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Sen. Feingold Reintroduces Radio Competition Bill
jonerik writes "Billboard is reporting that Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) has reintroduced his Competition in Radio and Concert Industries Act, which is aimed at limiting the concentration of radio stations and concert promoters in the hands of a few large companies, such as Clear Channel. In addition, the bill would close loopholes in payola laws which currently permit 'pay-for-play' deals between record companies and radio stations 'unless an appropriate sponsorship identification announcement is made.' The bill's introduction comes as the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation prepares to hold a hearing Thursday on the problems of radio consolidation, and the committee's chairman, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), is expected to sign on soon as the bill's co-sponsor."
With the loss of Paul Wellstone, Russ Feingold is one of the strongest supporters of liberal ideals and causes left in the Senate. It's good to see him getting support from the Republicans in the form of McCain. Democrats certainly can't afford to go it alone in their current minority status, so to get any decent laws passed, we're going to need to have Republicans crossing party lines to support bills whose bottom line is not aimed at increasing the wealth of the wealthy for once.
Every now and again, after the cynicism and the corruption and the payola and the lobbying... our government comes through.
I get so depressed, reading about DMCA suits & SLAPPs, reading about corporate (*cough* Coble) whores. You get to thinking that the government is just trying to screw us all.
And yet, there are good guys. There are champions of the common man.
I feel pretty good.
Looking for a Rails developer in Chapel Hill?
The only guy in the Senate with the balls to vote against the PATRIOT Act. Thanks, Russ. When the rest of them panicked and stampeded to trade our liberty for security, you were the one true patriot.
All you nerds in Wisconsin better vote for this guy when he comes up for reelection. A good Senator is a rare thing indeed.
Good question, but how are we (or anyone for that matter) going to fight that much money any other way?
"The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."
It's unfortunate that what he stands up for is often unconstitutional. Think restrictions on political speech in the campaign finance reform legislation. What part of "Congress shall make no law..." are they having trouble with?
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It's been attempted before, and while that works here and there, ever paid attention to Microsoft's tactics or (back in the day) Standard Oil's? If it looks good try to starve it's business by dropping prices temporarily (since you've got enough money in reserve to do this sort of thing), and if it still pulls through, buy it then hole it off in a corner somewhere.
"The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."
So, radio stations must pay copyright holders to broadcast their songs, but in order to charge for the otherwise free advertising they're giving these songs, they need to say "paid for by Warner bros."? What happened to freedom in this country. Why does the govt. feel they need to regulate everything? If a radio station wants to play unknown stuff from independent artists, let them. If they want to take cash to play stuff from artists with deep pockets, why shouldn't they be able to? Radio station have the right to free speech, not the obligation to play music without compensation.
Vote for Pedro
That's what Clear Channel has done. They've taken control of most of the more popular radio stations. Only people with enough money to hold them off or a small enough market share that they're not worth it can stay independant. Of course, someone with enough money would be hard pressed to turn down a price that only makes sense to a monopolist. As Clear Channel controls more of the market, they'll alswo find it more worthwhile to go after smaller, and smaller stations.
Once a company has gotten a stranglehold on a market, FCC rules make it very hard for a competetor to start up. At that point the monoply holder has an effective stranglehold on radio speech in that market, with the government quieting any nascent dissent.
OS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.
But why should government have the authority to tell a company (large or small) how to do business?
And to answer that, lemme quote what was said in an above post:
Corporations.
Aren't.
Really.
People.
They have no rights. They can't claim that we're "stepping on their Constitutional rights" because they don't have any. Otherwise, corporations could sue the government for trying to enforce monopoly laws. We limit corporations from becoming monopolies (or rather abusing as a monopoly), because they have no rights as a corporation. A corporation is merely a entity to hold money. THAT'S! IT! No rights. Not a person. No rights. Therefore, we have EVERY right to limit the way they do business.
Zodiac Survey
No, this is government undoing a wrongfull artificial monopoly that they put into place. Radio spectrum is a scarce resource and the government gives out the liscense, in exchange for those liscenses we the people expect something in return, if the fact that Clearchannel is a monopoly is hurting our interests we are perfectly within our rights to try to get something back for those liscenses by reappropriating them in a way that we expect will bring back the things we want (like an end to the sucky same playlist heavy rotation crap that clearchannel broadcasts on their vast array of stations so that we can never escape it)
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
misguided attempts at fixing corruption by introducing even more _government_ regulations which are the very reason corruption even exists.
Sorry, without government regulations, corruption is *ALL* that exists.
I need to check this out further, but a read over the press release shows no mention of Internet Radio.
I certainly support the bill * can I get an amen? * and I suppose you have to pick your battles, but doesn't Internet radio need a little fairness also?
I would like to see parity between Internet broadcasters and FM broadcasters regarding what is required of them by the RIAA. The RIAA doesn't want independent Internet radio stations to succeed and is imposing stifling reporting requirements (i.e. song, title, time played, listener's IP address, listener's blood type etc.) and exorbitant copyright compensation fees. As it stands now, independent Internet radio stations are dying.
I believe that radio will eventually be "broadcast" almost exclusively over IP networks with the wireless component being handled by ubiquitous, low-power, ultra-wide band radio in the city and satellite radio in the country. I think an explosion of music could happen if the RIAA would just get out of the way. Instead, they seek to hinder this explosion because it is not something they understand or feel that they can control.
I urge you to consider that "small and independent" radio is increasingly going to be an Internet phenomenon and we future station owners need your help.
Thank You
"The world is a construct of forceful imagination. Those who don't know walk around in the reailties of those who do"
Well no matter what you think I don't actually think you believe that a corporation is the exact same thing as a human. If they are not the same they they should not be treated the same. Pretty simple no?
Look at it this way.
In the constitution it uses the phrase "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights". Now I don't know about you but I was not created by lawyers. Humans have certain rights because they have a divine creator. Corporations have rights that are given to them by the lawyers who created them and the lawyers that made their creation possible. Again pretty simple no?
Finally. I am a mortal and I have a soul. A corporation is immortal and soul-less. If you look at the history of humans you will see many legends and religious texts about soul-less immortal beings. For example in revelations there is a soul-less immortal being with seven heads and ten horns. Perhaps they were talking about a corporation with seven headquarters and ten divisions.
War is necrophilia.
They say that ClearChannel has no real competition but it's not true -- check out CheapChannel Radio, a satiric competitor with a voice tracking program to rival even the big boys. Voice tracking is the system ClearChannel stations use to have a DJ in Houston pretend he's from cities all around the country to give canned stations a little "local" flavor. CheapChannel is a project of the Prometheus Radio Project, which was recently featured on the PBS's McNeil News Hour for their work promoting Low Power FM stations. The first site is fun, and the second is interesting, if you're concerned about media consolidation.
>> Corporations have rights that are given to them by the lawyers who created them
As a generally libertarian thinker, I've recently been tossing around the notion that there have been two great government interventions since the time of Adam Smith, and that these are at the root of most modern discontent with free markets.
In listening to the left, you always hear anger directed at "Corporations", as if a corporation were something you could be angry at. But corporations are NOT people. They do not have souls, they cannot feel guilt, they cannot feel pain or love. Corporations existed at the time of Adam Smith, but they were scarce compared to today, when even a housewife with a part-time business is likely to incorporate in order to compete without risking her family's home.
The other huge government intervention into free markets has been intellectual property laws. While they existed in the 18th century, they were of little consequence compared to today. As copying technologies have advanced, so have the benefits of holding copyrights. And this has in turn has left us in the uncomfortable position whereby our IP laws are meaningless unless we impose them on other countries.
My thinking recently received some validation from the Alpha Libertarian himself, Frederich Hayek. In "Individualism and Economic Order" (published 1948, written earlier) Hayek devotes a chapter to some of areas where so-called "Free" enterprise is promoted, but where it is not truly free. And sure enough, a large part of the chapter is devoted to intellectual property laws and to the rights accorded to corporations.
To sumamrize Hayek's conclcusions, he basically agrees with the idea of protecting a songwriter or author's work, but that the direct extension of the laws of physical property is inappropriate and probably destructive. That may be "duh" material today, but sixty years ago it was prescient.
Likewise with corporations, he argues that direct extension of the rights of a human to a group of humans is bound to create distortions of freedom, and laments that it has created a situation whereby the size of a corporation becomes an advatantage far beyond what is dictated by economics of scale.
Reading that chapter was one of those "Bingo!" moments for me. It doesn't really provide a practical course of action to correct the situation (if we simply repealed the offending laws, economic chaos would ensue), yet it explains everything. I had noticed that most leftish people don't really dislike free commerce as much as you'd think based on the positions they take. Many of the more reasonable lefties at their heart enjoy commerce, they love the idea of "cottage industries" for example. Many, regardless of their politics, are personally just as independent-minded as many conservatives are.
If nothing else, Hayek's observations present a clear distinction between Free Markets and Capitalism; Hayek compellingly argues that what is often sold as "free" enterprise is really just supply-side Socialism.
Which brings us back to the subject of the article... folks, don't believe for a second that Feingold and McCain are doing you any favors. Once the structure of an industry is dictated by the political process, then the political process inevitably becomes corrupted to favor the existing players. The law may tough on the day it's passed, but in implementation, it will soon become a beaureaucratic playground where the big players have a huge advantage. They may oppose it up front, but you can be certain that they'll benefit in the end.
If politicians really want to help, the should roll back the regulations that created the situation they're trying to fix. But that course is rarely politically viable, for numerous structural reasons. Instead, as PJ O"Rourke notes, "Politicians spend much of their time as skunks going around with aerosol cans of room freshener."