Trailer Records, home of folk artists like Greg Brown and Bo Ramsey, has a very interesting message on their website:

Trailer Radio will be offline for a few weeks. We apologize for the inconvenience. The service that provided the station has begun charging monthly royalty fees to broadcasters to meet Recording Industry requirements, and we were caught a bit off-guard. However, as no Trailer artist is a member of the "industry" and we're streaming only our own music (and they aren't sending any royalty checks this way . . .), we've simply decided not to play that game. Seems silly to pay Brittney Spears every time you listen to Greg Brown. We're in the process of setting up our own streaming systems, and should have the conversion complete, the links changed and cleaned-up, and new services of our own available soon. As usual, we appreciate your patience.

Did the RIAA ever stop to think that their heavy-handed schemes would end up basially clogging avenues for new music?

Probably not.

By the way, if you're interested in checking out anything on Trailer, I'd suggest either their sampler "Doublewide" (dang, I love that title) or maybe Greg Brown's Over and Under: where you can hear things like the drunken, crazy 'eulogy' of Ina Bell ("Ina Bell Sale") or Greg's country love ballad "Like A Dog".

(First posted on Mark Is Cranky)