Wednesday, July 02, 2008

"You heard it, you pay it"

Wherein I never understood what was the big deal with payola. So a record company wants to pay a DJ to play some records? Who is hurt in this arrangement?


I would have thought by now that the RIAA would have run out of feet to shoot. But I was wrong: Recording Industry Calls Radio 'A Kind Of Piracy'. In the RIAA's shotgun approach to make listening to music illegal unless you pay for each and every instance, I'm reminded of an Albert Brooks routine. It's from his 1973 record Comedy Minus One, specifically from the completely brilliant Memoirs of an Opening Act. For full disclosure, for years my only copy of this routine was copied onto a cassette from a radio show that played random bits of comedy albums. That's right, I'm a law breaker; scourge of society; evil-doer and malcontent. Boo!

Audio clip

Text:
There's no building large enough now, it seems. Three Dog Night just passed a law within their group, starting in two months: they will play no more buildings of any kind. They will just play states and do 30-32 concerts a year. Stand in the middle of Kentucky and everyone pays that day.

Appearing in Kentucky, Three Dog Night!
Liar! Liar!
$8.50
I'm just going to Dayton.
You heard it, you pay it.

What could the ultimate of that be? They get on a jet plane in New York and fly to Los Angelos and play in the plane. Let the military promote the concert and have everyone in the country pay a dollar.

Excuse me, you two. See that plane?
Yes, we do.
Two dollars.
Let me treat you, honey.

Here's another quote from Memoirs of an Opening Act.

Also this.

4 Comments:

Blogger reader_iam said...

Did you see my "post" about Wall-E?

7/03/2008 03:58:00 PM  
Blogger bill said...

Did you not see me link to your post about Wall-E at the bottom of my post we're both commenting on?

7/03/2008 04:34:00 PM  
Blogger XWL said...

I'm so confused.

I was all ready to pile on top of the RIAA, bemoan the current state of copyright laws, but the above comments have me wondering what the hell you folks are talking about.

Just imagine I threw in my usual anti-RIAA screed up top, I'm sure I've done enough now where you probably could guess as to my opinion of the actions of their fleet of lawyers.

(with a side order of complaint about how those laws prevent good stuff like WKRP as originally aired hitting the market at a reasonable price)

7/03/2008 05:32:00 PM  
Blogger XWL said...

Ah, I guess I should actually click on the links from time to time (given that I expect people to click on all the silly little links I come up with in posts and comments).

Reader, is this Tumblr thing something that you'll be doing ongoing, and should I be linking to it?

(and thanks for the link to my Seriously Dudes post, seriously, dudette, thanks)

And random added comment, Ken Jennings did post a Thursday Trivia this week, it seems fairly easy, except for #7 (as usual).

7/03/2008 07:19:00 PM  

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