Radio Rates

David Byrne Journal: 4.1.07: Your Government Working for You
The Copyright Royalty Board is proposing a large increase in the performance royalty rates for “non-interactive streaming services”. This means web radio, cable radio and satellite radio will pay more to SoundExchange in royalties. Presumably those royalties eventually dribble down to the artists getting “played”, but it’s never that simple. It’s a little complex and difficult to understand but let me see if I can describe what is in the offing.

I encourage you to read the whole piece, but here is another little snippet:

While traditional terrestrial radio does pay songwriter/publishing royalties for the musical work itself, in the U.S. they don’t pay performance royalties for the sound recording under the rationale that airplay promotes the songs, which benefits the copyright holders. (This determination was mostly due to the radio industry lobbying congress not to collect these royalties.) Web radio, however, along with satellite and cable services, does pay performance royalties — these are the rates that are being raised now. (If this discrepancy sounds illogical, it’s because it is.)

The recording industry is floundering, and I am hoping broadcast radio will be next. Many seem to agree that both industries changed for the worse in the nineties, but that would be a long post for another day…

Internet Radio

Chicago Tribune | Hypertext
Sounds like NPR may be the first to take action against the recent massive increases in the royalties Internet radio stations are obligated to pay to performers of the music they play. The following statement is from National Public Radio’s communication VP Andi Sporkin, and the key sentences outlining action, a petition for reconsideration, are at the end.

Continue Reading.
Go NPR!

Save Net Radio

Save Net Radio
Thanks WP.

What’s not to love about Net-Radio? No DJ’s reading quotes from a screen, no limited 20 song rotation, no commercials to listen to… And, take Last.fm for example – two essential buttons: love-it and hate-it for instant feedback. Give me more like this and never play that one again…

SSRI Radio


Go ahead and click on the play button above to listen to a little SSRI radio. If you want to add some music to your blog click HERE and use embed code for your blog. If you want to get creative and put together a playlist, say an upbeat compilation of a few SSRI tunes – let me know your musical choices (from any SSRI CD) in the comments and I will put it together.

Fermat’s Spiral

The sheet that was hanging above Santa Fe has been lowered and now it appears as if we could touch it.

Fermat’s Spiral — from Wolfram MathWorld
Does the spiral on the right at above page remind you of the yin-yang sign? (Reference found on Roshi Joan’s blog)

So many ways to get to the bottom. Music, math, particle study, genetics. Every road traveled far enough will give up some gems. A million ways to touch the sky.

Rehearsal at 10AM today. I want to play Havana Club again.

Added the SSRI label to Last.fm this week – Link. And here is the wikipedia entry on Last.fm, which is basically your own personal internet radio station. Flickr for music. It also suggests artists and albums based on the music you like. I hear this works pretty well with Reggae or Techno, but not so well for our kind of music (which is WHAT?). A while ago Canton suggested that the reason for that is that there is a lot more data available for those genres. That makes a lot of sense. Here is Jon’s artist page and here is Stephen. Check this out: Hm, I don’t own a single album by any of the guitarists that Last.fm suggests are similar to me.

Got home just in time after rehearsal – it’s snowing heavily again.