Pay to Play: Uncovering Online Payola
 

*Source: DailyTech (http://www.dailytech.com/Pay+to+Play...icle7510.htm)*
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A three-month study of the online technology publication industry uncovers pay-to-review tactics, viral marketing and a few beacons of light

During the 1960s a new term was born into the music industry: Payola. A combination of the words "pay" and "Victrola," payola represented an increasingly large problem in the music industry: record companies paid radio stations to play and promote new records.

The immorality of paying radio station disc jockeys to air music did not become apparent until investigations by Federal Trade and Federal Communication Commission. Several deejays from the era were eventually found guilty of commercial bribery charges and deliberate legislation was eventually proposed, and sanctioned, that specifically banned the practice of payola in the U.S., with stiff consequences.

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