Michael Copps is one of 5 FCC commisioners and he is extremely encouraging, considering the state of American Media. Bill Moyers, for PBS, is the interviewer.

BILL MOYERS: You said in a recent speech that– that America’s playing Russian roulette with all of our media. Broadband, internet, television, radio, newspapers. How so?

MICHAEL COPPS: Well, we’re going at it without a policy. We’re going at it without a vision. We’re going at it without realizing what these things mean to the future of our country. Whether it’s broadcast or broadband.The public airwaves are to be used for serving the public interest. Expanding our cultural horizon, covering community news, enabling the democratic dialogue. Increasingly, we have moved away from that vision and they’re being used for corporate profitability.

BILL MOYERS: And some people will say, that’s the market, Michael Copps. That’s the way business and capitalism work.

MICHAEL COPPS: But the market is a little bit different than the public airwaves. This is our most precious resource I think in the United States of America and probably the most influential businesses we have is media, is communications.

So it’s different than just the usual business transaction. Because we tell these companies particularly to go back to broadcasters, you have the right to use these airwaves. But you’ve got to be stewards of these airwaves.

Yes, you can make a good living. Nobody’s trying to get in your way of that, and most of them continue to make a pretty good living, as you know from watching what a lot of the commercial broadcasters are doing these days.

But in return for that privilege, you need to be stewards of the public airwaves and serve the public interest.

Source: pbs.org

Updated: 12.9.2007

Myspace is a wonderland of connectivity, especially for music (and a place where Rupert Murdoch can keep his eye on you). BUT, Now, due to the all-knowing antiques, we all know as record labels, full versions of songs on Myspace are banned for any artist under Universal Music Group, and have been changed to 90 second previews. Fascism?

Even though we’ve known this for awhile, the deal is: get a label deal, lose your art, become a source of income for some suit that listens to yanni and kenny g.

On this note, I quote the GZA:

” First of all, who’s your A&R

A mountain climber who plays an electric guitar

But he don’t know the meaning of dope

When he’s lookin for a suit and tie rap

that’s cleaner than a bar of soap

And I’m the dirtiest thing in sight

Matter of fact bring out the girls and let’s have a mud fight”

GZA is clowns. no diggity, no doubt.

–Wired

–Tiny Mix Tapes

Update: 12.7.2007

Wired interviewed Doug Morris, Chair and CEO of Universal Music Group. Doug, like the record industry itself, is full of contradictions. First he says:

“People never really understand what’s happening to the artists.”

And than he’s going to do this:

“UMG labels would selectively choose which songs (or albums or artists) were sold on iTunes, rather than granting blanket access to the entire catalog.”

And he does this:

“Licensing of videos to Web sites now nets Universal more than $20million annually. “

And he thinks this:

“Morris has never accepted the digital world’s ruling ethos that it’s better to follow the smartest long-term strategy, even if it means near-term losses. As far as he’s concerned, do that and someone, somewhere, is taking advantage of you. Morris wants to be paid now, not in some nebulous future. And if there’s one thing he knows how to do, it’s use the size of his company to get his way. ”

–Wired Magazine 

So, this guy, crying for the artists, is just worried about his own buck. Why wouldn’t an artist want the free, easy, international exposure of Myspace? Why wouldn’t an artist want their music on iTunes (by far the largest digital music retailer)? Record companies are old news. They are getting in the way of the consumer, the artist, and the music.

Distribution and marketing is no problem. Napster solved it back then, and now, there are more companies, pirates, and exposure opportunities on the internet than you can shake your 21$ 50 cent CD at. How do we, as consumers, and they, as artists, cut this middle man out? Actually, the first rumblings of change from innovative thinking by Radiohead, peer2peer sharing, and independent music review sites.