In a surprising move at the end of July, both houses of Congress virtually overturned the Federal Communications Commission's June 2 deregulation of media ownership, with enough votes to override an expected presidential veto. Now that Michael Powell has been chastened appropriately, it's time for citizens, legislators and litigators to train their sights on the big companies in the music industry.

I don't think that working for the chastening of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) goes far enough, because the battle against multimedia file sharing has gone far beyond specific Napster or Kazaa actions. As part of the "we sue the world" summer actions, the Big Five in music recording have instructed the RIAA to pursue even private hubs in which members trade live-music performances of musicians (including non-RIAA members) who approve of such sharing.

The new attitude among the majors seems to be, if you share any audio files over a broadband connection, you must provide a percentage take to the Big Five, or risk being sued. No doubt the Motion Picture Association of America will take the same attitude on video files. That will kill interest in broadband access, and it represents the old model of profit amortization.

Big Audio still operates according to the laws of mega-million hit makers subsidizing the promotional costs for lesser-known artists. This profit model requires radio stations to be homogenized along the Clear Channel model and requires cross-promotional links among concert sponsors, radio stations and record companies.

Meanwhile, small labels are going back to the artist-patron model, in which most artist profit is made through live performances, and fans help support the artist by funding limited-edition CDs, many of which are sold only through the Web, or even burned on an as-ordered basis. Even big artists like Natalie Merchant are turning to this CD-by-subscription model.

Innovative broadcast radio and Internet radio can support the latter business model. It cannot work with the hit-maker machinery. But that mega-machinery only supports a bland music style that will be unsupportable as Congress begins probing Clear Channel and friends. In a July 7 article in The New Yorker on the death of the music industry, Atlantic Records promoter Jason Flom said he simply couldn't conceive of a world in which the megahit machine of the majors would die. He'd better get ready. The entire business model of Big Audio is now being challenged by broadband-enabled citizens, who are tired of getting sued at every turn by the RIAA.

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