TIME WAS you could take your guitar, go sit on a curb and sing a song to passers-by who might drop some change in your guitar case. Enough for coffee maybe or a sandwich - but that wasn't the point. The point was THE PERFORMANCE, the ART of creating entertainment to be shared between a voluntary performer and a voluntary audience, a way of making love with strangers.
My, how things have changed. If you do that these days, it had better be YOUR song or you owe money to ASCAP, BMI and now the RIAA (which used do be a fraternity of audio technicians in the 1960's) - in pre-determined amounts according to the size of your audience and how long you play. And if you sing YOUR OWN song, get ready to license it or have it stolen.
THIS IS WHY IT IS SO DAMNED TOUGH for internet radio stations to survive. Radio Free Phoenix is a perfect example. WHY do they need donations? Bottom-feeders. Scavengers like RIAA who somehow have found a lawyer or two (whores) to attach themselves as parasites to anything creaive in our society.
Click the headline for the Wall Street Journal story.
1 comment:
Well said, Ronco. Bravo.
This is not the first time the RIAA has tried to strong arm internet radio stations. There are many groups with clout who are trying to do something about it.
For info some links are eff.org (these guys are the ones who broke the stories and sued over the wholesale transfer of phone and airline records to the gov't) I also noticed a couple of links on the RFP website.
By the by, fellow travelers, the govt is once again trying to pull funding from PBS and NPR and to control content.
We beat 'em back last time, we can do it again. The stooge who was installed as chairman of PBS (a Bush crony) was forced out.
It seems hopeless but it is not. NEVER give up, that's what the corporate and gov't bullies are counting on.
Not naive, but never giving up, I continue to be YLOPE (o:
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