RAIN -- the Radio And Internet Newsletter -- carries weekly stories on what's going on the fledgling web radio market, a fact which always surprises me since I didn't know that very much was going on there at all. Part of the reason why can be outlined in the labyrinthian rules that surround webcasting.
Reading through the differences between ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC, along with the odd implementations, tortured reasoning, and dubious logic, it's clear that these are the result of all kinds of backroom arm-twisting, compromises, guesses, and mistakes. Just like most every decision. What keeps them in place is that we have a "good enough" radio and music system that lets us, by and large, listen to what we want when we want, kind of. While the system is clearly broken, the lights still turn on.
We'll see what combinations of arm-twisting, compromises, guesses and mistakes congeal into the legal infrastructure for web radio.
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