I've mentioned this idea before, and in light of last week's developments thought it might be an appropriate time to propose this approach once again...
Although the present situation regarding internet broadcasters has come about as a result of new technologies, it bears a remarkable similarity to one which occured back in 1940, when the ASCAP organisation significantly raised the rates charged to radio stations for the broadcasting of its artists works. This led to a prolonged dispute which saw all radio stations being forced to stop playing any ASCAP material on air. ASCAP perceived that radio was a threat to its record sales - in spite of evidence which showed that sales would surge after a disc was spun on a popular show - and made the knee-jerk, protectionist decision to withdraw its catalogue of music from the airwaves. All this left the radio stations at the time in a bit of a fix, as the vast majority of publicly known artists were ASCAP members. What was left to play? The advent of 'talk radio' might have come several decades early if it weren't for BMI, which had been set up in 1940 with the help of many broadcasters who felt that an alternative to the monopolistic, price-fixing practises of ASCAP had to be established. Radio stations became aware that there was a lot of music owned by BMI which they could play instead of the ASCAP material, and so, for the duration of ASCAP's radio boycott, BMI material had a virtual monopoly on radio airplay. What was the net effect? Well, by the time ASCAP decided to end its radio boycott, BMI artists had stolen the edge over them, and had used radio to establish themselves in the minds of the public. BMI leant further towards the sorts of musics that ASCAP didn't like dealing with - R&B, gospel, bluegrass - and so ASCAP's radio boycott had had the additional effect of causing mainstream audiences to become accustomed to these black forms of music. It is arguable, in fact, that the whole 1950s phenomenon of black music hitting white audiences that became known as rock'n'roll had its roots in the withdrawal of ASCAP material from US radio in 1940 and 1941; that, if BMI hadn't had the opporunity to dominate the airwaves, these other forms of music would have remained in perpetual obscurity, and the modern cultural landscape would be unrecognisably different. So how does the ASCAP radio dispute of the early 1940s mirror our current situation? Well, this time around the monopolistic association is the RIAA, the threatening new technology is the internet, and the lesser-known forms of music that stand to benefit are primarily electronic. There is no analogue to BMI, though, and this is the crux of my suggested solution. I believe that the formation of a new association of music publishers - independent from ASCAP, BMI or the RIAA - is what is needed to ensure that internet broadcasting has a future. This new association would strongly correlate to the loose global community of producers, songwriters and composers many refer to as "the underground". The last twenty years has, after all, seen the cost of music-making equipment fall so far that the barriers to entry are now very low, and perhaps it is due time that the "bedroom" music-production scene struck out on its own. The crackdown of internet broadcasting is a good time for such an organisation to come into existence, because many underground producers are far more likely to receive coverage from small webcasters that from normal radio stations, and with the webcasters out of the picture the most valuable promotional channel available to us has been lost. There is more at stake than simply the practise of broadcasting music over the web; like the ASCAP radio ban, this dispute is likely to have broader cultural implications than may seem apparent right now. Should our musical diet be restricted to licensed radio stations, expensive RIAA-owned file-sharing networks, CDs purchased from anodyne musical outlets whose protection mechanisms betray an assumption that the buyer is in fact a thief, glossy videos on MTV and Ticketmaster gigs? I believe not, and if we do have a new performing-rights association, there is a chance that - if its body of work became large enough soon enough - this sort of musical environment might be avoided. I'd be interested to know if anyone has any major objections to this general idea, or any reasons why it would be unworkable in practise (I'm neither a lawyer nor a music industry expert, as you can tell!), I'd be pretty happy to hear them! Brendan Legal Disclaimer This message contains confidential information and is intended only for the individual named. If you are not the named addressee you should not disseminate, distribute or copy this e-mail. 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