Freedom of Music

We librarians care an awful lot about freedom of speech, even though we don't all agree 100% on the details. Yesterday was an important day for that priceless liberty. What happened yesterday? Many of the world's free/pay Internet radio sites staged a walkout, shutting off access to their music for a day. What led them to take this extraordinary action? Well, sit down and I'll tell you.

Internet radio is a marvelous phenomenon that perhaps we don't appreciate enough. Thousands of online sites play every possible type of music for you to listen to for free on your computer, to download and pay for, and to use in a variety of other ways. Many of these sites function like radio stations, in that they broadcast what they broadcast and you enjoy hearing album rock, Nigerian music, singer/songwriter music, classical, jazz, blues, reggae, zydeco--anything and everything that you can't find on normal broadcast radio. Unlike with satellite radio, there are often no strings attached. Some stations let you hone in on specific types of music, and others go even farther, letting you design your own radio station so to speak based on your specific preferences of music types and specific recording artists. These stations typically pay their expenses from revenues from some combination of ads and sales of music that you may choose to purchase and download (or not). Some simply do it out of charitable feeling and a need to be heard. Thankfully for all of us, the royalties paid to the artists and owners of copyrights by these stations have been reasonably low, a fact which is the very basis for their existence.

Now, a federal agency/ governing body has decided to drastically increase the royalties that Internet radio stations must pay for each play, and change the payment system to favor big music publishing and recording companies over individual artists (who are often willing to accept lower royalties than mega organizations). In fact, the increased royalties are retroactive to the beginning of 2007, even though they are only just going into effect.

What does this mean? It means that the only Internet radio sites that will be able to continue to operate are those with big corporate backing and those that sell music rather than "broadcast" it for free or for a low price. Free Internet radio is going to become a thing of the past as the corporate guys take over. That is, unless something happens in Congress to change things.

I suggest that readers do two things.

First, visit a few of these Internet radio sites. Just Google Internet radio and find something you like. Also, look at the sites that allow you to customize your experience and even suggest artists you may not know about who are similar to ones you do know. Examples of this variety of site are Pandora and Musicmesh. Then once you see what you've been missing, visit the not-very-objective-but-still-informative website of Save Internet Radio.

Then consider contacting your representatives and give them a piece of your mind.