Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods Before Me

FZ:

Well, uh, my opinion is that it's probably the worst thing that has happened to songwriters, to performers and to retailers since uh, since the Constitution. Because what happened here is— And, I really feel sorry for Stan Gortikov because he’s in a difficult position. He said what he said and did what he did because record industry label heads said, "Stan, do this." Okay? I believe that, I don't think this was Stan's idea. But, what has been done is a bad thing.

The record industry has a bill called "H. R. 2911"—I don’t know what the number is for the one that goes in the other part of Congress but the House Resolution is called "2911." And what it's supposed to do is put a surcharge on blank tape to compensate record companies for the income lost when record buyers tape the record or somebody tapes a television show. And that money goes into the pocket of the record company, not into the artist's pocket, not into the per— songwriter's pocket, not into the retailer's pocket. This is money for the record company.

In order to ensure that their bill would not die in the Thurmond committee, which is where it has to go through, they caved in to the first of the PMRC's demands, and gave them this stickering business. But the rights that they gave away at that point did not belong to them. They gave away the rights of the performer, the songwriter and the retailer, in order to put money in their pocket. Now there's something legally wrong with that, I think.

And the other thing that's hideous about what’s going on is there’s such a conflict of interest because the wives of these senators have used governmental facilities and governmental privileges in order to put their pet project forward. And the fact-finding committee that is convening on the 19th to discuss all this stuff has husbands of members of the PMRC on it, and I think that in fairness these husbands—Senator Packwood and Senator Gore—should both excuse themselves from the committee, they shouldn't be sitting in judgement on their wives’ business.

And I don't think that anybody has ever provided the public with a complete list of who in the Congress is married to PMRC people. I have their letterhead, I have their fund-raising letter, which is really a nasty piece of business, and there's only four names on the letterhead, but Mrs. Packwood isn't on the letterhead, so you wouldn’t know unless you'd read that in the Los Angeles Times. And you wouldn't know that Mrs. Thurmond was on there unless Stan Gortikov had told you. Okay? But there are probably other ones in Congress who are married to PMRC creatures, and they should not be sitting on any kind of a committee that deals with record company business or deals with this issue. It's not fair.