Defending old empires

Steven Levy writes in Newweek, courtesy MSNBC.com: Labels to Net Radio: Die Now.

...In the Webcast world, however, it’s possible for Jim and Wanda Atkinson to run one of the more popular sites--and one day, they hope, a profitable ad-supported business--by playing the tunes of, say, Dashboard Confessional. Possible, that is, until Oct. 20.

That’s the day the bill comes due for a government-imposed performance fee brought about by pressure from the recording industry. The fees, retroactive to 1998, “would put us out of business along with 90 percent of the industry,” says Jim Atkinson. It would be the day Web music dies--and a classic instance of an Old Economy industry leveraging its power to kill a promising alternative.

Gotta love it. Just as Microsoft seeks to raise barriers to competition, record labels proclaim that for our good, webcasters have to pay exorbinant fees in order to play songs over the Internet, fees that conventional radio does not have to pay.

It's all about control, and since much of the Internet is the antithesis of control, you get licensing fees, connect fees, restrictions, etc. Our Government at work, all for Our Good. Or so they say.