The day the music died
I sit here all day working in my home office. Most of the time I listen to Internet Radio, usually Radio Paradise, but occasionally SomaFM or some of the others. It keeps me sane and productive. I haven’t listened to commercial radio since I don’t know when. Even public radio has become little more than constant pledge weeks months. And WBUR, as good as it is, is news and talk, not music.
Internet radio is again under threat by that ultimate greed monster, the RIAA.
Way long ago, I had two radio stations on Live365. The last power grab by the RIAA destroyed those (and I wasn’t even playing music). The royalty structure imposed on Live365 was irrespective of what you played. If you played anything at all, you owed the record industry (my stations played OTR).
This has been going on for a while, but it’s coming to a head. If it goes into effect as planned, it’s the end of (good) Internet Radio, because, as with commercial radio, the only players who will be left will be massive corporate interests like Clear Channel and AOL/Warner who, as Bill Goldsmith of Radio Paradise puts it, are not interested in radio as art but interested in radio as a conduit for advertising. The proposed new structure will demand medium and small Internet Radio stations to pay about 125% of the revenues to RIAA in royalty payments, according to RAIN. And this applies only to Internet Radio; Broadcast radio retains its existing rate structure (supported, of course, by payola from RIAA and endless commercials).
March 7th, 2007 at 10:46 am
Signed, not that I believe any of these Internet petitions are worth a damn. Don’t listen to much radio at all anymore, although I do put on Goldsmith’s station from time to time.
March 7th, 2007 at 10:54 am
I don’t put any stock into Internet petitions either, but it can’t hurt.
RP and SomaFM are the only ones I listen to. RP mostly, but he goes off on Dylan and Reggae jags that drive me crazy. SomaFM (Secret Agent) is good, but has a really short playlist, so I don’t listen that often. I pick and choose a few Live365 stations from time to time.
But I don’t listen to broadcast radio at all. They only have about 20 minutes of music an hour any more, and the commercials are inane. Doubly so at election time. I thought about getting XM or Serius, but I don’t think I can get a signal in my building (it faces the wrong way and is in a brick canyon). I don’t want to buy a bunch of expensive equipment and be tied to a contract and not be able to use it.
March 7th, 2007 at 11:18 am
Also, the congress.org link sends e-mail or letters to your reps, so it seems that that would make a little bit more difference (provided your rep isn’t one of those on the take).
March 7th, 2007 at 12:24 pm
“he goes off on Dylan and Reggae jags that drive me crazy”
Yes.
March 7th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
The music industry is only hurting itself. When given no options, listeners are going to find alternate avenues for listening pleasure.
One word: netlabels
Discover a few gems at my site where I release a monthly netlabel compilation that focuses on quality, rather than quantity: http://blocsonic.com
Discover netlabels at archive.org: http://archive.org/details/netlabels