Monday, 06/24/02

I've had conversations with several of you recently about the sick politics of webcasting audio. I had most of the story, but not all of it, and the parts I didn't have are worse than I dreamed. Jamie Zawinski has the whole story. Following a horrifyingly lucid litany of the hurdles one needs to leap:

What's going on here is that the music industry establishment are absolutely terrified of the internet, and are trying to prevent any kind of progress that might require them to evolve and change their business models to keep up with the times. They are pretty much trying to legislate the internet out of the way, and force things to continue to be done as if early-20th-century technology was still all we have to work with.

And after all is said and done, what happens to your fees? The media conglomerates take your money, keep most of it for themselves, and then divide the rest statistically based on the Billboard charts. That means that no matter what kind of obscure, underground music you played, 3/4ths of the extortion money you paid goes to whichever management company owns N'Sync; and the rest goes to Michael Jackson (since he owns The Beatles' catalog.) All other artists (including the ones whose music you actually played) get nothing.

02:07PM «

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