Stu News and Photos

Some of you may know that I'm a fan of internet-based radio stations, places like Pandora and the like. Well, it appears that the RIAA (the trade group that represents record companies) has won the final battle. The RIAA, who represent companies, not artists, succeeded in their appeal (through a shell organization called Sound Exchange) to increase internet royalties 300% (at least that much - if you do the math, the increase can be as high as 1,200%).

This will cause Pandora and other stations to pull the plug. There is nothing to be done, as money talks, and those with the most money talk the loudest. Short of a nation-wide boycott on the purchase of all music, the RIAA will have won. Of course, aside from the sad concept of their stepping on the little guy, they're not seeing the long-term view, which is that if you let internet users listen to customized music streams, it increases awareness of otherwise unknown artists, thereby increasing revenues through music purchases. In other words, this is like the campaign the record companies attempted back in the 70s and 80s to stop people from burning cassettes of great records for their friends. It didn't work then, but it seems to have worked now, although it's just cutting off their nose to spite their face.

I'm really bummed about this - especially as someone who creates music in a genre that depends on internet radio for getting the word out (our genre is far too small to get a large record company to take interest in us). As no one else is buying our record (we've sold 4 so far), our only serious hope of getting any attention was by sending copies of our CD to various internet radio stations that focus on our genre. Now, that is no longer an option. The only hope we have now is to individually send out free copies to college radio stations, hoping one of them actually likes our record and puts it into rotation.

::sigh::