A pretty important subject to me.

Is defending originality, and it's under attack. The Copyrights Royalty Board is about to blow the fledgling Internet Radio out of the water. They have sent out a revised fee schedule that would leave the six biggest webcasters with a bill that amounts to HALF of their annual revenues. The smaller webcaster (i.e. EVERYONE) would be on a 'sliding scale' where they would be assessed for a modest 37% of their profits.

Land
Land
Land
Land
Land
... see Snatch. ;)

As it turns out the biggest and baddest on the block are not charged a red cent. I totally understand this. The amount of buzz and sales that they generate makes it a symbiotic relationship with the 'artists' that make up the biggest part of the CRB's bread and butter. These 'independent' outlets are sucking up bandwidth on their 'lesser' artists. While I cannot claim to know who's got a contract with whom, the station that I listen to:

Radio Paradise

has a great variety of 'eclectic' rock. This means everything from Radiohead and The Flaming Lips, to Pink Floyd and Jethro Tull, to The Shins and Calexico, to Imogen Heap and Frou Frou, to Charles Mingus and Theloneus Monk, to Ludwig and Amadeus. Every album I've bough online, I have gotten at the inspiration of this station.

Anywho, I know it in my heart that it would be a dark day for the light that has come shining out of this brave new internet world, in the shape of independent music and many envisionings of our musical cultures. A light that is about to be squashed under the thumb who are using their power to control what we listen to. Pure business move, but as the people, we can have Congress cap this nonsense at 7%. Let the minstrels and troubadours get back to their artistry and not to worrying about sounding like the latest noise.

"D'Jour" means seatbelts. (that was for like TWO people... maybe...) If anything I've said has made a lick of sense, please call your reps and senators and let them know that you support originality and the value of the internet to equalize the artistry in our world. Thank you and g'nite.