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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.
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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.
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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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.
Radio station have the right to free speech, not the obligation to play music without compensation.
This bill doesn't ask them to play music without compensation if they don't want to. It asks them to be honest with us, the listeners, when they do so, to encourage them to choose to play music that's good, rather than music that's being promoted in expensive ways.
What happened to freedom in this country.
As far as I can tell, companies like CCC bought it.
Rhetorical questions like that are not an effective way to convince people. Keep in mind that since not everyone agrees with you, the answer someone else gives to such a question may be different from what you expected. For instance:
Why does the govt. feel they need to regulate everything?
You're expecting an answer along the lines of "Because we're control freaks, because we want to institute a totalitarian regime, muahahaha!" But the fact is that for many people, the answer is "Because we do have to regulate everything." The way to convince people--or better yet, mutually arrive at a truth that may be different from anyone's initial views--is to ask, without sarcasm, why we would be better off this way.
In case you care, my answer to that question is that the government should regulate cases such as this because it benefits the consumer, whose rights should always outweigh the rights of corporations. This is because, simply, people are people, and real, whereas corporations are simply groups of people. Situations that benefit corporations benefit the individuals who are members of those corporations, whereas situations that benefit individuals in general benefit all the same people, and many more.
Now somebody will respond saying that I've oversimplified this, and my preemptive response to that is that to do this subject justice would be to write volumes on it. I think what I've said above captures the essence of the liberal view.
I found the meaning of life the other day, but I had write-only access.
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"