With the push massively hiked broadcasting fees for web radio stations, a lot of stations are pushing back as hard as they can, with now a ‘Day of Silence’ where normal broadcasting is being suspended completely or a looped programme (in the case of KCRW) explaining what the issue is and the impact on them. The only players who seem not to be getting involved are the biggest, who are probably both the least innovative and can weather the increased costs – namely Clear Channel and AOL (more details –Additional Details Emerge Ahead of Webcaster Day of Silence).

 To add to the pain, live sessions that some stations are noted for and attract a lot of good publicity for the artists involved – such as Morning Becomes Eclectic (on KCRW) and the famous Peel Sessions for the late great John Peel on Radio 1, are under pressure. A number of artists are now pushing for performance or royalty payments (more detail here Musicians To Radio Broadcasters: “Clearly, We’re Not Wealthy Enough” and Variety article). The irony is that the artists that I’ve seen involved probably are smallest beneficiaries from such sessions, and I’m sure that the likes of Christina Aguilera and Mariah Carey can manage without the extra few thousand that such a change would introduce. But those need and benefit from the exposure of live sessions – the smaller and indie artists like Wilco will lose out on the publicity as stations are likely to cut back or stop doing such sessions. 

 Following on from my earlier blog about a Crawdaddy article – here is a post from a music fan who has come against CD copy protection resulting in it breaking the CD standard (despite the CD carrying the CD logo) and no warning of copyright protection.  After the fiasco with Sony’s rootkits, you’d think that record labels may have learnt a thing or two.

Article here – Some Sort Of Copy Protection Crawling Around In The New Linkin Park CD – Idolator

The important thing is that the blog’s author will no longer buy music (legally atleast) from Warner Brothers.

Crawdaddy have written a good piece, albeit scathing of the state of the music industry is in. Using the actions of Paul McCartney, now releasing music through Starbucks rather than EMI, with whom he has been since the start of the Beatles recording career as a proof (backed up by an article in New Yorker by Macca himself).

If you don’t read the article – then just take a look at this quote:

because they [Big Four record companies] care about the marketing more than they care if the act is worth a crap to begin with. As a result, they turn and blame illegal file sharing for the decline in sales, despite the fact there are now mounds of studies showing that file sharing does not hurt sales. Some, like the writer of a recent article published in the Journal of Political Economy, even find that albums being shared on peer-to-peer networks see increased sales as a result of being shared.

The article can be found here: http://crawdaddy.wolfgangsvault.com/Article.aspx?id=1452

The record label One Little Indian, the home to some great artists such as  Jesse Malin, Fluke, Pernice Brothers and many others has started podcasting to help promote its artists.  The podcast is done through iTunes (click here),via a direct link from the announcement email(s) if you register for the news emails or via the Podcast Directory. The first podcast includes material from Jesse Malin.

 After my recent grumbles about the UK government’s efforts, or lack of them (go here) to control ticket touting.  It would seem that New York according to Glorious Noise (referencing an article on MSNBC) has gone the other way – on the basis of free trade.  So if you want tickets for a gig in New York I hope you have deep pickets.