Menace on the horizon

I am critical of measures and regulations which restrict freedoms, limit options and dictate behaviours. I can't help it, these are values I learned when a high school and college student many decades ago in the United States.

It explains my regular complaints about the ban on Flickr applied here in the Emirates where, at the same time, the imperative of becoming a knowledge-based economy is loudly proclaimed. It's why I find the blocking of Skype abhorrent, since it makes a mockery of the freedom of competition, again claimed as one of the virtues of the business environment in the Sandlands.

But I guess the land of the free ain't what it used to be. I enjoy listening to three internet radio stations in my office, one the college radio KCRW from somewhere in California, the second the National Pulic Radio arts and culture affiliate WGBH from Boston, the third being the eclectic and absolutely brilliant FIP from Paris.

Soon my choice of internet radio may be limited to the French channel.

Most (American) internet radio stations will go silent this month!

Legal changes have greatly increased royalty rates for internet radio which will go into effect May 15, making it prohibitively expensive for most internet radio stations to keep operating.

Rusty Hodge of the web-only station Soma FM blogs about the coming emergency here, and alerts Americans to a last ditch attempt to block the new ruling by SoundExchange, an arm of the much vilified RIAA, which represents (of course) the vested interests of the soon-to-be-irrelevant recording industry

"We are at a critical juncture for internet radio. If this bill doesn't get passed, independent net radio will be forced off the air; and the only net broadcasters will be those who can afford to treat their internet radio operations as a loss leader - and that means the same big companies that run all the AM and FM stations out there. Is that what you want to see happen to net radio?"

Where did I learn to cherish values such as responsible freedom, right to choice and autonomy of action? Oh, yes. Hmmm.