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RIAA Pushes Through Internet Radio Royalty Rates Designed To Kill Webc

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Saw this happening and wondering what you guys (objectivists) think of it. I consider myself most closely aligned with objectivism, but not to a "T". Here's the link:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070304/223155.shtml

Here's the story:

[Edit: This is where the poster quoted the entire article. Yikes.]

Edited by Groovenstein
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RIAA Pushes Through Internet Radio Royalty Rates Designed To Kill Webcasts

from the broadcasters-must-be-a-special-boys-club dept

Dismuke, of radio dismuke and a friend of mine, has a lot to say about this issue on his blog: http://radiodismuke.blogspot.com/

As I understand the issue, there is an arbitrarily high licensing fee that is about to be charged to any Internet broadcaster who is broadcasting what the radio industry considers to be their turf, especially vocal artistry. Imagine the uproar if people were suddenly having to pay a $500 licensing fee to be able to drive because the professional drivers decided they didn't want to have other drivers on their turf, when they don't even own the roads!

Now, I can understand copyright issues, and that some internet broadcasters may or may not be violating copyrights, similar to the way Napster used to violate copyrights in their early operations; but if a particular vocal or instrument artist wants to have their work broadcasted via the Internet, I don't see why there needs to be a barrier to entry, such as an artificially high licensing fee or an arbitrarily high copyright standard payment for such works. If I were such an artist, and I could get my music out there via the Internet for a small price to myself and to my broadcaster, I'd be all for it.

So, I agree that this seems to be a move on the part of an established industry, radio, to squelch competition via the Internet.

The Internet is great, in part, due to the low cost of entry, but mostly because of the freedom to post works at very little costs to the creators of that work. Imagine what would happen to the Internet if there suddenly became an arbitrarily high registration fee for URL's. This would effectively kill the vibrancy of the Internet.

If this particular law stays in effect, then I would expect other broadcasters, say TV and Newspapers, to follow suit, since certain aspects of the Internet are intruding on their turf.

There are a lot of people out there who want to take away your freedom to produce and to distribute your work, whether they be essays, videos, music, or other works of art.

So, I would suggest not letting this stand.

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