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Spitzer has been our hero since Enron

A while ago, Eliot Spitzer said that he was going to start investigating radio stations, record labels and the people in between for possible payola-like activites. For those of you who don’t know, payola was banned in the 60’s but has cropped up again in the past few decades where the major record labels pay “independent promoters” who in turn pay off radio stations to play their music. When major labels have their foot in the door with radio stations, it is extremely hard for independent labels to get their little guys out there — payola makes radio bad and it makes the most popular music bad. Industry executives were quoted as saying they were stopping any payola-like activities as soon as they heard Spitzer was going to do a really good job at wiping out payola. I was surpised to see this recent NY Post article called “POLICE PAYOFF PROBE” which was sent to me with the title “payola is back”. Geez, give the next guy a heart attack. The article is not really about payola and it seems Eliot is still doing a good job of being a good guy, as payola is still dormant for now. The article talks about two police officers who allegedly took money from the Motion Picture Association of America in order to get support for arresting those who pirate movies. It’s pretty nasty that the MPAA finds all those payoff outlets. You can read the full article in the comments section. But the real juice is here, Universal is getting in trouble for getting independent promoters to make fake invoices so that they can recoup promotional costs from “rappers like Nelly”. So, Universal is ripping off musicians on their lablels and stealing airwaves from independent musicians. Major record labels anti-musician?

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