[sdiy] The RIAA Blows.... (fwd)

[Batz Goodfortune]

Y-ellow Lava 'n' crew.

At 11:39 AM 6/23/02 -0700, Moho Disco wrote:

>I got the impression that if you are an internet radio station at all, and
>unless you have specific written permission from the artists you use, you
>must pay royalties to the RIAA no matter whether you play big label/RIAA
>affiliates or not.  Essentially, paying the RIAA for playing independents
>who will not receive a dime of it.  Somebody please tell me I misunderstood
>that part.  I was hoping to submit some music to SomaFM and get it played
>on there, and now that won't happen.  That's another way it has affected at
>least one independent.

This is exactly right. Spot on the money. Summed up exactly. But dare I say 
it, you're still thinking in the same mode as every clutz trying to make it 
big in the music industry. The same old tired model that says I wanna do 
just like the big acts do. I don't wanna insult another indy but snap out 
of it man. Do I really need to spell it out for you?

Print yourself up a little contract and glue it to the CD. Hell, make it 
part of your cover art if you like. Make the contract say basically. I give 
this radio station permission to play my music and wipe their ass with it 
if they so desire. Etc etc.

Why?

Because if the fit hits the shan big time and no-one can play anything, 
they'll still be able to play yours! Yeah! If the broadcaster has an 
inventory of 25,000 CDs but only 1000 of those have permission to play 
built in, who's CDs do you think they're going to play?

Now Imagine right, that every true indy did that. The bill get's passed 
into law. No-one can play this major crap without having to fork over wads 
of cash. Who gives a shit? The only CDs being broadcast are going to be the 
indies. You reckon that might hurt the RIAA or what? Everyone send the 
bastards a box of razor blades with a note saying. "When ever your ready 
guys. Just across the jugular and try not to bleed on the carpet OK."

I saw this happen here in the late 60s. The record companies got together 
and tried to extort royalties from the radio stations. So the radio 
stations put pink tape or paper on all the records they couldn't play. So 
only the "Other stuff" got to air. Took about, oooo Maybe a month before 
the record companies caved in. And the irony was that bands like the 
Mixtures, who you wouldn't probably have ever noticed, were suddenly big 
news. Now imagine what would happen if the RIAA put this shit in law and 
couldn't back out of it even if they wanted to. Man! A truck load a valium 
wouldn't be able to stop me laughing.

But of course I don't expect any of this to actually happen. The Indies 
won't wake up and the US courts will throw it out anyway. But you can 
always be a good boy scout and be prepared. :)

Be absolutely Icebox.

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