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And under your system stations won't try to overpower each other?

Such a thing as trying to overpower the competition would lead to an arms race none of those trying could win. It's rather easy to add power to a radio station up to a point. With a number of different stations broadcasting on the same frequency all anybody listening would hear is a bunch of garbage, interfering signals. Since there would be no clear signal advertisers would not pay to advertise. However by shifting the frequency a little there would be no interference, with today's technology radio stations can use much closer frequencies than was possible in 1934. The only reason to limit radio, and tv stations and require licenses is to limit competition. And of course big media like Clear Channel wants to limit competition.

Imagine if newspaper publishers and printers had to have a license, those granted licenses could have kept competition out. It being easy and cheap to print is responsible for creating thousands of newspapers and magazines. Heck, with DTP software anyone can create and publish a broadsheet. About 20 years ago a writers group I was in put together several short stories we had written and ran off copies, well Barnes and Noble ran them off, to hand out. Some publish broadsheets of only a few pages, or maybe only one or two pages, they can then sale small ads and hand out the broadsheet.

Now imagine someone starting up a small special interest radio station. A person with an interest in calypso, reggae, music could start up a station and sell ads to local businesses that sale the music, to a Cajun restaurant, or to a local band that plays the music. Another person could startup a talk radio station that is about model railroads and sale ads to hobby shoppes.

I don't buy much music online, but when I was interested in some drum music I ran across Calabash Music ( http://calabashmusic.com/ ). It was dead simple to sample music; it comes at a reasonable-to-me bitrate as straight MP3s. And the price of songs was in line with what I would expect.

I haven't actually made any purchases, but what I've read makes me think I probably will.

...and another: Calabash Music

Eh? Where the hell does iTunes get their music? It's making the record companies suffer? Using iTunes, Google Music, Rhapsody, Yahoo Music, Amazon, et al, supports the miserable music industry. It lets them think you want 'Fair' content that can only have 5 copies of. That's still being treated like a criminal, just with a bigger cell.

Buy DRM-less independent music if you want to be treated fairly.

eMusic Subcription-based, very cheap, a lot of great artists and indie labels (New Pornos, Spoon, Blackalicious, CCR, Thelonius Monk)

BLEEP A-la-carte, most electronic but has a lot of small labels, some stuff in FLAC (Warp records, Ninja Tune, One Little Indian/Bjork)

AudioLunchbox Subscription and a-la-carte, a little pricier than emusic but has some different artists (Death Cab for Cutie, The Sounds)

Calabash Mostly world and folk music (Tinariwen, reggae)

There are more. Hopefully Songbird will make it easier to access them all through a single interface.

I love them. I also really like Calabash Music (http://www.calabashmusic.com/ for world music. (Usual disclaimer applies: not affiliated, et al)

Well, I use www.calabashmusic.com for my music. Granted, they specialize in ethnic/world music (African, South American, Caribbean, Asian, with some European folk), which may not be for everyone, but they have a great system. They also focus on independent artists, people who are trying to make it big, people you won't hear anywhere else.

You can listen to clips, then add songs to your download locker. These are UNENCUMBERED MP3s, and you can go back to your locker to re-download them whenever you want. You can't get much fairer or more convenient than that!

The price is $0.99 per song, but as they explain it, 50% goes to the artist, 25% to promoting this music on the web (www.afropop.org), and the rest to the business.

My recommendations: Alpha Yaya Diallo, Chiwoniso, and Henri Dikongue are absolutely amazing!

Well, I use www.calabashmusic.com for my music. Granted, they specialize in ethnic/world music (African, South American, Caribbean, Asian, with some European folk), which may not be for everyone, but they have a great system. They also focus on independent artists, people who are trying to make it big, people you won't hear anywhere else.

You can listen to clips, then add songs to your download locker. These are UNENCUMBERED MP3s, and you can go back to your locker to re-download them whenever you want. You can't get much fairer or more convenient than that!

The price is $0.99 per song, but as they explain it, 50% goes to the artist, 25% to promoting this music on the web (www.afropop.org), and the rest to the business.

My recommendations: Alpha Yaya Diallo, Chiwoniso, and Henri Dikongue are absolutely amazing!

Well, I use www.calabashmusic.com for my music. Granted, they specialize in ethnic/world music (African, South American, Caribbean, Asian, with some European folk), which may not be for everyone, but they have a great system. They also focus on independent artists, people who are trying to make it big, people you won't hear anywhere else.

You can listen to clips, then add songs to your download locker. These are UNENCUMBERED MP3s, and you can go back to your locker to re-download them whenever you want. You can't get much fairer or more convenient than that!

The price is $0.99 per song, but as they explain it, 50% goes to the artist, 25% to promoting this music on the web (www.afropop.org), and the rest to the business.

My recommendations: Alpha Yaya Diallo, Chiwoniso, and Henri Dikongue are absolutely amazing!