RUSH: John in Sioux City, Iowa. You’re next. Hello.
CALLER: Hey, Rush, 24/7 dittos.
RUSH: Thank you, sir, very much.
CALLER: Hey, I’m a 24/7 member. I’m kind of disappointed when on the podcast I can’t hear the parodies. Is there anything that you can do about that?
RUSH: Well, the parody songs you’re talking about?
CALLER: Yes.
RUSH: We can’t put any music on the podcasts.
CALLER: Oh, okay.
RUSH: Even the parodies because the parodies are derivatives of actual written melodies.
CALLER: Yeah.
RUSH: And written lyrics, and we do not pay a license fee for that. In fact, we here at the EIB Network, I think we pay a little bit of a license fee to BMI and ASCAP, but our affiliate stations are the ones that actually have to pay for the privilege of broadcasting published music. And there has not been a deal — well, there has been a deal struck for Internet delivery, and it’s outrageously expensive. With the number of podcasts that we have and the number of users, I mean we’d have to raise the membership, the subscriber rate on the website to a level that would make no sense. These copyright people are trying to get even tougher now. Radio stations pay a license fee. It’s not really much. They are now being hit with the possibility that they’re going to have to start paying through the nose to play music. I don’t know where it stands now, but there’s a lot of controversy about it. It’s a federal issue at some level. But that’s the reason. I’m glad you called and asked because people think we’re screwing up when we do not put any music on the podcasts, including the parodies. It’s simply we don’t have permission. We haven’t struck a deal to pay for it, it’s just outrageous. It’s so outrageous the people who own the music are screwing themselves by seeing to it that their work is not exposed. So it’s just the way it is.
It’s like when the government runs things; when the subway ridership goes down, they raise fares. In the private sector, you lower fares, lower prices to increase volume. And these clowns on the other side of this are just doing it the wrong way. We’re always looking for other ways to do it ’cause look, this is Excellence in Broadcasting Network, and as a highly trained specialist it does not satisfy me to have to send this program out podcast-wise without any of the audio in it in terms of the music because the music is a significant part of the program. So we’re always working on it, but, you know, look, people that I’ve hired to run this thing, they are paranoid. I will admit, I’ve tried to sneak a couple things in that I thought were so good, ‘Just do it! What are the odds we’re going to get caught?’ ‘If we get caught, Rush, you don’t want to deal with what will happen.’ ‘Okay, okay, okay.’ I’ve tried to sneak it by ’em, but they just will not. ‘Can’t we just say it was a mistake; that Brian screwed up and forgot?’ ‘No. You can’t do that.’ ‘Well, what are the odds we’re going to get caught?’ ‘They’re really small, but, Rush, you don’t want that circumstance.’ These people are pretty serious about them not being compensated when their stuff is used, and I understand it, in a sense, it’s just their pricing is out of control, makes no sense.