Sunday, October 20, 2002

The New York Times reports today on the loss of webcasts from college stations that cannot afford the proposed new fee schedule. A RIAA spokesperson waxes hypocritical about fair compensation of artists, leaving out the fact that broadcast stations pay a flat fee that is much lower than what even a moderately successful webcast would have to pay. One cannot avoid the conclusion that the goal maintain the stranglehold of an increasingly concentrated broadcast system on the public's access to new artists, so that they have no alternative for exposure except for usual unequal contracts with the majors. In many areas, established monopolies and oligopolies are holding back social and economic advances allowed by new technology in a way not seen for a long time. This is very worrying. 6:45:33 PM