"
"Staving off a radio-free future
Ξ May 22nd, 2007 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Current Events, Science / Technology |
[Currently listening to Cold Hearted Wind, by Ron Sexsmith]
So this is a bit of a first for me — trying to spread the word about *doing* something that I care about. Generally, I just rant and give the ol’ soapbox a good hand-wavin’, foot-stompin’ workout, and then I move on.
Well, if you like independent music, read on. If you’re happy with what you find on the major radio stations today, then give this a miss.
Here’s the skinny first:
Sign a petition. Send a form letter. Write your own. Call your senator or representative (I did).
http://www.kcrw.com/music/music-royalty-rates has ongoing coverage and links to the current fight to fend off big music (the RIAA and SoundExchange). There are 53 days left until new royalty rate hikes kick in (retroactive to January 2006!) that’ll likely kill off most internet radio stations that *already* pay royalties — 6-12% of revenue, from what I can see. The rate hike represents a 300-1200% increase over current royalties. To cite the Salon article from the page ref’d above, one example station, AccuRadio, made $400k in 2006. When the retroactive rate hike kicks in, they’ll all of a sudden owe $600k in royalties. I have no idea how much of that could have been foreseen — if fully, then we’d have noticed a big increase in advertising and other revenue generation (subscriptions, etc.) on internet radio. As it is, I suspect this came abruptly — a more gradual phase-in would’ve gone over much more smoothly (though with griping about increased costs, all along the way).
And I figure that most of those rate hikes are not going 100% to label artists. So big music profits, internet radio shuts down (even nonprofit public radio!), and indie rockers will fall back into being able to reach only those fans who hear their concerts and get their CDs.
New indie stations like MagnaTune (50-50 split of net profits with the artists) will have to take up the slack. From a Darwinian perspective, if we do nothing, I suppose the advent of the new royalty-free Internet paradigm exemplified by these stations will be hastened. But there will be an ice age die-off in indie music broadcasting, in the short run — there are a *lot* of indie stations that play less mainstream music with royalties attached. If their increased fees bankrupt them, they go off the air. Then they *won’t* play the music and won’t pay any royalties at all. It’s the same problem as the Big 3 automakers are facing with their union workers — if your expenses become larger than your revenue, you go out of business. In the case of indie music, though, this ultimately hurts small artists, the vast majority of whom didn’t ask for these rate hikes. The unions chose to shoot themselves in the foot — I feel a lot more sympathy for the artist who’s gotta tie down a day job or two to pay for his music than for the high school graduate who’s bankrupting his employer in order to be paid $70k a year.
Personally, I’ve grown really fond of a couple online stations like KCRW and www.di.fm . Reason being that a typical evening of listening exposes me to more new, different, and just plain cooler music than I’ll hear in three months’ programming on *all* the local Clear Channel format stations in Houston.
Sure, I like the Shins. Heard ‘em first on KCRW, then I started hearing them everywhere I went. I don’t salivate over them the way some indie reviewers seem to be doing, but they’re pretty cool. Other groups like Beirut, Xerxes, and even Faithless (who’s a pretty big deal) are very cool, but in years of browsing mainstream music, I never caught wind of them. I’d pay money — I *have* paid money — for them. Dashboard Confessional, Slipknot, and Coldplay? Not so much.
I’ll be honest — I used to collect music like an OCD squirrel collects nuts. At last count, I had something like 69 days and 16 hours of continuous play time. And it was that act of collecting and enjoying my music that elicited an innate Kantian sense of morality in me — I started finding music I really liked, and respected enough to want to pay the artist somehow. But I knew that traditional major labels pass on mere pennies to the artists.
Piracy led me to indie internet stations, which have revealed new vistas of music to me. Even before I found internet radio, I’d begun to buy albums for my favorite groups. If I were being rigorously moral, I’d delete all my unpurchased music. I’m not a perfect person — I’ll settle for buying a couple CDs every year from the top bands I’ve listened to for free in the past. I think I’m a pretty good example of someone who spontaneously began to respect the work of the artists to whom he listened.
Still got a long way to go, but in the future, I’ll probably focus on supporting royalty-free music that I enjoy.
