Re: [ARSCLIST] Urgent Message From SaveNetRadio

[Dismuke <dismukemail@xxxxxxxxx>]

--- Karl Miller <karl.miller@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


>    
>   I guess I can see control for the purpose of
> context, but I don't understand why a label should
> have control over whether or not their recordings
> are broadcast.
> 


Well, because it is THEIR recordings and they ought to
be able to have contractual say so over the terms and
conditions by which their customers can use their
property.

Of course, the course, the vast majority of copyright
holders would be THRILLED to have airplay - and they
might even be willing to make payola payments for it
if such were legal.   It would probably be irrational
for most copyright holders to not want airplay - but
they have every right in the world to to be irrational
when it comes to THEIR property so long as they alone
face the consequences.  It is no different than if a
mass market light bulb manufacturer was offered an
opportunity to sell his product through Wal-mart but
turned it down.  It would be absurd to turn down such
an offer - but it is their right to do so even if it
is for no other reason than the fact that a Wal-mart
cashier was once rude to the owner of the light bulb
company.

If there existed multiple competitive licensing
organizations that webcasters could go through in
order to license music for their broadcasts, I would
not have any problem at all with the RIAA labels
getting together, creating their own licensing
organization and demanding exorbitant prices for
airplay of their recordings.  I wouldn't even have a
problem if they refused to license the recordings to
anyone other than hand picked corporate webcasters who
agreed to only play FM radio type formats.  If the
RIAA thought that doing that would be a way to use the
economic power and marketplace position that they have
accumulated over the course of past decades as a way
of perpetuating and preserving that power - I would
have absolutely no problem at all with them attempting
to do so SO LONG AS webcasters who were willing to
stream independent non-RIAA recordings whose owners DO
wish to receive airplay had a viable means of
licensing them on a wholesale basis.  If under such a
scenario audiences only listened to the RIAA approved
stations and the independent stations did not do so
well - well, that would be the problem of the
independent stations artists who need to come up with
a more compelling product.

In practice, I don't think it would work out that way
and the RIAA labels would never take such a move. 
That would be suicide for them as eventually those
independent only stations would catch on if for no
other reason than their "outsider" status would give
them an aura of anti-establishment "coolness."

The RIAA labels have the same right to fight for their
survival and success that anyone else does.  If they
wish to use their lawfully earned copyrights and
legitimately earned market share as an economic club
in  an attempt to stamp out emerging competitors -
then by all means they owe it to their shareholders to
do so.  My problem with them is that they are using
not the marketplace but rather the LAW OF THE LAND to
stamp out emerging low priced competitors by, in
effect, imposing through political pull what amounts
to a de-facto minimum wholesale price that their
competitors are able to charge - a minimum that is
priced at a level that is realistic for ONLY the most
successful mass market hits. And the only way that the
RIAA's competitors can bypass this defacto minimum
wholesale price and charge lower prices is to sell
their products on a RETAIL basis, which, of course, is
a much more expensive and inefficient basis on which
to conduct business.

The problem in this situation is NOT the RIAA labels
right to use their copyrights as they see fit.  The
problem is the RIAA is using political pull to deprive
its emerging competition from being able to fully take
advantage of their copyrights.