SIRIUSXM has agreed to pay as much as $99 million to artists who released records before 1972, settling three complicated—and closely watched—class-action suits led by the TURTLES. Artists are over the moon. Digital radio services, not so much. (AM/FM radio companies, meanwhile, can sit back and pretend nothing happened—or maybe not; see below—while continuing to play all the Turtles and SLY STONE and DRAKE and RAE SREMMURD songs they want to, free of any pesky artist payments, because copyright law is weird.) All this because the US didn't think to extend copyright protection to recorded music until 1972. Next time you're wondering how little artists are respected in AMERICA, remember that. As to whether the settlement is a short-term win for artists at the long-term expense of the digital radio business, or a short-term loss for radio that will benefit the long-term health of the entire music industry, I think the question kind of answers itself. Pick your bias, answer accordingly. Here are some good explainers from the archives, from the LA TIMES' JON HEALEY (writing about the Turtles' parallel case against PANDORA) and law professor TYLER OCHOA (who happens to have a pro-radio bias, and who suggests AM/FM radio could actually be vulnerable to a similar suit)... WARPAINT, TEGAN & SARA, JACK JOHNSON, MOBY and many more "play in bed for sick kids stuck in theirs." BEDSTOCK 2016...This, from FashionREDEF curator HK MINDY MEISSEN, is one of the best bits of media advice I have read lately: "I always thought the best fight against mediocrity was to not chatter on about it, in any medium." And I will hereby ignore it to chatter on about the mediocrity of JOE CORRÉ's great punk-rock fire of 2016 one last time, only because sometimes mediocrity inspires great writing, like this healthy perspective on the meaning of punk-rock in 2016 from VIVIEN GOLDMAN... Guess who's performing live in 2017?... Guess what war crime revelers at AUSTRALIA's EARTHCORE festival participated in for their own amusement? (Seriously, 2016, please go away)... Drive drunk in CANADA's PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND and police may force you to listen to NICKELBACK's 2001 album "SILVER SIDE UP." O Canada, true patriot love in all thy sons command... RIP RUSSELL OBERLIN.