“Gather ’round, my friends, gather ’round. There’s tragedy afoot and the tale I have to tell you is a sad one. Please– refrain from weeping.

The sad fact is, children… that your millionaire friends in the record label industry are only thigh-deep in disposable income. That’s right– only thigh-deep. I mean, don’t get us wrong– we can still swim through the stuff, sure, but… back when no-one had an alternative to music and media than to pay the price we told them to (psst: pre-Internet days), we used to be able to wipe with the stuff. Now, we have to be malicious and militant in how we govern your entertainment, lest we want to downgrade our jet-packages or scale back on the extra homes. Oof. I think not and the future be damned to all that do!

Now. What I want you to do to help us tighten the leash you people almost pulled off of yourselves… is to pay us here at the record labels some more money. Let’s say… oh, I don’t know… what’s a small amount that people probably won’t miss… a thousand? Is that how you spell that? T-H-O-U-S-A-N-D? That sounds right, but I haven’t seen a number under the 5 digits in awhile!

Yes, yes. You pay us another one thousand dollars and I’ll tell you what you get for it.

(You DO get something, we’re not THAT cruel…)

You get the right to continue buying and promoting our music! Cmon, applause? Thank you! That’s not all, folks: you also get the right to keep track of your playlists and libraries so you can report them to us monthly! You get that! All of you out there in internet radio, this is for you!

You also get the right to go out and buy (out of your own dwindling budgets!) the software that’ll keep track of all this. Now, if you flub all that up, you’ll probably be buying the right to pay fines for flubbing up… I don’t know- we’re still workin’ on it, but we like the ring it has to it: fines… fiiiiiines. It’s like music, but not as profitable.

So… Children. Stay away from

The Local Radio Freedom Act!

This act intends to fight back… this act is coming from the ‘people’ (which is you, but who cares?) and it says, ‘We already own the music we bought, just as anyone owns anything they purchase. What you mean to say is THANK YOU FOR PLAYING IT!’ This act intends to let the world know, ‘We won’t put up with this ridiculous fee created from thin air!’

I mean, really. People are grossly misleading themselves to think they have… I don’t know… what’s that word again? A ’say-so’ in the matter? Isn’t that just RIDICULOUS?!”

If you think your friends in the label industry shouldn’t get the right to govern how and when we get our music, support The Local Radio Freedom Act!