Fees Forcing College Radio Stations to Scale Back Webcasts
“Webcasters have built businesses on the backs of performers and record companies,” said Amanda Collins, a spokeswoman for the recording industry. “They’re paying for everything else except for the key element — the music.”
Let me see if I understand this. The college radio stations, either over the air or over the internet, play music that mainstream program directors at commercial stations won’t play, providing airplay to artists the record companies who won’t get any support otherwise, and they’re the bad guys?
Where are the artists’ voices in this? Why don’t we hear from them? Why don’t enough of them who have been around awhile start up some artist-centered enterprises to shake things up? The movie stars of the 20 and 30s did, starting United Artists to take control of their careers in the days of the studio’s iron rule: in those days, the studios owned the actors and could pay them what they liked, casting them in whatever they liked. Musicians may not be as completely shackled, but they’re far from free, even now. So why don’t they speak up?
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