Can you imagine what it would be like to do business in this vacuum, with a major record company?? Soon, you would find yourself without a company at all.

And do you think artists would get part of that acquired equity? Let’s try this- record labels play a piece of ‘their equity’ to all broadcasters for the promotional exposure of their artists.

In the end, if a fair and even set of domestic and international copyright laws are not passed, free of self-interested major recording companies, you will have 3 sets of web radio stations:

1.) Large, highly capitalized, web radio networks that simply do what the majors ask (same-old, same-old).

2.) Independent (mid-sized) web radio stations, that negotiate with individual artists and indie labels. But, these stations will be in such high-demand that unsigned artists will be in the same spot as with big stations.

3.) Tiny web stations that play only indie artists, who will agree to sign a license fee waiver. Not much exposure from stations with 4 or 5 listeners ..

Also, stop lumping web radio in with P2P networks.
They have almost nothing to do with each other.

Bill Wilkins, CEO
Melted Metal Web Radio
http://www.meltedmetal.com/

the last top 40 cd i bought was Coldplay “Viva La Vida” i cannot even tell you which “Top 40″ cd i bought before that…
how long until other sites get shut down?
why not attack yourself music industry? for attempting to force feed us garbage and tell us it is a five course meal?

we do not want britney, miley, the jonas bros., 50 cent some washed up has been who has done it for 50 years… or the “next big thing”
we want passionate art… made by passionate artists…

God Bless Radiohead.

I know, it’s a tired cliche — the “failed music industry model” and “racket protection” — but their actions and words are so transparent that it’s hard to miss. They’re simply not that innovative, it really is that simple.

-RIAA/SoundExchange look after the big labels they represent.

-Services like Pandora, imeem, last.fm, etc. – they all expose consumers to a lot of great music, in an insanely efficient manner. A vast majority of their users have said “I’ve purchased music because of this site” — but the bulk of it isn’t on RIAA labels. And they know this. The bulk of it is on the long tail of smaller indie, non-top-40 artists.

-There’s only so much ‘earshare’ to go around, so its in RIAA/SE’s best interest to hamstring innovations that aren’t serving that top-40 segment. The fewer channels out there, the greater the ‘earshare’ they’re going to get, which equates to money… so …

-So they attack webcasting. They attack satellite. They get pissed about iTunes, which was also a smashing f***ing success. They push for DRM. They make Pandora block non-US listeners. They audit Last.fm. They sue colleges and p2p users. They force stations to comply to arcane and complex reporting requirements. in short: They attack every goddamn thing they can — and they do it while pushing for a new performance tax on terrestrial radio. They see the sinking ship, so **anything goes** to prop up the failed model of controlling the entire music lifecycle: creation, promotion, distribution, taxation/royalty collection, and so on.

-Unfortunately our government handed SE/RIAA a bully pulpit from which to do all this with the performance right management/collection/distribution, without building in oversight. So the real insult is that SE gets to do all under the guise of federal copyright law and claiming “it’s in the best interests of the artists we represent”. Even though the vast majority of the artists are yelling “this is wrong, don’t touch these services, they are helping us sell records and gain fans you nitwits.”

So, yes, it’s a mess. A depressing mess.

Yeah, the board room members are hi-fiving each other. “We just closed down a business that could have made us BILLIONS!! And we wouldn’t have even had to lift a finger to make all that loot. Just sit back and let it roll in… Man, we are GENIUSES!”

Nor do I listen much to radio now-a-days. The replay city is just down right boring. Same tunes, every hour. Plenty of stuff I don’t want, such as ads, but nothing new to inspire me to go check out new stuff. I’m afraid the music industry has shot themselves in the foot. While they’re doing their best to eliminate the competition, they’ve also done well at eliminating hearing any new tunes with regularity. What was once a really get way to hear exposure to new material has dried up and no longer has a place for new stuff. With that my interest has waned in music. Lack of interest is directly tied to lack of buying.

- Pandora’s on the brink of closing down
- They want to slap DRM on streaming radio
- Muxtapes is also now shuttered to “sort out a problem with the RIAA”

Way to go, music industry! I hereby award you the “golden buggy whip” award for doing such a great job stifling innovation and creativity this month! All those artists you represent must be so proud to see you kill everything but top 40 radio, where they all can get airplay and promotion *totally* equally and fairly.

Have fun killing your industry, you idiots.

-b