The agreement resulted from Spitzer's investigation of suspected "pay for play" practices in the music industry.

A Sony BMG spokesman didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

But Spitzer said Sony BMG has agreed to hire a compliance officer to monitor promotion practices and to issue a statement acknowledging "improper conduct" and pledging higher standards.

He commended the company for its cooperation.

"Our investigation shows that, contrary to listener expectations that songs are selected for air play based on artistic merit and popularity, air time is often determined by undisclosed payoffs to radio stations and their employees," Spitzer said. "This agreement is a model for breaking the pervasive influence of bribes in the industry."

Spitzer had requested documents and information from EMI, Warner Music Group, Vivendi Universal SA's Universal Music Group as well as from Sony BMG, which is a joint venture of Sony Corp. and Bertelsmann AG.

Spitzer said his investigation showed Sony BMG paid for vacation packages and electronics for radio programmers, paid for contest giveaways for listeners, paid some operational expenses of radio stations and hired middlemen known as independent promoters to provide illegal payments to radio stations to get more airplay for its artists.

Spitzer also said e-mails among company executives showed top officials were aware of the payments.

Spitzer said Sony BMG employees sought to conceal some payments by using fictitious contest winners to document the transactions.

In one case, an employee of Sony's Epic label was trying to promote the group Audioslave to a station and asked: "WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO TO GET AUDIOSLAVE ON WKSS THIS WEEK?!!? Whatever you can dream up, I can make it happen."

In another case, a promoter unhappy that Celine Dion's "I Drove All Night" was being played overnight on some stations threatened to revoke a trip to a Dion show in Las Vegas unless the play times improved.

Sony BMG Music is an umbrella organization for several prominent record labels, including Arista Records, Columbia Records, Sony Music International and So So Def Records.

Star artists signed with the Arista label alone include Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, OutKast, Pink and Sarah McLachlan.

The $10 million will be distributed to not-for-profit entities and earmarked for music education programs, Spitzer said.

Record companies can't offer financial incentives under a 1960 federal law that made it a crime punishable by a $10,000 fine and up to a year in prison to offer money or other inducements to give records airplay. The practice was called "payola," a contraction of "pay" and "Victrola" record players.

The law was passed in response to the payola scandals of the 1950s and early 1960s that implicated some then-famous disc jockeys.

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  ©¿©  It don't mean a thang,   
  mm   if it ain't got that twang.
       www.ntsga.com

One particular song, that I did the steel guitar on, was "Tonight I'm Taking Charlie's Angel's Home", written by John Moudy (KC native) and sung by Ron Cowans on "Big K" records (a KC studio). The country station in St Joe was playing it, we sent promo copies to a lot of stations in the south and it made their play list and even Charlie Douglas that had the all night "truckers" show in New Orleans was playing it. But, we couldn't get it played locally in the KC area.

quote:

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...was pleasurized from our record,...

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I'm sure it was a "pleasure" for Mel to record it,but I think you're looking for "plagiarize".

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  ©¿©  It don't mean a thang,   
  mm   if it ain't got that twang.
       www.ntsga.com

I suspect that this recent case will have pretty much the same effect on the music business as that one did.

[This message was edited by Dave Grafe on 25 July 2005 at 01:04 PM.]

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  ©¿©  It don't mean a thang,   
  mm   if it ain't got that twang.
       www.ntsga.com

Happens all the time. I wrote "Crazy Waltz" that was recorded by Hellen O'Connell and Gizelle McKinsey and Dave Cavanaugh's orchestra, as well as Pee Wee King. I got 1/3 of the royalties. Pee Wee got 1/3 and Redd Stewart got 1/3. That's just the way it worked. (33-1/3% of something is better than 100% of nothing.)

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Browse my Photo Album and be sure to sign my Guest Book.

This under-the-table money may be good for business, but it's illegal. Radio stations are granted licenses to operate in the public trust. If they're breaking the law by accepting payola (in any form), their license should be revoked. Sure, fine the record companies, and then...shut down their cronies (the radio stations) for a year for each offense of accepting "pay-for-play".

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  ©¿©  It don't mean a thang,   
  mm   if it ain't got that twang.
       www.ntsga.com

It further explains the music too. You'd have to pay me to play most of it.

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HagFan

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GFI s10, Georgeboards 8 string, National D8,Silvertone U-1 goldtop, Peavey Delta Blues, Goodrich H10K VP, Boss Vwah, Line6 DL4 delay, Jacques Bat Fuzz, Dunlop Lap Dawg bar

quote:

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What`s a `radio` ????

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C'mon Glyn,you remember,don'cha?
That's TV,w/o pictures!

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  ©¿©  It don't mean a thang,   
  mm   if it ain't got that twang.
       www.ntsga.com