An editorial in MP3 NewsWire proposes that the music industry’s purported fears about “piracy” mask the real agenda: keeping the barriers to entry in the music industry high, and so keeping their businesses safe.
To start your own terrestrial radio station you first need a license from the FCC giving you permission to broadcast over a specific frequency. This in itself is a large barrier because the number of available frequencies are finite and the FCC has already parceled out that part of the spectrum devoted to commercial radio. The only way to get such a license is to purchase it from someone who has one to sell – at whatever the market demands. Hardly something within reach of most Net radio providers…
To start your own net radio station is much simpler as the technology is extremely cheap. The simplest way we tested took all of 10 minutes for any novice DJ thanks to a now defunct company called MyCaster. MyCaster worked by having you load a special WinAmp-styled MP3 player on your PC. As you listened to music from it, the MyCaster player sent a feed over the Internet to the MyCaster website. From that site the feed was taken and the the tunes you listened to were simultaneously broadcast over the Net, accessible to all.
Cost to the living room DJ to bring music to the world? Nothing, beyond the cost of his broadband connection to his house.
Here we have the old way of doing things, which costs hundreds of thousands of dollars just to operate in a given month, and the new way where the costs can be covered by a thirteen year old’s allowance. If that type of scenario doesn’t scare an oligopoly based on the old technology. I don’t now what will.
(via /.)