicians, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, the Music Managers' Forum, the Recording Academy, and the Recording Artists' Coalition. They fired off their own letter to Rep. Berman: "As representatives of tens of thousands of performers, we believe that every industry that derives profit from our creative work should share some of that value with us. Yes, that means record labels."

But, the statement continues, "it also means corporate radio. Radio has built a twenty billion dollar industry based on advertising revenue that it generates because its listeners tune in to our music. It is only fair that the creators of the music, songwriters and recording performers, should share in that value. The new digital music services like internet and satellite radio pay performers. Now it finally is time for corporate radio to compensate performers, too. The NAB's decades of free riding off our work should finally come to an end."