Music Industry Internet Radio Smackdown...

In response to my last post, "Pandora Ponders Pulling the Plug," a reader asked me whether the corporate music industry was using the new, high-priced webcasting royalty rates to deliberately kill off Internet radio.

My answer was... it sure seems that way. If the Copyright Royalty Board sets royalty rates so high that only corporate controlled companies with millions of dollars in the bank can afford to pay those royalties, then smaller, independent webcasters (like Pandora) either have to shut down or risk being sued. Most will shut down. And that will mean the only webcasters out there playing music will be those the music industry WANTS to leave intact.

Sounds like conspiracy-theory craziness? Yea, maybe a bit, but I'm not the only one who sees it that way. Just saw the new article at Pollstar today called "Internet Radio's Royalty Misery."

To quote the article...

"...There's also the underlying suspicion, first voiced last year when the CRB announced the new rates, that the music industry does not want to see Internet radio thrive. Or that it doesn't want to see as many players as the field contains, and that a smaller, more robust Internet radio industry would be more to the record labels' liking.... A 'thinning of the Internet radio herd' could result in more major-label music being streamed over the remaining Internet stations to the detriment of artists on independent labels."

Aha.

Read the article in its entirety at http://www.pollstar.com/news/viewnews.pl?NewsID=11028

And then do your part to Save Internet Radio at SaveNetRadio.org.

David Nevue
The Music Biz Academy
http://www.musicbizacademy.com
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