Should radio pay royalities?

Filed in archive Business on February 4, 2009

Okay, admittedly slightly off the topic of digital music, but still pretty relevant. I found out a fairly suprising fact today, that unlike in the UK, US radio stations do not have to pay royalities for the songs they play! This honestly amazed me, as generally record labels want money, which they certainly arn't getting at present!

Apparently though a bill is being worked upon by lawmakers in order to make radio stations pay for the music; is this right? I'm not sure. One could argue the promotional abilities of radio negate the need to actually pay for the music....

What do you think?