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March 14, 2007
Music Industry to Music Fans: Drop Dead
Sooz and Exploit Boston! Radio are featured prominently* in a Globe article today about how a special Congressional panel decided to screw over indie Internet radio broadcasters and non-major-label artists by jacking up the royalty fees they pay.
What a great deal for the record industry - dry up the flow of those small payments being sent from small broadcasters to small bands, meaning that the only people who can afford to broadcast over the Web are huge companies who pay royalties directly to ASCAP and the RIAA, and don't have to deal with whiny freeloaders like the musicians who actually create the music. Especially ones who have the gall to not be signed to major labels.
This may go to the US Court of Appeals, who are probably receiving gifts of free packs of Shakira and Blink-182 CDs as we speak. After all, there's no reason for a nickel to change hands in this country without some billionaire getting a piece of it. What a fantastic country.
*CLARIFICATION: Sooz would like it noted for the record that the "couple of hundred songs" and "dozens of listeners" mentioned in the article are very-lowball figures. It's more like a couple hundred bands, and dozens of listeners every day. Go be one of those listeners.
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Comments
I still find this hard to swallow:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4508158.stm
They're trying to be proprietory about the musical formation of songs? Not the actual song, mind you, but the tablature itself? Is Betty Crocker going to crack down on the rampant trading of recipes over the internet and elsewhere? We should be free to share info on how to make sounds akin to the slaughtering of a goat, just as we are free to share info on how to get ourselves infested with salmonella.
Posted by: Andy | March 14, 2007 10:58 AM
The part I don't understand is where the money is going. You'd think that if you were going to charge royalties that the money should go to the people who created and/or own the rights to the music. That way people who only play indie stuff could avoid stoking the coals of the insidious furnace that is the RIAA, and the indie bands/labels could opt out of the fees the way they opt out of suing the same people they seek to court. But I guess that would be logical.
Posted by: The Rev. | March 14, 2007 01:20 PM
