My friend Kevin Sonney mentioned his experience with Jesse Helms’s constituent services. It reminded me of one time I had to applaud Jesse, too.
Back in 2002, Internet radio was under attack when the evil DMCA pushed by the Recording Industry of Association of America was due to jack up royalty fees that would have effectively killed webcasting.
One such station which would have had to pull its webcast was Wake Forest’s WCPE, the outstanding classical station heard worldwide through Ibiblio’s streaming services. Helms was a regular listener of WCPE and went to bat for it and all Internet webcasters, partnering with Sen. Patrick Leahy to pass the Small Webcaster Settlement Act of 2002. Just when it looked like Internet radio would be killed in its crib, Helms and Leahy rode in to save the day.
Thus, on one thing at least, Jesse was right.