Goose, Anyone?

The good old Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is at it again. This is the music industry lobby group that is boldly continuing it's crusade to kill the goose that laid the golden egg. Their latest target: they've co-opted Congress to pass a law requiring new, higher royalties be paid by internet radio stations. I'm all for artists being paid for their work, but this is a clear-cut case of blind greed. If they were just applying the standards for regular radio stations to internet radio, I might consider it foolish, but understandable. But the new rules would have web stations paying more than terrestrial broadcasters, and the rates are so high that many analysts are predicting it will bankrupt most, if not all, streaming services. This goes well beyond stupid into just plain wrong. Think about it: with the system the way it is, millions of people can listen online and discover new music. Under current regulations, industry gets paid a little bit for the broadcasts, but they get tons of free advertising. When the new rates drive Pandora, Live 365, and others out of business, the industry gets paid nothing. Period. Since I've started listening to internet radio, I've bought three CDs purely because I heard them online and nowhere else. I bought about he same number of CDs because I heard the artists on the regular radio. If RIAA wants to cash in on the internet radio phenomenon via gouging, their only going to end up killing half of their promotional pipeline. You'd think that a group so interested in golden eggs would like to keep the goose around.