Save Internet Radio!

Another useful article related to Radio Memeworks about the propsed rate changes affecting internet radio and how to save it.

A good article from my streaming provider, Live365.com about the propsed rate changes for internet streaming radio stations. If passed this will effectively kill internet radio as we know it, turning it into yet another media outlet controlled by the few who care little about choice or niche genre's or even good music for that matter.

That means Radio Memeworks as well could be shut down due to costs I cannot afford and Clear Channel isn't even paying. It's patently unfair and designed to shut down choice.

Due to pressure from the RIAA, Live365.com instituted major changes in the last year to make sure artists are getting paid the correct royalties. No more no name tracks on stations or stations broadcasting one artist. They care, and I certainly do about providing credit where it is due.

The music business's predatory attacks on the wave of the future, internet music/radio/downloading/podcasts, reminds me of the hollering and shouting over cassettes, VHS & BETA, CD's...etc. It's the same old, same old.

Face it the business model is changing. The major labels are slumping, independent artists are thriving with the new technology. Few of them are getting rich, but the playing field is more level after the last 15 or so years of total crap immersion in music (Backstreet Boys, Justin Timberlake, Brittiney, Kenny G and soft pablum of that ilk.)

What's truely great about Live365.com is the level of choice. Satellite is nice, but can you tune into nothing but Jazz from the 20's & 30's, or the Psychedelic sounds of the 60's, or Japanese pop music, or a classical station devoted entirely to modern composers, or fusion of the 70's, or downtempo of the 90's & 00's? Or how about a station that plays a little of all of that and more?

That's what's at stake beyond my own little slice of musical heaven.

Music is far too important to be left to the beancounters to deicide what you should hear.

I consider it an act of war on human consciousness.

The dark ages lurk right outside the light in the shadows waiting...Go to sleep, watch American Idol, shop till you drop, move along...there's nothing to see here!