Internet Radio is in danger. (Thanks for the heads up, Jeff Evans.) This means sites like Pandora may have to be shut down. Do something about it. I wrote the following letter to my NY representatives:
The Copyright Royalty Fees for Internet Radio broadcasters (like the hugely innovative Pandora.com) have been increased to the point where many of these stations will have to close down.
The music industry has certainly made a big fuss about threats coming from the Internet, but I don’t spend any of my nights crying for the music industry. They make millions upon millions of dollars, and keep America locked in a relative monoculture where new and independent artists are left out of the musical discourse while mindless and mind-numbing music is played everyday on radio stations across the ClearChannel nation.
Yet, despite my relative dislike for this exploitive industry, I have to say that every technological innovation that we’ve seen — from LPs to tape cassettes to CDs, and now to MP3s — has seen an increasingly growing recording industry, usually due to, rather than in spite of, these technologies.
Interent Radio actually has more of a potential to benefit the music industry than any other one of these technologies. If you don’t know, Pandora.com is an amazing site based upon “The Music Genome Project.” The concept is simple: you enter a song or artist on the site, and it creates a playlist of songs that “sound like” that artist or song. I can mix these intangibles (“The Doors” and “Michael Jackson” gives me classic rock tones with pop melodies) and discover new artists I had never even heard about, simply by exploring my “taste matrix.” This amazing functionality comes in particular handy after I get my paycheck, since I go to Pandora.com, see which artists/songs I’ve listened to lately, and with a click I can purchase these songs from the music industry.
I hadn’t bought a CD in years, until discovering Pandora and, through it, independent music I liked.
Who, exactly, loses in this situation? I discover songs I’ve never heard of, I buy CDs that probably don’t sell very well, I get to benefit from high-quality radio from work on my work PC, and Pandora makes a tiny slice of money on advertising.
I’m sure the music industry wishes they had thought of Pandora, so that the little money that it does make from advertising would be theirs. But tough! This is supposed to be a competitive economic system, and if you snooze, you lose. (Given actions like these by government, I’m not sure that it is really a competitive economic system, unfortunately!)
This is only the beginning of the places these technologies can go. Don’t allow their efforts to be quelled by big corporate interests! Please strike down these ridiculous copyright fees!
Think Corporate Power is showing any signs of weakness? Nope. The big wheels keep on turning…