Like Our Country, Internet Radio Is In Crisis

Looks like we will have to give up any hope for the "Internet Radio Equality Act".

If you're a regular listener to internet radio, you may have heard aired on ours, as well as pier stations, a request for your support of Bills H.R. 2060 AND S. 1353, otherwise known as the "Internet Radio Equality Act".

To date, this has become a stagnant issue in Washington. The effort is to equalize the higher royalty fees determined by the Copyright Royalty Board to be paid to record companies, artists, and composers for the songs that you hear on internet radio. These are paid through the recording industry's sanctioned agency SoundExchange. Compared to the exact same royalties paid to satellite and eventually terrestrial radio for the same music, this was obviously un-fair and a stealth attempt to slowly bleed internet radio music stations to death.

Already crawling at a snail's pace to begin with, the effort has now hit a brick wall.

Needless to say, the financial debacle by government is now the 10,000 pound gorilla in the room. And because of the exposure of blunders by a majority of representatives, senators and the White House, before and after, the financial bailout action, makes it quite obvious by many that the pending upheaval of the upcoming elections will spell the doom of many incumbents. Perhaps the majority of those who co-sponsor the IREA.

Thus, what would be considered a moral act of establishing fair play of all entities that play music across the board, will take a further back seat, (more like taking a place in the upper pigeon hole in the furthest corner of the guest room closet) when compared to more pressing issues that have had to pause because of the 700 billion dollar mortgage crisis.

Realistically and comparatively to priorities, it's more for the reason that American's could care less about anything else at this point.

With all these delays, life couldn't be sweeter for the recording industry and Sound Exchange, who have had all the opportunities in the world to strategize and re-strategize it's efforts of holding together, the unbelievable large royalty percentage imposed on internet radio. This more than likely puts the internet radio industry at the mercy of a totally new line up in Washington.

The whole story began in Washington and ends in Washington. Who do you currently have faith in there to proceed with anything?

Why Should It Matter If McCain Sends Emails?

The latest Barack Obama attack ad is trying to focus on John McCain being a "computer illiterate" and how important that in this day and age that a leader should have thorough knowledge of the internet from blogging, emails, OS and IM to be effective. Am I to be so impressed that a candidate that can master "geek-speak" can harness the massive affairs of the free world? (I don't believe I've seen Mark Cuban on the ticket.)

My instant response to that is, if that's the case Sen.Obama, do you have thorough knowledge of the operation of military aircraft?...Or for that matter, an aircraft carrier?..Or for that matter, an entire naval fleet? How about staring the enemy in the eye? That means more to me in a commander-in-chief than for someone who can just set up a MySpace page.

Phoenix, AZ You're IT!

It's back! After a summer hiatus the featured city/state of the week has returned to to The Nation page on our GUS.FM website. We're proud to roll the new version out with eyes on Phoenix, AZ!

If you're a regular and you've tracked the week to week focus, what you will find is that it's not much different, but we wanted to remain a bit more relevant to the music. That's the general reason why you visit, right? Among other things what you will find is an embedded video that we can manage to dig up to feature either a song to a namesake, or what would really be great is if you are artist with original material that not only can get the recognition that you're looking for as well as a suggestion to what should be the next featured area.

This is also a way for you to keep up to what Wikipedia has published online about your respective zone. Since you're free to edit, you may be able to pinpoint and correct mistakes or add your own adjustment to their article. Just click on the name of the town and/or the state flag on the site.