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Saturday, July 20, 2002
More proof that Cluetrain has entered the canon 
Let the music keep our spirits high
| | The radio station I loved most before KPIG was WDBS. It was a little commercial FM station owned by Duke University that was a fixture in the community of music lovers in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area. I worked there for awhile. My nickname, Doc, is the fossil remnant of the name I used on the air there: Doctor Dave. |
| | 'DBS was nutty and doomed. Everybody knew it was Too Good to Live, which is why our theme song was Jackson Browne's Before the Deluge. That link goes to the lyrics. Read them. It's the story, told over and over again, of great radio brought to ruin. |
| | What really sucks this time, however, is that KPIG was never doomed. 'DBS was charming and wonderful, but terminal from the day it was born. It never had good ratings or much in the way of advertising sales, and Duke University never knew what to make of it — other than a few bucks by finally selling it off. |
| | KPIG has been a commercial success for many years. It kicks ass in the ratings. It's far more of an institution than 'DBS ever was — or than 99% of all radio stations operating today could ever hope to be. |
| | And it was an Internet radio pioneer. What it's done on the Web is technically inventive, resourceful and responsible to listners, to artists, and to both its local and worldwide communities. |
| | And here's the crowning irony: KPIG sells records. Lots of them. Every song played turns into a link that can lead to a sale. KPIG was keeping detailed records of what it played long before the Copyright office began to require it (just a few days ago). And no doubt that copious accounting, going back for years, will subject KPIG, the great Internet radio pioneer, to unusually high retroactive fees. What KPIG deserves from the RIAA is a fucking award, not a knife in the heart. |
| | Now that KPIG's gone from the Webwaves, expect a deluge to follow. |
| | To give you a sense of what we've lost, here is a pile of Google links that includes stuff I've written in the past about KPIG and Internet Radio. I'd rather have you read those items than anything new I might write today. |
| | And I'd rather have you think about what we're going to do to fix his disaser, even if you've never listened to a moment of Internet radio in your life. |
| | Culture is being murdered here. Freedom — both of speech and of enterprise — is outlawed for anybody wanting to broadcast recorded music on the Web (and who hasn't cut a sweetheart deal with the RIAA). |
| | Up until now we could sit and wait because we hadn't yet paid the price. Too many stations were still on the air. Too much nothing was still happening. |
| | Now that's over. Now we're paying the high price that urges action. Now we have to do something. |
| | Bonus link: JPB's Death From Above. It's from 1996. It's also prophesy. Let's help it come to pass. |
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