Posted by Bill on 12/13/06 14:33

With all due respect-- and I mean that-- , did you read what I said?
Merely that there is a well-known public allegation (by the then
attorney general of New York State, Eliot Spitzer) that Sony-BMG and
other music companies have been providing radio stations with various
"incentives" to play their songs. This is well-documented, in the New
York Times. I didn't say what you imply I said-- that Radio stations
don't pay to play songs, though clearly I don't think that's pertinent
to this issue.

Besides all that, my point was really that of irreverence: I simply
don't believe that most mainstream media companies really want their
copyrighted material off of Youtube. It is inconceivable to me that
Enya's lawyers would allow her video to play 100's of thousands of times
if they really wanted to put a stop to it. Clearly, they can, if they
want to.

In fact, I find it somewhat amusing that while we are all squawking
about "how dare they..." when the thing many artists want more than
anything else in the world is to have their video played 100,000 times
on Youtube.

I find myself often in agreement with you, but in this case, I think you
misread my post, or, at the very least, ignored the gist of it.

PTravel wrote:
> "Bill" <trash@christian-horizons.org> wrote in message
> news:9fOdneU1DPnJ-uDYnZ2dnUVZ_sOknZ2d@golden.net...
>
>>If so, those payola scandals and their modern incarnations are completely
>>wrong-headed. It is alleged that music companies have been bribing radio
>>stations to play their tunes. That would be a strange thing to do if the
>>music companies didn't feel it was useful to them.
>
>
> Did you read what I read? The copyright owners, i.e. the music companies,
> receive royalty payments every time their music gets paid -- the radio
> stations pay it to BMI and ASCAP. Record companies also sell records, and
> exposure helps, which is why they like it to play on the radio.
>

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