Giant inflatable pig used in recording studios' Washington war with broadcasters

The danger with waging a populist political war is in potentially boiling down one's message to such a degree that it ends up insulting and patronizing the very people the message is targeting. The case in point could not be made clearer this afternoon in Washington, DC, as The Hill's Kim Hart first discovered: A handful of otherwise unnoticeable protestors outside the headquarters of the National Association of Broadcasters erected an 18-foot inflatable pig, bearing the message, "Fair Pay for Musicians."

The pig has become the mascot of the MusicFirst Coalition, the performers' rights agency that collects and distributes royalties. For the last few years, MusicFirst has campaigned extensively against the decades-old exemption of terrestrial radio broadcasters (as opposed to Internet radio) from paying performers' royalties. Stations continue to pay royalties to rights holders, which in the end, include many of the recording industry institutions also represented by MusicFirst.

Dueling bills stalled on Capitol Hill would continue this exemption indefinitely, or compel radio stations for the first time to pay performers' royalties on a scale comparable to what Internet streamers such as Pandora and Last.fm reluctantly agreed to last year. In an effort to gather momentum to move pro-royalties legislation forward, associations that support MusicFirst have formed the Radio Accountability Project; launched a Web site, PiggyRadio.com; and produced a new 30-second television spot, all of which heavily feature the poor pig.

The tactic appears to be to visually link radio broadcasters with two unpopular groups of citizens: the United States Government, and the executives of banks that accepted federal bailout money in 2008 and 2009 to remain solvent. Whether any substantive link between bankers and broadcasters actually exists is open for debate. Nonetheless, PiggyRadio.com clearly shows the corporate broadcasting pig feeding from an orange barrel marked "Bailout Funds." The theory is that, by not paying royalties, continuing to accept the exemption is virtually almost exactly similar to accepting a government bailout.

However, one tactical error may have emerged today: In its invitation to the pig-out this afternoon (PDF available here), the RAP group estimated the amount of the "bailout" -- by association, the amount of royalties MusicFirst would receive from broadcasters -- as "billions."
"These giant radio companies made more than $15 billion in revenues last year without paying musicians a single penny through a performance royalty," the RAP invitation read. "Worse, they have been using the public's airwaves to lobby and intimidate Congress on the issue. Specifically, here is what the broadcast corporations want: A bailout from the federal government in the form of billions for broadcast spectrum that they got for free and don't even use."

Thus the National Association of Broadcasters -- its office windows covered in pink -- found itself today doing two things it never expected to do: explaining that its members actually have never requested federal bailout money, and buying sausage pizza for the handful of protesters (by one estimate, five) who accompanied the giant pig.

NAB Executive Vice President Dennis Wharton issued this statement this afternoon: "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. 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."

Wharton then went on to suggest that the recording industry at least buy a sausage pizza for "the scores of exploited musicians who have had to sue their record label to recoup allegedly unpaid album royalties."