A coalition of 125 celebrity musicians, including pop singer Katy Perry, have joined forces with anti-tax advocates including Grover Norquist and the National Taxpayers Union (NTU) to oppose an intellectual property "reform" bill that critics charge expands government to the detriment of the free market.
Opponents say the Internet Radio Fairness Act, being pushed by Sen.
Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), Rep. Jared Polis
(D-Colo.) and Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), would mandatorily lower the
licensing fees paid by Internet radio giant Pandora, moving the
royalties system further away from a free market and instead entrenching
a system in which government sets compensation rates while picking
winners and losers.
It has anti-tax and free market groups including Americans for Tax
Reform (ATR), NTU, the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, the American
Conservative Union and Citizens Against Government Waste crying foul on
those grounds.
In his letter to members of Congress, ATR's Norquist asserts "the
standard in IRFA moves in an even worse direction towards forced
below-market rates."
Artists are concerned that if passed, the bill would amount to
government artificially limiting the earnings that musicians - celebrity
and not - are able to make from their trade in the marketplace.
That has Perry and others including rapper Ludacris, Britney Spears,
Rihanna, Cee Lo Green, Sheryl Crow, Maroon 5, Pink Floyd and Rush
speaking out via a letter published this month in Billboard magazine.
In that letter, the musicians assert that Pandora is "asking Congress
once again to step in and gut the royalties that thousands of musicians
rely upon." The signatories note that for over a decade, they have
accepted a discounted royalty rate from Pandora because they are "big
fans" of the service.
The House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on the proposed
legislation this week, and proponents hope to advance it in the next
Congress.
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