Jeremiah's Music Blog: CongressCritters Wanna Give Us Money?

CongressCritters Wanna Give Us Money?

Congressman Mike Doyle (D-PA) proposing an innovative program to "encourage the creation of new and different music" by "find[ing] some way to make a career in music more viable economically." Once again, borrowing from our neighbors to the North, Canada, who seem to be consistently miles ahead on culture. (Does colder climate produce people of higher intelligence??)

While it makes for great (Democratic) stumping, this is still a politician clamoring for votes. The reason a career in music isn't viable for most people has more to do with the economics of the music business as it has existed for the last 50 years. In other words, there's plenty of money to go around - it's just not going around, that's all. Organizations like ASCAP and BMI, in coordination with major media conglomerates have all but sealed those economic systems shut, and the few allowed to enter do so on the industry's terms.

Again I stress this is just a guy saying stuff. There's no real meat here - nobody is going to be cutting gov't checks to musicians in my lifetime, especially not for the foreseable future, when slicing the federal budget to keep the nation fiscally solvent is going to be the order of the day.

via ACSBlog.

Posted by Jeremiah at May 15, 2007 09:03 PM | Tag This Post | Digg It!