Could These Lawsuits Mean The End Of Classic Country Music?

Three of the nation’s largest radio station operators are facing multi-million dollar lawsuits

It Could Very Well Be the beginning of the end for classic country music.

CBS Radio, iHeartMedia, and Cumulus are the target of the lawsuits filed in California and New York over exploitation of pre-1972 sound recordings. The lawsuits are part of a campaign by ABS Entertainment, which owns the recordings of Al Green and others, and it’s goal is to represent a group of artists that would include Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, and The Beatles. They are demanding that radio stations in California and New York stop performing pre-1972 recordings and linking to such recordings from websites.

The owners of the recordings made before recordings were put under federal copyright protection aren’t generally paid for airplay, but no one questioned it until recently.

In August 2013, a lawsuit was filed by Flo & Eddie of The Turtles that eventually led to a $210 million settlement from SiriusXM.

Following the SiriusXM settlement, Cary Sherman, label representative and chief executive of the Recording Industry Association of America, said, “It’s increasingly clear that SiriusXM, Pandora and other digital music firms who refuse to pay legacy artists and rights holders are on the wrong side of history and the law. It’s time for that to change.”

Could these lawsuits mean that classic country will no longer be heard on digital radio? Time will tell. If federal copyright protection laws are changed, some music from legendary artists such as Conway Twitty, Loretta Lynn, Patsy Cline, and Hank Williams would be banned unless rights holders were compensated.

What do you think? Should owners of sound recordings released prior to 1972 be compensated the same as current artists?  You may Comment if you please!

– Story Brought To WHISNews21 Attention by the Music City Ghost