This is Awful (& Such Small Portions!)

There seems to be a lot of consternation of late over the government Copyright Royalty Board's decision to make online webcasters pay actual money for the music they use. (savenetradio.org) This month, all appeals and legislation offered to forestall action by the board ended, and starting next month, all unpaid royalties are due retroactively from January 2006. (yahoo news) "One concession the judges did make was to allow webcasters to calculate fees by average listener hours until next year, when a per-song, per-listener fee will be enacted." http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070416/ap_on_hi_te/internet_radio_6 (AP)

I called Mr. Aguilar, the station manager at KPFT Pacifica Radio in Houston for comment, but he has not returned my call after a couple of days wait. They have nothing on their site. KSYM in SA on the other hand, is very active and is organizing grass-roots support.

Things so rarely surprise me these days. I wish I couldn't always count on people in the biz to want a return to the old days, but without any ideas about how a musical industry classic renessance is apt to flower.

John Amato at Crooks and Liars wrote the following amazing statement the other day:

"TOWER records went out of business and as expensive as a CD was, I still enjoyed browsing the store."

Hey! Kid! Iffa you no gonna buy that magazeen, get outta heah! You tink I runna libary?

Grant at nodepression.com says, "hey you kids get offa my lawn, goddammit!"

"To continue also to believe that the now-inevitable transfer to a digital ecology is a disaster for music, for all of us. A system has been created by and for 18-year-olds who don't believe they should pay for intellectual property. In doing so we have destroyed the brick and mortar world in which new artists were incubated, in which casual consumers occasionally succumbed to the temptations of in-store play or celebrity or just simple good taste and bought a record once in a while. We have also slaughtered countless jobs which allowed young and struggling musicians to make a kind of a living surrounded by music all day, listening to what is new and old, ingesting sounds they'd not have sought elsewhere, socializing with like-minded people, meeting and greeting their potential audience. We have destroyed hundreds of community meeting places, and sitting at this screen typing to imaginary friends is no substitute for walking into Second Time Around on Saturday afternoon when Uncle Kenny had just found a new treasure and had to play it as loudly as possible."

People. Let the artists find a way out of the wilderness. The brave new world will be just as fun as when they were all slaves, I promise.