I have just tried to log onto The Acoustic Stage    I found a message saying that they have been forced to close by the new royalty rates, which appear to have been deliberately raised to this level to stamp out independent broadcasters. I wonder how bloody greedy the publishers can get. Folk music only gets the crumbs off the music business table anyway. Now it appears we should not get even that.
Would the answer be for small artists like myself to agree to register our songs, but sign a waiver on royalties from smaller radio stations? (We get no money anyway). Why do the publishers appear to be so passionate about stamping out radio stations, whose listeners number only hundreds at best?
I sent the following letter to Steve at The Acoustic Stage:

Hi Steve,
I am very sorry to hear that you are no longer able to proceed with your internet broadcasting. It is a bad day for small artists and for choice among listeners.
It is a very good day for the bullies and parasites of the music business monopolies. Their monopolies will become ever more exclusive, allowing ever decreasing opportunities to small artists to get their music heard. Closing small radio stations is not a by product of the new royalty rates (not demanded by the artists, by the way). Rather it is the object of the exercise. You and I both know that those royalties go to publishers rather than musicians. Those at the lower end of the food chain usually see nothing at all. I have to pay a good deal more in licensing fees for my records, simply so they may be legally broadcast! I am lucky to make enough money to continue making records. That is the position most of us are in.
I wish you well, because you have done a good thing and for a time you were able to offer real hope and a genuine alternative to many. Even though it was short lived, you made the world a better place for it and did something positive.
Thank-you for what you did for me.
Regards,
Alan Moorhouse.