RIAA claims ownership of all artists' royalties

ISurfTooMuch writes: With the furor over the impending rate hike for Internet radio stations, wouldn't a good solution be for them to simply not play RIAA-affiliated labels' music and focus on independent artists? Sounds good, except that the RIAA's affiliate organization SoundExchange claims it has the right to collect royalties for any artist, no matter if they have signed with an RIAA label or not. You can read all about it over at Daily Kos, including excerpts from the SoundExchange Web site. It's amazing how the RIAA looks more and more like the Mafia each day.