Irving Azoff’s Music Rights Firm Ends Legal Battle With Radio Stations
variety.comGene Maddaus Senior Media WriterIrving Azoff’s music rights firm has settled its five-year legal battle with the group that represents more 10,000 radio stations, ending a fight that threatened to undermine the 80-year-old arrangement under which artists are paid for commercial airplay.Azoff’s Global Music Rights and the Radio Music License Committee filed a joint stipulation on Monday to dismiss the antitrust lawsuits that they had filed against each other in 2016.
The two sides also announced in a press release that a majority of commercial radio stations have agreed to a long-term license with GMR, which allows the settlement to take effect.GMR launched in 2013 as a direct challenge to ASCAP and BMI, the performance rights organizations that control more than 90% of music copyrights.
Azoff was able to obtain rights from a relative handful of songwriters whose songs had been performed by John Lennon, U2, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and others.
Those songs were deemed must-haves for radio catalogs, and GMR then sought significantly higher rates than its artists were receiving under ASCAP and BMI.
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