Dizzy O Brian
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8/1/2007 2:52:06 PM
Who Are the Pirates?
Live 365 claims that up to 56% of its musical broadcasts are Indie. This compares with regular AM and FM radio where only 10-13% is Indie and so it would seem that Live 365 plays up to 4 times as much Indie.
My source for this is; Take The Country Back http://takecountryback.wordpress.com
Now, back in April, Sound Exchange and RIAA obtained legal authority to collect royalties for any digital performance and distribute the money to Indie Artists and Indie labels, sort of like a musical welfare check, I guess. They are allowed to keep any un-claimed money and there are already accusations that they are less than vigilant in tracking down the recipients ! I don't see how this could be done fairly. It also means that they are collecting on music where there was no royalty agreement between artist and broadcaster to begin with. As I have stated before, there are still huge numbers of artists who are happy to just get airplay for their music.
My source here is; WebPro News http://www.webpronews.com
Finally, the PPCA was set-up to collect "public performance" royalties from club owners and any other live venue. This royalty goes straight into the record companies pockets and the PPCA board is dominated by record company reps. The view is expressed here that the record companies are in financial trouble and they are after whatever revenue they can get their hands on. The Age http://www.theage.com.au
Now isn't this a lot like the things we are seeing in other industries, like the Drug Lobby, for example. The Food and Drug Administration bought itself a lot of law makers and is busy working to eliminate every sort of competition. One of their most recent brain-childs was to pass laws to make every sort of alternative remedy illegal, such as herbs and so forth.
Capitalism only works hand in hand with the Free Enterprise System, but where is our Free Enterprise, when our law makers can be bought and then legislate any competition out of existence?
I guess we need to pay more attention to how our law makers vote and remember them come election day.
editorials on current affairs, listen to music, indie,Sound Exchange,RIAA,performance royalties,Live 365,Internet radio,pirates
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