Over the past few months, it's been great to see so many great bloggers rise to the defense of Pandora, which has been in danger of being destroyed by a sudden hike in licensing fees. Its demise once seemed inevitable, but we have so far won a surprising stay of execution, and astoundingly might even win this battle altogether.

But it's important to remember that the issues here are way bigger than Pandora. Pandora is basically a mutant. ("Freakishly innovative," as Nancy Scola puts it.) It's grown to fill the bizzare nonsensical contours of current US net-radio law, giving users as much customizability as is legally possible, but no more. The result is mega-useful, but also inherently fragile. Any tiny change in current regulations will pose a real challenge to Pandora's legality and business model.

But net-radio law needs more than tiny changes, it needs huge sweeping reform. Not to retread the obvious, but it's been written by RIAA lobbyists to reflect that consortium's own priorities. It hurts artists, it hurts listeners, and it hurts innovation of all kinds.

Example: My personal frustration this week was falling in love with a Public Radio show, American Routes. It came on FM randomly while I was driving somewhere, and I was instantly enamored. This guy draws lines between bluegrass, jazz, R&B, rock; he'd play ten killer songs from totally different genres and you could hear the same melodic / lyrical themes connecting them. From an hour of listening, I made a list of three records I want to buy.

So this is clearly a good show for any artist featured on it. If you own copyright to this music, you should want everyone to listen to this show as often as possible. So can I get a podcast?

Unfortunately, we can't sell or otherwise distribute copies of American Routes on tapes or CDs because each show contains so much copyrighted music that it isn't financially feasible for us to get clearance for all of it. With the same reason, we can't archive American Routes as a whole on our website or provide podcasting.

So this is clearly idiotic. My point is that we, meaning online music fans, need to think much bigger than fighting to save the status quo. The current surge of activism focuses on HR2060, which is important and a good start; but what should come next?

Btw, Pandora isnt the only awesome mutant produced by the current laws. WFMU's Coffee2Go is currently my favorite podcast. DJ Noah's solution to the problem is brilliantly simple: sidestep the RIAA altogether and only play unsigned or independently-released records. Freaking brilliant, and hopefully a harbinger of the new music economy to come.