This is really more about copyright matters more than anything, but I think it's pretty interesting stuff..

-- Google AI Summary Excerpts:

"After the American Civil War, pianos became mass-produced and highly affordable. publishers started producing accessible, popular tunes rather than just classical or sacred music. Sheet music became a commercial industry in the 1880s and 1890s, peaking with the birth of Tin Pan Alley in New York City. Before mass sound recording, printed scores were the primary way to popularize music, driving massive sales for songs played on middle-class parlor pianos.

The Rise of Tin Pan Alley (1880s–1900s): The music business formalized in a specific cluster of publishing houses along 28th Street in Manhattan. This era introduced a standardized, factory-like approach to songwriting. It also generated staggering sales records; for example, Charles K. Harris's 1892 song "After the Ball" became the first to sell over a million copies of sheet music.

Radio became a mainstream medium for entertainment in the early 1930s, when a majority of U.S. households acquired a receiver. While commercial broadcasting began in 1920, the transition from a technical novelty to a dominant mass-entertainment staple occurred rapidly over the course of a decade.

U.S. Household Radio Ownership (1923–1940)
1%
50%
60%
83%

The rise of mainstream radio entertainment unfolded through several key milestones:
The Network Era Begins (1926–1928): The formation of national networks like the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) in 1926 and the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) in 1928 shifted the industry. Stations could finally share the high cost of programming, creating a national shared culture.

The Golden Age Catalyst (1930s): The Great Depression ironically cemented radio's mainstream status because it provided a free source of home entertainment after the initial purchase of the box. The 1930s introduced distinct, highly popular entertainment formats including situation comedies (like Amos 'n' Andy), soap operas sponsored by soap manufacturers, live music concerts, and variety shows featuring Hollywood stars.

The Sheet Music War: The Battle over "Public Performance"
In the 1920s, the music industry’s revenue relied heavily on sheet music sales. When radio stations began broadcasting live performances of popular songs, sheet music publishers—represented by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP)—sued.

The Publisher Argument: Under the Copyright Act of 1909, creators held the exclusive right to "publicly perform" music for profit. Publishers argued that because radio stations used music to attract listeners and sell advertisements, broadcasting was a public performance for profit.

The Radio Defense: Broadcasters argued that radio was a private in-home experience, not a public venue. Furthermore, they claimed that hearing a song on the radio would make listeners run out and buy the sheet music.

The Legal Outcome: The courts sided with ASCAP, establishing that broadcasting constituted a public performance. Radio stations were forced to purchase blanket licenses to play copyrighted compositions.

By the late 1930s, ASCAP held a virtual monopoly on American popular music, including the massive Tin Pan Alley catalog. Between 1931 and 1939, ASCAP aggressively hiked its licensing fees for radio by over 400%. When ASCAP attempted to double those rates again for 1941, the radio industry revolted.

The Boycott: On January 1, 1941, the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) launched a total boycott of all ASCAP music. Over 1 million songs vanished from the airwaves overnight.

The Public Domain Solution: To fill the silence, radio stations flooded the airwaves with older music that was free from copyright restrictions, popularizing standard public-domain tunes like "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair."

The Birth of BMI: Anticipating the fight, the radio networks had pooled their money to launch a rival licensing agency: Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI). BMI signed independent country, blues, folk, and jazz artists whom ASCAP had historically ignored.

The Resolution: Left completely broke by the ten-month boycott, ASCAP surrendered in October 1941, accepting a drastically lower fee structure than before. This broke ASCAP’s monopoly and permanently elevated genres like country and R&B into mainstream American culture.

The Recording Industry Loophole: The Fight over the "Sound Recording"
While songwriters and publishers won royalties for the underlying musical composition (the lyrics and notes), a completely separate battle emerged over the physical sound recording (the specific audio captured on a vinyl record).

The Record Labels’ Panic: In the 1930s and 40s, record companies like RCA Victor stamped warning labels on their physical records reading "Not Licensed for Radio Broadcast." They feared that if people could hear the record on the radio for free, they would never buy the vinyl.

The Legal Loophole: In a landmark 1940 court decision, judges ruled that once a consumer bought a record, the record company could not dictate how it was used. Furthermore, U.S. copyright law at the time did not recognize a performance right for sound recordings.

The Permanent Inequity: This created a unique, permanent legal loophole in American law. To this day, when an AM/FM radio station plays a song, the songwriter and publisher get paid a royalty via ASCAP or BMI. However, the recording artist and the record label receive zero dollars from traditional radio broadcast.

The Digital Performance Right in Sound Recordings Act of 1995 (DPRA) created a historic legal split in American media. For the first time in U.S. history, it granted record labels and performing artists the right to be paid when their specific sound recordings were played publicly—but only if that playback occurred via a digital transmission.

Because of how Congress defined "digital transmissions," newer platforms like satellite and internet radio were forced to pay artists, while traditional over-the-air AM/FM broadcasters retained their century-old exemption.

The Threat of "Perfect" Digital Copies
In the early 1990s, the music industry panicked over the birth of digital audio technologies like subscription satellite audio and early webcasting.The Industry's Fear: Labels feared that digital transmissions would deliver CD-quality audio directly into people's homes. They worried consumers would use digital recorders to tape songs off digital channels, completely destroying physical album sales.

The Congressional Response: To protect the music industry from this perceived digital piracy threat, Congress passed the DPRA. The law created a brand-new performance right explicitly for digital audio transmissions.

The Legal Definitions that Split the Industry
The DPRA categorized audio transmissions into distinct legal buckets, which fundamentally dictated who had to pay artists and who did not:

Subscription and Non-Interactive Digital Services: This covered services that charged fees or broadcasted digitally over satellite and cable (and was expanded in 1998 via the DMCA to include internet radio webcasters like Pandora). Under the DPRA, these platforms were required to pay statutory license fees to artists and labels.

Why Traditional AM/FM Radio Remained Exempt
Congress explicitly carved out an exemption for traditional, over-the-air analog AM/FM radio stations. The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB)—the powerful lobbying arm for traditional radio stations—successfully convinced Congress to keep the old rule intact using three primary arguments:

The Promotional Argument: The NAB argued that AM/FM radio served as a free, nationwide promotional tool that drove consumers to record stores to buy music. They maintained that playing a song was a symbiotic marketing service, not a product that required a fee.

No Piracy Risk: Analog AM/FM signals were susceptible to static and interference. Congress agreed that analog broadcasts did not pose the same risk of high-quality digital music piracy as satellite or internet feeds.

Economic Impact: Broadcasters claimed that forcing local, free radio stations to pay an entirely new royalty would bankrupt hundreds of smaller, community stations

The Long-Term Consequences: SoundExchange and the Royalty Gap
The implementation of the DPRA permanently disrupted the financial landscape of the music business:

The Creation of SoundExchange: To handle this massive new stream of digital royalties, a non-profit collective called SoundExchange was created. Today, SoundExchange collects fees from digital webcasters and distributes them directly:
50% goes to the copyright owner (usually the record label),
45% goes to the featured performing artist, and 5% goes to a fund for non-featured musicians (like session players).

The Unfair Advantage Controversy: This created a glaring double standard. If a consumer hears a song on a traditional AM/FM car radio, the singer gets $0. If that same consumer hears the exact same song moments later via SiriusXM satellite radio or a Pandora stream, the singer gets paid.

The Ongoing Political Fight: The AM/FM exemption remains a fierce battleground. For decades, the music industry has heavily lobbied Congress to pass legislation—such as the recurring American Music Fairness Act—to finally close the loophole and force traditional radio to pay performing artists.

https://youtube.com/shorts/gJgDM65vWgQ?si=ombOpr_uP9HjvvuK

https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us/articles/115000430423-Tell-Us-Your-Story

"Thanks for choosing to share your story with the FCC. Your Story submission provides you with the opportunity to comment (good or bad) on telecommunications issues or providers. The FCC shares Your Story internally to identify trends and inform policy making and potential enforcement activities.

By submitting Your Story you are NOT filing a consumer complaint. Your Story submission will not be served on your provider. You will not receive a response from the FCC or your provider after submitting Your Story.

Share your story"

CB RADIO: Illinois CBer cited for 'broadcasting' on Channel 19
Operator also had been cited by the FCC in the past and reportedly used CB to lure a girl
Chuck Gysi | N2DUP
Feb 27, 2026
https://natcommag.substack.com/p/cb-radio-illinois-cber-cited-for

"An Illinois citizens band radio operator has been issued a notice of unlicensed operation by the Federal Communications Commission, claiming his broadcasts on Channel 19 are causing interference to other CBers.
This isn’t the first time this CBer has drawn attention. He also was cited by the FCC eight years ago with unlicensed operation on amateur radio frequencies and he also faced sex charges more than two decades ago when he reportedly used CB radio to lure a 13-year-old girl he was talking with to meet him and then allegedly assaulted her. Details of his past problems and the problems he caused for Chicago area CBers are below. ..."

But the point here is that if that manufactured part 15 transmitter in the 1950s had actually worked as well as advertised, then no investigation would have ever took place and 15.219 today would be 200mw input and 3 meter antenna.

Kind of ironic actually.

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Western_Radio_Corporation_V_Federal_Trad/JR9APKUUTOIC?hl=en

"This past week, the FCC released a Congressional report that indicated that while the agency continues to spend a lot of money chasing pirate broadcasters on the AM and FM bands, they are not recouping significant funds to cover their expenses. Not even close.

..Last week, the FCC released its fiscal year 2025 report ... As one can guess, hiring staff and buying FCC enforcement vehicles equipped with electronic direction-finding equipment doesn’t come cheap, ... In the agency’s 2024 report to Congress, the FCC reported it had ordered six vehicles ... adding that the vehicles would be outfitted in the 2024 and 2025 calendar years and include specialized hardware, software and equipment to detect pirate broadcasts. ...

However ... You see that this is a huge money loss for the FCC, ... In the FCC’s 2025 report issued last week, a very quick summary shows that while a number of very large fines were levied against those accused of pirate broadcasting —  there is minimal evidence of money flowing into the FCC’s coffers. The highest fine issued in the past year was $2.39 million. You won’t believe this, however. The amount of funds the FCC collected from pirates in 2025 amounted to only $26,000. That barely supports a fraction of the salary of one FCC field agent, let alone the cost of a vehicle or the tracking equipment installed to sniff out pirates. ...

The FCC continues to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars each year (on salaries alone), yet finds itself able to collect only tens of thousands of dollars in a year from compliant pirates. In the meantime, the big pirate violators continue to escape making any payments on their fines, simply ignoring the long arm of the law. The FCC finds itself in a conundrum, being able to set fines, but unable to collect them to help fund its crackdown...

I don't rely nor trust ai, but I did steer this discussion and think thevGoogle AI in this case had really clarifies it better (to me anyway) than ever before, particularly when it comes to the meaning of the "non-coordinated" legal stipulation for utilizing multiple part 15 transmitters to increase range.

Below is copy of how the AI explained (excluding my own guiding prompts that produced it), I think it's the best clarification I've ever read....

Here is the AI take on it, slightly truncated:

----------------------------------

GEN Docket No. 87-389, the discussion of "Multiple Intentional Radiators" (Section 136) had a direct impact on Section 15.219 (AM transmitters) by clarifying how multiple units could be used together without violating "construction-based" rules.

Before this 1989 revision, the rules were often interpreted as "one transmitter, one antenna." This docket formalized how the FCC handles systems that might use several intentional radiators in a single setup:

Cumulative Power Restrictions: It clarified that you cannot bypass the 100 mW power input limit or the 3-meter antenna limit of 15.219 by simply ganging multiple transmitters together on the same frequency.

If multiple 15.219 units were housed in a single enclosure or operated as a synchronized system, the FCC ruled that the entire system must meet the technical limits.

For 15.219, this meant the total power input across all units in a "composite system" could be scrutinized to ensure the intended low-power nature of the service was maintained.

Separation of Radiators: The docket helped define that if radiators are physically separate and do not "combine" their signals in a way that increases field strength beyond the single-device limit, they could be treated as individual units. 

Why this mattered for AM Hobbyists

For Part 15 AM users, this prevented the creation of "power arrays"—using several 100 mW transmitters with 3-meter antennas to simulate a much larger, illegal station. The FCC essentially stated that a system of multiple intentional radiators must not exceed the interference potential of a single authorized device under that specific rule. 

But the "Cumulative" restrictions generally do not apply if the radiators are physically and electrically independent of one another.

In the context of the 1989 First Report and Order and the subsequent application to Section 15.219, the FCC established a distinction between a Composite System and Independent Devices.

1. The Separation Principle
If you have multiple Part 15 AM transmitters, they are considered independent (and thus each can have its own 100 mW / 3-meter antenna) as long as:

Physical Separation: They are far enough apart that their "antenna systems" are not physically or electrically coupled.

Independent Operation: They are not sharing a common housing, a common power supply (in some cases), or a common external RF amplifier.

Field Strength: Their signals are not being "phased" or "arrayed" to intentionally create a single, much stronger beam that exceeds what one legal transmitter could do.

2. When "Cumulative" Does Apply
The FCC uses the "Cumulative" or "Composite" rule primarily to stop "work-arounds."

You cannot:

• Take ten 100 mW transmitters, put them in one box, and wire them to a single antenna to get 1 Watt of power.
• Cluster several 15.219 transmitters together in a "phased array" to act as a single high-power directional broadcast station.

The 1989 Clarification docket was significant because it moved the focus toward interference potential.

If your transmitters are separated (e.g., one at the north end of a campus and one at the south end), they are viewed as individual intentional radiators.
Because 15.219 is a construction-based rule, as long as each individual "construction" (the 100 mW engine and the 3-meter wire) is compliant and independent, you aren't violating the rule.

Summary of the Difference

Separated: Each device is its own "legal entity." You have multiple 100 mW bubbles of coverage.

Combined/Composite: The devices are treated as one "system." The total input power of the system would be measured against the 100 mW limit, likely making the system illegal.

The Hamilton Rangemaster
The Hamilton Rangemaster is a fascinating case in Part 15 history because it utilizes a specific interpretation of Section 15.219 that separates the audio/data synchronization from the RF (Radio Frequency) generation.

The reason the Rangemaster is legal to operate in a synchronized "cluster" is based on three specific regulatory distinctions:

1. Independent "Intentional Radiators"
Under FCC rules, the "Intentional Radiator" is the specific circuitry that generates the RF signal and sends it to the antenna.
In a Rangemaster cluster, each unit contains its own independent oscillator and final RF amplifier.
Because each unit stays under 100 mW input and uses a 3-meter antenna, each unit is—on its own—a fully compliant 15.219 device.
The FCC does not generally prohibit multiple legal devices from being in the same area, provided they don't electrically "combine" into a single antenna.

2. Synchronization is not "Combining"
The "sync" circuitry in the Rangemaster is the "secret sauce." It ensures that all the transmitters stay on the exact same frequency and that the audio is perfectly aligned in time (phase).

The Legal Loophole: Synchronizing the timing of the signal is not the same as combining the power of the signal.
If you took two 100 mW transmitters and wired them into one antenna, you would have a 200 mW transmitter (Illegal).
If you have two 100 mW transmitters, each with its own separate 3-meter antenna, you still have two 100 mW transmitters.

3. The "Composite System" vs. "Distributed System"
The 1989 Docket (GEN 87-389) you cited earlier clarified that a system can be certified even if it has multiple radiators. Hamilton's certification proves to the FCC that: The units are distributed.
The synchronization is used to prevent interference (preventing the "whistle" or heterodyne you’d hear if two AM stations were slightly off-frequency) rather than to create a single high-power beam.
By keeping the transmitters physically separated (usually by a few hundred feet), the field strength at any one point is primarily coming from the nearest transmitter.

Why other manufacturers don't do it

The Rangemaster is unique because it was certified (FCC Part 15 Grant of Equipment Authorization) specifically with this synchronization capability built-in.
Most "kit" transmitters or hobbyist units are not certified for this.
If a user tries to "homebrew" a sync circuit between two uncertified transmitters, they are technically modifying the intentional radiator, which voids the Part 15 compliance.
Hamilton went through the expensive process of proving to the FCC that their sync-link (which is often a low-power wire or fiber optic link) does not count as part of the "antenna system" length.

Summary
The Rangemaster is legal because it follows the "Letter of the Law": 100 mW input per final stage and 3 meters of antenna per radiator. The fact that the radiators are "talking to each other" to stay in sync is viewed by the FCC as a technical refinement of audio quality, not a violation of power limits

Excerpts below and full article  at the link.

Brooks shares copyright insights with W&M students
Published on November 11, 2015
https://libraries.wm.edu/about/news/2015/11/brooks-shares-copyright-insights-wm-students

... .. Brooks, who retired in 2007 as executive vice president of research for Lifetime Television, met last week with several groups of students and faculty at William & Mary, including a History of Western Music class and the university’s radio station, WCWM. ....

... DeLaurenti conducted a research study last year on what undergraduate students think of music copyright. “One of the big conclusions of the study was that all of the students felt like they didn't know enough and it was a very complicated issue,” she said. .... ...

“Having Tim Brooks here, a national leader on issues relating to music copyright, is a great opportunity for the students to get to meet an expert and ask some burning questions about how music copyright works, what maybe isn't working so well and how they can be involved in making it better,” she said. .... ..

One student asked Brooks about whether laws are created for the benefit corporate copyright holders.

“You have to understand what’s driving them,” Brooks replied, adding that many in the recording industry care about music but their jobs depend on whether the company is making money... ...

The U.S. is now a country that runs largely on intellectual property, Brooks said, and, some argue, that must be protected differently ... .... and, now the country has some of the strictest copyright laws in the world in order to fend off practices such as the illegal downloading of music. However, in his research, Brooks found that most people aren’t looking to steal music or other programming. “They are willing to pay, but you’ve got to give them value for what they’re getting,” he said, ....

More commonly, many people encounter copyright issues on sites like YouTube or SoundCloud when they try to upload a video or podcast that includes portions of copyrighted music. Although “fair use” allows for exceptions – such as a professor using music clips in a lecture that is later posted online – copyright holders will sometimes press the issue, even threatening law suits. That is why it is important that people “accurately use all of the rights afforded to them,” said DeLaurenti.

1. Because the laws are open to interpretation, people who are trying to determine whether their work falls under the fair use exemption should do a risk assessment of the situation, Brooks said. “There’s an old saying, ‘Do it and ask forgiveness later,’” he said, “and that’s true in copyright.

“It’s unfortunate that our copyright laws are so dysfunctional right now that a lot of it is kind of being made up as you go along. But again..... .....

Read full article: https://libraries.wm.edu/about/news/2015/11/brooks-shares-copyright-insights-wm-students