Slashdot Mirror

aSiTiC writes "Apparently, satellite radio is finally catching on. I'm an avid internet radio listener on stations such as KEXP, BBC 6Music and SomaFM. I am looking for a more portable alternative and I wonder if eventually my favorite MP3/RM/WMA internet stations will be ever be carried on satellite."

Slashback with news on ATI drivers for non-ATI branded cards, the viewer-led movement to save Farscape, wearable computing from MIT, text-to-facial-expression software, and more. Read on for the details

Maybe customer service isn't dead. On November 28th, we posted a report that OEM cards using ATI chips had trouble with the official drivers from ATI. Terry Makedon (Senior Product Manager, Software for ATI Technologies) writes "Last week we posted a set of unified Linux drivers. These drivers were only loading up on 'Built by ATI' cards. Through our various feedback mechanisms we have determined that there is a large community of 'Powered by ATI' Linux users that did not benefit from our Linux drivers. At this point we are happy to announce an update to our Linux driver (ver. 2.5.1) which will work on both 'Powered by' and 'Built by.' ATI's driver and software strategy is firmly based on responsiveness and we greatly appreciate the feedback our Linux users have provided. Please use http://apps.ati.com/linuxDfeedback/ for a direct feedback line to ATI.

Thanks again for the feedback."

But what if we put the show into this Interdimensional Fungubulon, and then jumped through this here "wormhole"? xagon7 writes "David Kemper, the producer/writer of Farscape, mentioned that it would be theoretically and legally possible for a group to set up a non-profit organization for fans to donate money to, in order to finance an episode and make Farscape all that much tastier to Sci-Fi for the 5th season. They have done just that. They have $200,000 worth of pledges and only need $800,000 total....I hope this gets Slashdotted. Read the story here and you can pledge here."

You're getting less happy to see me? man_of_mr_e writes "Check out MIThril, the next generation research platform for context aware wearable computing. It's been about 18 months since this was last talked about here on Slashdot, and it's kind of cool to see how far the technology has come since then. For those that aren't aware of what it is, it's essentially a project to prototype human wearable computers, complete with schematics, pictures, and a cvs repository for software. Now you too can be like that guy in the IBM commercials trading stock while feeding the pigeons."

Flattening the slope to entry. Catskul writes "You don't need the libwine hack, mentioned in the previous news entry. Just follow the New QT Howto, download the codecs and start MPlayer."

Don't look at me in that tone of voice! 1010011010 writes "On Nov. 26, you ran a story on SpeechView, 'software that translates the voice on the other side of the line into a three dimensional animated face on the computer.' The North Carolina State University Department of Computer Science's 'Voice IO Group' is also working on that problem. Their software looks like it might be better. Read about it here. Includes quicktime movies of the results."

Victory, or a reprieve? A non moose cow writes "Just noticed that a couple of my favorite "Killed by the RIAA" webcast stations are back... like Soma-FM and Monkey Radio (get the streams at Shoutcast). The saving grace came via the recent passage of HR5469 [PDF] by the US Legislature. Thank you to all that sent letters and/or money to fix this problem. If you have been yearning for the resurrection of your favorite stream, go check, it might be back. If you would like to trace the chronology of this mess, check out the Soma-FM news page."

Slashback with news on ATI drivers for non-ATI branded cards, the viewer-led movement to save Farscape, wearable computing from MIT, text-to-facial-expression software, and more. Read on for the details

Maybe customer service isn't dead. On November 28th, we posted a report that OEM cards using ATI chips had trouble with the official drivers from ATI. Terry Makedon (Senior Product Manager, Software for ATI Technologies) writes "Last week we posted a set of unified Linux drivers. These drivers were only loading up on 'Built by ATI' cards. Through our various feedback mechanisms we have determined that there is a large community of 'Powered by ATI' Linux users that did not benefit from our Linux drivers. At this point we are happy to announce an update to our Linux driver (ver. 2.5.1) which will work on both 'Powered by' and 'Built by.' ATI's driver and software strategy is firmly based on responsiveness and we greatly appreciate the feedback our Linux users have provided. Please use http://apps.ati.com/linuxDfeedback/ for a direct feedback line to ATI.

Thanks again for the feedback."

But what if we put the show into this Interdimensional Fungubulon, and then jumped through this here "wormhole"? xagon7 writes "David Kemper, the producer/writer of Farscape, mentioned that it would be theoretically and legally possible for a group to set up a non-profit organization for fans to donate money to, in order to finance an episode and make Farscape all that much tastier to Sci-Fi for the 5th season. They have done just that. They have $200,000 worth of pledges and only need $800,000 total....I hope this gets Slashdotted. Read the story here and you can pledge here."

You're getting less happy to see me? man_of_mr_e writes "Check out MIThril, the next generation research platform for context aware wearable computing. It's been about 18 months since this was last talked about here on Slashdot, and it's kind of cool to see how far the technology has come since then. For those that aren't aware of what it is, it's essentially a project to prototype human wearable computers, complete with schematics, pictures, and a cvs repository for software. Now you too can be like that guy in the IBM commercials trading stock while feeding the pigeons."

Flattening the slope to entry. Catskul writes "You don't need the libwine hack, mentioned in the previous news entry. Just follow the New QT Howto, download the codecs and start MPlayer."

Don't look at me in that tone of voice! 1010011010 writes "On Nov. 26, you ran a story on SpeechView, 'software that translates the voice on the other side of the line into a three dimensional animated face on the computer.' The North Carolina State University Department of Computer Science's 'Voice IO Group' is also working on that problem. Their software looks like it might be better. Read about it here. Includes quicktime movies of the results."

Victory, or a reprieve? A non moose cow writes "Just noticed that a couple of my favorite "Killed by the RIAA" webcast stations are back... like Soma-FM and Monkey Radio (get the streams at Shoutcast). The saving grace came via the recent passage of HR5469 [PDF] by the US Legislature. Thank you to all that sent letters and/or money to fix this problem. If you have been yearning for the resurrection of your favorite stream, go check, it might be back. If you would like to trace the chronology of this mess, check out the Soma-FM news page."

An anonymous reader writes "MP3newswire.net has an interesting commentary, inspired it seems by the woes of the Webcasting community. Basically they are saying that the RIAA is less concerned about piracy and more about the low barrier of entry into the online music business. For example, most slashdotters right now can start their own radio streams or distribute music files for next to nothing, just download the appropriate freeware and go. Through lawsuits and the DMCA the entertainment conglomerates are trying to make such acts much more expensive. So expensive that it is no longer affordable for the "average Joe" to trade or broadcast. The article makes a good argument on how the Internet has empowered individuals and artists to affordably express themselves online, and how a threatened record industry wants to stop that." Update: 10/20 6:55pm EST by C : More news from the webcasting front can be found in the article...

Rusty reports: "Friday afternoon, the RIAA and SoundExchange announced a temporary payment plan and fee reprieve for small webcasters while congress considers legislation.. Basically, by Monday, Oct 21st, small webcasters will need to pay a $500 a year minimum fee ($2500 max). While this rate still may be a problem for hobbyist webcasters, it is lower than the $2500-$6500 minimum that HR5469 called out.

From the RIAA's SoundExchange site:

"Any webcaster that qualifies as an 'eligible small webcaster' under H.R. 5469 will not be required to pay on October 20 the per performance (.0762 cents) royalties otherwise due under the Librarian of Congress' decision of July 8, 2002.

Instead, by October 21st, these eligible small webcasters may instead pay only the $500 annual minimum fee set by the Librarian of Congress for each year or portion thereof they have been in operation since 1998 (a maximum of $2500) until this Congress has had the opportunity to act on the pending legislation."

This still provides no relief for Live365, although their appeal hasn't been heard yet."

Ann Gabriel writes the following in response to Rusty's report from our last article on webcasting:

It appears that the message being sent to me in the response by SOMA FM's Rusty is that since HR 5469 does not directly affect me, I should sit quietly by and watch this travesty play itself out without saying anything.

What happened with HR 5469 directly affects EVERYONE is the webcasting community and to pretend otherwise is a joke.

There is nothing wrong with the fact that a group of people set out to negotiate a private deal for themselves intending to save themselves from the retroactive royalties that will come due on October 20, 2002.

But there is something horribly wrong with the FACT that what began as a private negotiation ended up being turned into a piece of legislation forced as a yolk around the necks of people who had no say in the matter.

I am tired of being asked as a member of the webcasting industry to accept something so horribly wrong just because some people think this deal was "the best they could get."

To sit by and accept the events that led up to the negotiations and the formation of the actual bill language is something I cannot do.

To me it would be like being invited over to lunch and expecting to eat Chicken Salad - and then being served Chicken S**t. There might be a large portion of the webcasting community who can stomach that, but I can't.

The RIAA never had any intention of dealing fairly, honestly and respectfully with the webcasting industry. Those that sat down privately to negotiate a deal for themselves did so in their own best interest and for their own individual reasons. I don't believe there was anything wrong with that.

But when the self-serving agenda of a few becomes something that is foisted upon the community as a whole, then I cannot, must not and will not stand by and accept such an American Injustice.

It is patently clear to me that the IWA and the VOW are separate organizations. To that end if you read my open letter carefully you will see that I point out the deal was NOT negotiated on behalf of the IWA and it's members, of which I was one until last week.

Just because people are claiming right now that HR 5469 in its present form will not really hurt the industry does not mean that is the truth. The only entity that HR 5469 helps is the RIAA and it is a sad truth that they care nothing about the industry they are destroying.

Ann Gabriel
Gabriel Media Inc.

Brian Hurley of Detroit Industrial also had his response to Rusty's words from that article.

In case you haven't had a chance, here's the latest article from The Register on the state of HR5469 as it was introduced to the Senate, earlier this week. And as a bit of a wrap up to this roller coaster week, this Reuter's article serves to provide a nice summary of the situation so far.

detroitindustrial writes "The Register reports on a backroom deal that screws small webcasters. The Voice of Webcasters, working with the RIAA, negotiated a deal that Congress is trying to make into a law. These rates give big discounts to the largest webcasters, while leaving around 96% of the smaller webcasters to suffer and die under the CARP rate. This is being done through the bill H.R. 5469, the Small Webcaster Amendment Act of 2002. It was originally a one paragraph bill to delay the CARP rates for 6 months, and was widely supported in its original form by the webcasting community. After the RIAA rewrote it, it turned into 30-page monstrosity that had no relation to the original bill. It has already passed in the House. Ann Gabriel, who was on the International Webcasting Associaion legislative committee, recently resigned in disgust over this sell out." It appears that the Register article misrepresents a few of the issues. Rusty Hodge, of SomaFM, has more on the actual effects of HR 5469... This is an email from Rusty Hodge, SomaFM's head honcho, which was sent to the Pho emailing list. Reprinted with permission:

Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2002 01:26:57 -0700
From: Rusty Hodge

The RIAA seems to have managed to really get a rift going in the
webcasting community.

I'll tell you all I know.

"Somebody shine a light of truth into the nature of these proceedings. You have many friends on pho list. Speak up. This is another dirty deal."
-- [ quote from The Register article ]

This article is based on a lot of incorrect information. What appears
to have happened was that someone on the carp@voiceofwebcasters.org
mailing list forwarded a bunch of messages from that list to the
author. (Nevermind that the mailing list messages have a disclaimer
which say that they are confidential and not for publication without
prior consent). I am annoyed that I was quoted out of context in the
article.

Tthe headline is based on one message that someone who opposed HR5469
posted, a message which is not accurate. The 96% number came from a
person who opposed all webcasting royalties and based his
calculations on the Shoutcast.com directory. It did not take into
account the broadcasters who operate via Live365 (which includes
thousands of broadcasters), the Windows Media radio directory,
Real.com, etc. It also assumed that all stations listed in the
Shoutcast.com directory are actually accessible. Because of the way
that the shoutcast automated directory works, even if you setup a
shoutcast server to privately distribute audio in your house or
within an office, by default it will appear in the shoutcast.com
directory. So will stations that do not have the network bandwidth to
reliably stream to a single listener. Anyone can run the Shoutcast
software on a DSL line, yet can't sustain a single listener because
of bandwidth limitations. And the statistic does not take into
account that many of those Shoutcast broadcasters are not based in
the US nor does this take into account where the listeners are.
(Remember, the DMCA/CARP fees only apply to listeners in the US.)

Now the current CARP rates - if you broadcast 12 songs an hour, and 7
average concurrent listeners, you'll be paying $516.50 a year. If you
only look at stations with more than 7 concurrent listeners on
average, or 5040 hours for the 30 day sample period, you get about
320 stations, and those stations represent 98% of the shoutcast
audience (based on listener numbers)!!! The remaining 2700 "stations"
are fighting for about 400 listener.

Of that 3000+ shoutcast stations listed who will be "screwed", more
than half of them do not have any listeners. If you have sampled
some of those near the bottom of the rating stations, you'll find
that many of them are either broadcasting silence, or their stream is
technically unlistenable (more dropouts than audio or you can't
connect to the stream at all).

(http://shoutcast.com/ttsl.html - has a rolling 30 day statistic
snapshot, which these numbers are based off)

HR5469 grants a lot more relief to a larger body of webcasters than
you'd think from reading that one mailing list. To the rest, HR5469
DOESN'T CHANGE ANYTHING. If it passes or fails, nothing changes for
the smallest webcasters.

(By the way, Live365 is neither harmed or hindered by this bill.
Their statement is here:

http://www.live365.com/carp/hr5469statement.html

Live365 is also represented ONLY by DiMA. Additionally, Live365 covers
the royalties for their member broadcasters, their member broadcasters
are not directly affected by this.)

Any webcaster with an average of more than about 25 concurrent
listeners is better off under this deal than the previous CARP
ruling. Beneath that limit, there is no difference.



There is another quote that is very misleading in the article:

``And privately, even members who support HR.5469 agree that it will
"seal the fate of this industry to be dominated by big webcasters,"
according to correspondence seen by The Register. ``

Actually, the quote "seal the fate of this industry to be dominated
by big webcasters" came from Kevin Shively (also fellow pho) of
Beethoven.com, on 9 Oct 2002. Kevin has stated many times that he
does not support the version of 5469 that was passed.

The Register should have attributed this quote because it completely
changes the meaning of it. Beethoven.com, a 14-employee company, is
owned by Marlin Broadcasting, a company that owns several FCC
licensed over the air stations. Kevin does not support HR5469 because
he believes that it sets the definition of small webcaster at too low
of a level. But I'll leave it to him to tell you what he thinks about
the bill. Kevin has been a driving force in lobbying for fairness for
small webcasters, and ironically, HR5469 would probably not have
passed without him, and it is very saddening that he will not benefit
from it. Kevin will hopefully post his concerns with the bill (I
recall it is Section 4 that he has problems with).

For the record, SomaFM feels that 5469 is far from a perfect bill.
However, we think it is a good starting point. Kevin has expressed
concerns in this bill setting precedents that will harm many
mid-sized webcasters. I believe that NAB is not supporting the bill
for the same reason.

``But the compromised Bill has some surprising backers. SomaFM and
KPIG are urging listeners to support the revised, RIAA-negotiated
venture.``

I was quoted somewhat out of context talking about advertising. I was
talking about a variety of options available for small webcasters,
one of which was advertising. However HR5469 extends the definition
of non-commercial webcasters to any non-profit organization, not just
FCC licensed non-commercial broadcast stations. That rate is less
than a third of the rate that commercial webcasters pay under the
current CARP fees ($0.0002 vs $0.0007). This I believe is a big win
for non-commercial internet only webcasters.

I was also pointing out that $500 a year minimum, vs the small
webcasters demand for $250 a year minimum, was negligible. I was also
pointing out that as they grew, and hit the $2000 minimum under the
new plan, that they would have an audience of over 25 average
concurrent listeners and at that point should have not trouble
obtaining advertising. They could bill up to $20k a year and have an
unlimited audience size.

SomaFM is listener supported and commercial free. We are not a
501(c)3 non-profit. Under the CARP rates, we would have to pay $500 a
DAY - over $180,000 a year in royalties. We generate about $20,000 a
year in donations now, which has covered about 85% of our costs
EXCLUDING the CARP FEES, and was on its way to covering all our
costs. (The cost that isn't covered is the cost of all the CDs I have
to buy!) SomaFM operates bare bones, our studios are in my garage.
We believe that we can generate enough additional donations to keep
us on the air with the rate proposed in HR5469. For us, it's
$2000-5000 a year instead of more than 10 times that under the old
CARP rates. So it's a no brainer for us to support this.


Another inaccurate quote:

"Many webcasters have already resigned in protest from the body
that's supposed to represent them: the Internet Webcasters'
Association. "

One person, Ann Gabriel, resigned. And Ann Gabriel was not a
webcaster, she produces live web events. She is not liable for past
CARP fees. In her open letter (which I've included below) she seems
to imply that IWA and VOW are the same.

Voice of Webcasters and the International Webcasting Association are
two separate entities.

The International Webcasting Association or IWA (which SomaFM is a
member), is not a lobby group on behalf of small webcasters. However,
since the IWA dues are far less than the other webcasting-related
trade group, DiMA, it has many more small webcasters than does DiMA.
As I recall, DiMA dues are $20k a year, IWA dues $300 a year. DiMA
represents bigger companies like Microsoft, AOL, Yahoo and smaller
guys like Live365. Jon Potter can tell you more about DiMA's goals.


Here's Ann's letter. I'm only forwarding it because it says it's an
open letter to the streaming community and the press, which i believe
describes many here on pho:

>Date: Wed, 09 Oct 2002 20:24:40 -0400
>From: Annmgabriel@aol.com
>Subject: [carplist] HR 5469
>
>Open Letter to the IWA Board of Directors, The IWA Legislative
>Committee, David Oxenford at Shaw-Pittman, CARP-List Members,
>Members at large of the Streaming Media Community and the Press:
>
>On October 1, 2002, at 12:00 pm Pacific Time, I began a 10-hour per
>day live broadcast with the intent to draw attention to the plight
>of Internet Radio broadcasters and raise money to benefit the IWA
>Legal Defense Fund.
>
>I did this based on the belief I was working to support HR 5469 as
>it was originally introduced into Congress; a bill calling for a
>stay in the rates imposed by the Librarian of Congress and due on
>October 20, 2002; and because I believed that Shaw-Pittman, the law
>firm involved in negotiating the deal with the RIAA was working on
>behalf of the International Webcasting Association (IWA).
>
>I am appalled, outraged and disgusted by the turn of events I have
>witnessed over the last week and will no longer sit and watch the
>blood, sweat and tears of the many be drown out by the disingenuous
>hue and cry of the few.
>
>I will NOT support HR 5469 as it was introduced and passed on the
>floor of Congress on October 6, 2002, nor will I encourage anyone
>who asks me to support it. I will immediately turn my attention to
>contacting every Senator I can, both by telephone and by fax, to let
>them know about the grave injustice that has been carried out in the
>name of the small webcasting community.
>
>Regardless of the stand the IWA takes on this issue, I, today,
>resign my membership in the IWA. I cannot stand by and continue to
>support an organization that allows its members to be bullied into
>accepting legislation that was negotiated one, under duress and two,
>by a team which originally set out to negotiate a private deal for
>themselves with the RIAA.
>
>I call on the members-at-large of the webcasting community to ask
>themselves why the press release about the deal on HR 5469 was done
>in the name of the RIAA and the Voice of Webcasters. I contend that
>the IWA was not represented here and its members are not responsible
>for the legal bills incurred by Shaw-Pittman. It is my belief that
>this was not a deal negotiated on behalf of the IWA or all of its
>members.
>
>I have been asked by many in the webcasting community how this could
>have happened. I think it is time for me to respond, and to let the
>webcasting community know all the facts about how HR 5469 could
>change from one paragraph as it was originally introduced, to a
>30-plus page bill serving only the RIAA and a few on the negotiating
>team.
>
>I believe I have an obligation to tell the truth NOW, as I know it,
>to the many who have banded together to fight for a common cause.
>They have seen their hopes go up in smoke because of a backroom deal
>negotiated under duress by a team that did not set out to represent
>webcasters at large and does not accept that the RIAA has a complete
>lack of respect for the webcasting community and never intended to
>deal fairly, honestly or forthrightly with the issues facing
>webcasters today.
>
>I wish you all the best of luck moving forward in a very difficult time.
>
>Sincerely,
>Ann Gabriel

SomaFM was not involved with negotiating this deal, although we did
sign a letter in support of it.

If you think my support is wrong, I'd like to hear the reasons why.

--Rusty Hodge
SomaFM.com

This hasn't been a good year for music lovers since the RIAA has removed the kid gloves. In the past 3 months they have declared war on their own customers, silenced Internet Radio, and are targeting 3 other P2P networks for shutdown. At about this time last year, they wanted unprecedented access to your personal property, but fortunately saner heads prevailed here. It has been 4 years since Slashdot posted it's first story containing the phrase "RIAA", and in that time the RIAA has waged war on the Internet rather than try and use the technology for the benefit of their artists. Now there are people willing to play by the rules, but the RIAA is unresponsive, and their web site seems to provide more questions than clear answers. Who do you need to contact? What forms need to be filled? What agreements need to be signed? By whom? What do you have to pay? How is this value determined? If you are planning on offering the RIAA's music, what do you really have to do to play their music legally?

I've Read the Frelling Manual, and I still have Questions!
J.Charles asks: "Always looking for new ways to help out the independent music scene in my region, I recently started thinking about putting together a streaming radio station. Mind you, this is to be non-profit, with the sole purpose to help out independent artists. I had made a small stream years ago using Shoutcast, but this was before all of the RIAA stipulations were being crammed down everyones throats, and I really paid no mind to copyright law.

If I am to do this, I would like to keep it fully legit in the eyes of the RIAA, because we've already seen the MPAA come after file sharers, citing gigantic fines, at the university I work for, and I really don't have the money for legal counsel.

So I've found adequate hosting, and read up on the stipulations published on the RIAA website, but most of it is quite murky, and skims over the 'how-to' of things.

For example, do I really have to pay royalties for each stream running? If so, how do I keep track of that, or do I just have to pay the royalty times the number of my maximum consecutive streams available? Is there Shoutcast plugin software for generating the play list information that must be sent to Soundexchange? Are there any grants available to help offset the cost of paying royalties and license application fees ($500 a year!)?

Basically, I can't find any streams that appear to be running 'legit', so I have no one to answer all my questions. I've even thought about contacting the RIAA to see if someone there would assist me, and perhaps help fund this project, since it would make a good example of a legit site, and afterwards I could serve as educated help for other people in my situation. I mean, the RIAA recognizes streaming as an important business, you would think their interests would lie in helping educate people to use it the way they would like.

Is anyone out there running a legit stream, or know someone who does? better yet, has anyone seen a guide for people in my shoes?"

I'm, Trying to Play Nice, But They Won't Return My Calls!
Jarrett Wold asks: "I was working on a chat client earlier this year, and I wanted file sharing capabilities (a la Napster). However I did not want any of the legal liability so unlike Napster, I actually contacted RIAA and the MPAA before I started any development.

Considering RIAA and MPAA's itchy trigger finger regarding copyright issues I figured I would pitch a solution to them. It was simple, since they represent a large number of copyright holders, they should create a database listing all of those copyright holders. It's easy enough to determine that Metallica has copyrighted material, what happens with that unknown band that you're not sure about? At least this way we would have a definitive list for all the people represented by RIAA and MPAA. Who also bring the largest number of lawsuits against file sharing applications.

Now I'm not rich, I don't have a lawyer and considering I live in North Dakota, I make on average $8.25/HR for data driven web development. If you work at Burger King in another state, you make more than I do flipping burgers. I started a month long stretch of making phone calls and sending emails. I called RIAA around 15 times proposing that they construct a database of copyright holders so I could be compliant with copyright law. I even suggested that if they charged a penny per user they could pull in 250K a month for use of their database. It would also force file sharing apps to have a business model. I'm all for avoiding '.COM The Bubble, Part 2'.

The RIAA was flat-out uninterested. They would listen politely, and take down my number or refer me to a voicemail of either a legal person (who never returned phone calls) or some person in management who simply stated it wasn't their responsibility to compile such a database. So, after fifteen or so emails, a half dozen long distance phone calls I gave up on RIAA. They obviously want publicity about the injustice of file trading rather than fixing the problem.

I then proceeded to call the MPAA. They were amazingly helpful, everyone that I spoke seemed enthused about doing something along this line. I suppose when you represent studios rather than individual artists the motivation to fix a leaky faucet is top priority. However, after sending a variety of emails and speaking with half a dozen people on the first phone call, I was sent off to someone in their technical department and curtly told that they were working on their own solutions. Do not get me wrong, the MPAA was keenly interested in a fix, but it seems that they too feel that the burden of listing copyright holders is not on them. In fact one executive I spoke with noted that there would be thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of entries, in such a database. I suggested the revenue model again. It was received with interest and shot down in the next moment with the same argument.

So needless to say I gave up. I am now targeting my product specifically for the business market. I have noticed that CD-R manufacturers are not being sued for all the MP3's that are being burnt onto the media they freely distribute. The same goes for Samsung, I have yet to hear of them being sued for making VCR tapes that can record TV shows without commercials (if you're quick about it... ahem TiVo). Nor do I hear of ICQ being sued for it's file transfer abilities that also enable piracy if a user is so inclined.

At what point does the responsibility of the copyright owner come into play? Should it not be the representative groups (RIAA, MPAA) to come up with an 'exclusions list'? In fact technically speaking it's just not possible to determine what's copyrighted without something along those lines.

Who else has gone through this? I figure that the person who pirates is the one responsible, rather than the service itself. File sharing applications have valid purposes. However, if RIAA and the MPAA do not want to make a definitive list of copyrighted material it's nearly impossible to comply to excluding copyrighted material. Saying that file sharing applications facilitate piracy is the same thing as saying search engines facilitate piracy.

Napster had the wrong idea, if they could have worked out something with RIAA regarding this same concept they would be a leviathan. However it makes you wonder if these lawsuits weren't strategic in nature. I believe in the end, history will show that killing Napster was the worst mistake the music industry could have made. They lost control of a contained problem. It wasn't fixed. However when 26 million people scatter to the winds and start their own file sharing networks (Morpheus, Gnutella and many more) the problem is decentralized and unsolvable.

The biggest question of all is to the artist: why aren't you demanding some form of technical action out of the RIAA, instead of lawsuits? Why aren't you asking them to 'Sit down in a room with those file sharing companies and figure out a way to fix this'.

You can't sue them all!

I guess, my North Dakotan notion of business is that if there's a problem fix it before it gets out of hand, however it seems RIAA wants to do the opposite. I guess lawsuits could conceivably be a nice addition to the bottom line and excuse for bad accounting...;)"

And One Last Plea, for Internet Radio...
If you are still interested in saving internet radio, there is one last chance, until the next one arrives next year. There is a bill in play right now that must be passed before October 20th if some of the more popular Internet Radio sites are to return. You can find out more information on this latest push from the Radio and Internet Newsletter and also from Soma FM.

Karl writes "The RIAA announced today their intention to appeal the royalty rates for internet radio decided on by the Librarian of Congress. Today was the very last day to file for an appeal." The webcasters put out of business by the royalties include SomaFM, Monkeyradio, KPIG, and many others. At least a few Congressional representatives support revising CARP to give small webcasters a chance to survive.

Ghaleon writes: "The Copyright Office just released the final rates for webcasting. Looks like the rates are lower than the CARP recomendations, though I'm no webcaster so I'm not sure if these rates are good or not ..." nbrimhall points to a bit more at soma fm as well. Update: 06/20 21:54 GMT by M : See our last story for background information. The final rates are nothing to cheer about: most webcasters will not be able to afford them. Update: 06/21 03:13 GMT by T : An anonymous reader points out the continuing coverage at kurthanson.com, including reactions from Reps. Boucher and Inslee.

Last week, you posted your questions to SomaFM's General Manger, Rusty, and today he delivers. In this interview: answers about CARP (which was wisely rejected by the Library of Congress, this week), the RIAA, the workings of an internet radio station, and of course, Big URL.

1) how much does the recording industry really care?
by Laplace

I was curious to know how much the recording industry cares about small stations. Do you think that the Recording Industry Association of America is going to come after these tiny internet broadcasters, some of which are run out of someone's bedroom, and actually try to enforce this legislation? Given the bandwidth small stations operate on, their lack of mainstream exposure, and the tiny bang for the (litigious) buck, it seems that the record industry can spend their resources elsewhere with greater effect.

Rusty:

I think the RIAA is very concerned with small broadcasters, and that they will go after them the same way they've gone after small web sites that post MP3 files. Just like the movie companies were sending cease and desist letters to all the fan sites out there.

Think about it, just in the last few months we've been hearing about how the RIAA's been suing companies who have MP3s on company fileservers.

If you can stay under the radar, more power to you. But once you start getting more than 50 concurrent listeners, you'll start getting their attention. Small stations have been getting letters from ASCAP and BMI for a long time, and the RIAA stands to gain much higher revenues than they do. With the proposed rates of 0.14 cents per song per listener, that works out to roughly $0.50 a day per concurrent listener, or $180 a year per concurrent listener. You can see that even a small station with 10 average concurrent listeners could owe them a decent amount of money each year.

I think they'll come after anyone listed in a popular listing directory, be that Shoutcast.com or the Icecast YP.

This whole CARP thing also seems more about control by the record companies rather than just pure monetary greed. The major labels only want to push their superstars. They're not interested in a diverse marketplace. CARP isn't just about money, it also includes some overly burdensome reporting requirements (including stupid things like each listeners time zone!). To me, it's pretty obvious that the major labels want to control what the public is listening to. That's why they're paying huge amounts in "legal payola" to the big broadcast chains. They don't want independent programmers fragmenting their potential audience.

And the way they'll enforce it is by going after the ISPs. The DMCA has some pretty clear methods for dealing with that. So it will be simple for the RIAA to use provisions of the DMCA to shut down the ones that aren't worth suing.

2) Thoughts about Digital Rights Management?
by SPYvSPY

Given the availability of programs like streamripper (and others like it, I guess), do you have any plans to accomodate the myriad of digital rights management schemes in the pipeline? Which, if any, do you support or intend to implement? Do you think that you have an obligation to do so? BTW, keep up the good work. I can say with total sincerity that your stations have introduced me music that I would otherwise never have heard. I thank you, (and so does my iPod). ;)

Rusty:

The bottom line is that DRM doesn't work. It's like a speed bump, not a barrier. You can always use something like Total Recorder to record the bits going to the sound drivers. You can always plug a minidisc recorder into the audio outs on your computer. And you can always make a cassette off of the radio.

That being said we're not big fans of streamrippers. Bandwidth costs real money, and we have licensing fees (ASCAP/BMI) that are based on numbers of listeners and revenue. If someone is streamripping all day long, and they're not listening, they're costing us money. The latest versions of the Shoutcast server as well as the Shoutcast YP are not too friendly to streamrippers but again, that's just another speedbump.

Streamrippers do have their place for time-shifting, and taking a program with you in the car or on your iPod. But in those cases, you'd be ripping a continuous chunk of audio, not trying to split it up into discrete audio tracks. After all, we want people to listen to our full presentation. We may implement things to make it harder to split the tracks automatically.

As for an obligation to implement other forms of DRM, I guess I would have to see what that DRM was. And since our music is segued and we talk over the intros, when people do streamrip us they're not getting cleanly split versions of the tracks we're playing anyway!

3) Pirate Mythology
by tcd004

Right now Internet Radio enjoys a sort of "pirate" image, which I think endears it to many people because they feel like they're supporting independent media.

However, my guess is that as it grows and becomes more profitable, most Internet radio is bound to end up owned by 2-5 big players, as is the case with most other media. Do you expect internet radio to get bought up like the movie studios, local TV stations and radio stations, or do you think it will be able to stay independent?

Would mergers and consolidation ruin internet radio, or would it help it?

Rusty:

I'm not sure I agree with the "pirate" terminology, but I get your drift. We're independent, we're not mainstream, we're an alternative, we're indie, we're not part of the system.

I disagree that internet radio will be owned by several big players. Remember, net radio doesn't have the limitations that over the air broadcast stations do. There are a limited number of over the air stations in each city. This is because broadcast radio spectrum is limited (the FM band is twenty whole megahertz wide, the AM bandwidth is just over one megahertz wide!) However, the net is different, while not infinite there is a whole lot of room out there for content. There are over 3,000 stations listed in Shoutcast.com right now, and I'm sure there is an equal number of stations in other formats. There are less than 13,000 FCC licensed AM and FM stations in the United States. In all major metro markets, there is no more room for additional AM/FM stations. There is plenty of room for more stations in the 'net.

Will there be mergers and consolidation? Probably. Will this ruin it? Probably not. Here's how I see it: I think you'll see lots of stations join together into "groups". Maybe they'll be ad supported, and sell ads across the group. Maybe they'll be subscription based, and by subscribing to the group, you'll have access to all the member stations.

I'm sure a lot of stations will "sell out" to big media companies. And then their programming will get just as boring as the programming from the big media companies. Which in turn will mean that people who are tired of the same old shit will look for something different, the kind of programming only being played on the stations that didn't sell out.

I see it as a continual flow, a cycle almost. Would we sell out? Right now we are running purely on donations and donated bandwidth, so if someone offered us a way to keep running it like it is now with guaranteed bandwidth and actually pay me a salary, that would be great. There is also a lot of things we'd like to do to improve the quality of our streams but they'd all cost money. Same with our plans for additional channels. We've got plans for 6 more niche channels in the works but we can't afford to get them going at this time.

SomaFM could even go away tomorrow not due to CARP, but if everyone suddenly pulled their bandwidth. Donations aren't going to come close to covering the potential bandwidth bill of $12,000-20,000 a month. That really isn't control.

4) Cutting out RIAA music
by mcc

Something that has been brought up a couple times in other threads, and that I am kind of curious about:

The CARP is something the RIAA is imposing, correct?

Does this or does this not mean that if an internet radio station were certain to only play music by non-RIAA artists, it could stay in business? It would not be terribly easy to find material for a net radio station that only played independent music, but it would be possible, i think, and at the least i'd listen to it.

But am i just confused? Would that be feasible from a royalties standpoint? What exactly is the royalties relationship between independent record labels and internet radio, before or after CARP?

One more small question: the page on CARP on your site says that non-US broadcasters would not be subject to the CARP fees. How would this work out? Would this just mean that anyone in Canada would be able to netcast worldwide without having to pay any fees other than the ones imposed by their government? Or would stations outside the U.S. be barred from netcasting to U.S. citizens? If stations outside the U.S. are allowed to run free, what would the regulations say about a server in the U.S. that is just repeating what is being broadcast by an internet streaming radio station located outside the U.S.-- so that the lag created by the internet links that go across the atlantic ocean are minimized. Could a repeater of this sort be classified as just another router, or would the repeater be subject to the CARP payments?

Thanks for clarifying things.. just curious. Hopefully, the LoC will see through this blatant attempt by the RIAA to silence internet radio and none of the above questions will ever become an issue. I wish you luck..

Rusty:

The CARP is the outcome of a provision of the DMCA known as the compulsory license. What that means, is that an internet broadcaster can get a license to broadcast any recorded works without getting prior permission from the copyright holder. The compulsory part means that the copyright owners must give it to you. In return the CARP set a royalty fee that would be paid to Sound Exchange, an unincorporated division of the RIAA. Sound Exchange is then obligated to distribute that money to the copyright owners and the performance artists, after keeping a cut for their efforts.

If a radio station was to get permission from the holder of the copyright of the sound recording - they could broadcast it without being subject to the DMCA compulsory license. It would not be easy to do this, and would require a lot of paperwork, but it could be done. The biggest issues that arise is what happens when the copyright is sold? This has happened with many electronica artists. They created the recording, they gave us permission to play it. But then they sold it to a record label who no longer gives us permission to play it. So the only way in that case we can play it is through the compulsory license.

This is what is hurting SomaFM the most. When we started back in 1999, we were playing unknown obscure ambient music. Labels would contact us after finding their tracks in the playlists and thank us for playing them. But as ambient electronica became more and more popular, big labels started buying the rights. Now those big labels won't even return our emails... and we're the people who did so much to expose and popularize their artists.

As for non-US broadcasters, the CARP fees don't apply to them, but similar, albeit substantially lesser, fees do. European stations have to pay a "Phonographic Performance License". My understanding is that this is a 3-6% of revenue fee. Stations outside the US won't run free, they'll just run at an affordable, reasonable rate.

As to the question of whether repeaters would be considered a "source of broadcast", we are not sure and it will probably take a court challenge to clarify it.

5) Royalties loophole?
by Dan Crash

The statutory royalty rate for Internet simulcasts of FM radio broadcasts is only half that of Internet-only broadcasts. So couldn't any web station cut their royalties in half by spending $34.95 (plus shipping) to buy a micro-FM transmitter?

Here's what the law says in Title 17, ? 114. Scope of exclusive rights in sound recordings:

The performance of a sound recording publicly by means of a digital audio transmission, other than as a part of an interactive service, is not an infringement of section 106(6) if the performance is part of ...a nonsubscription broadcast transmission.

It doesn't require you to be a licensed or noncommercial broadcaster, simply that your performance is broadcast freely over the airwaves.

Has the webcasting industry looked into this loophole at all? Seems to me that cutting your operating expenses roughly in half could be the difference between economic life and death for most companies.

Rusty:

You are correct that the compulsory rate for Internet simulcasts of FM radio broadcasts is only half that of Internet-only broadcasts. However, that is still a huge amount of money. For SomaFM, that would still amount to over $150,000 for the next year, or about 6-7 times our estimated revenues.

But buying a micro FM transmitter doesn't help. If you read further on, you'll note that Section 114 of Title 17 defines a "broadcast" transmission a transmission made by a terrestrial broadcast station licensed as such by the Federal Communications Commission.

Remember, in the US, you can't broadcast freely over the airwaves except in certain designated bands, and then only within certain limits.

6) Fraunhofer, and OGG Vorbis
by E1ven

What amount do you currently pay in MP3 liscensing, in order to stream SomaFM over the internet?

With all the threats and attacks to MP3 streaming by Fraunhofer, have you considered moving to streaming OGG Vorbis files?

As Winamp is now shipping with native support, this could be a good way of shaving down some of the fees regarding your business.

Rusty:

We are not paying licensing fees to Fraunhofer, although we do own a licensed copy of their encoder. We currently use LAME for all Mp3 streams.

We are intrigued with OGG Vorbis compression, and would like to start experimenting with it soon. We've been kind of kind of busy with all the politicking lately to spend time on technical experiments.

There are a few problems we face: all our music is currently stored as high bit rate MP3 files. (192-320kb). From what I've seen, OGG does not do a good job recompressing MP3 files. Our broadcast playback software plays back and segues music files, does some audio processing (automatic gain control and some light dynamics compression), sends the bit stream to the LAME encoder and then onto the server. This sounds pretty good even though in the end, the listener is getting a file that has been double MP3 compressed. But add OGG to that equation, and the recompression could sound pretty bad. We still have to experiment with this more. OGG is in our future. As storage gets cheaper, we'll re-encode our music in a non-lossy format.

And as soon as Tag and Tom ship a version of the Shoutcast DSP with OGG codec support that is stable, we'll start running an experimental stream.

7) Popular (internet) music on the Radio?
by Traa

As much as I love internet radio and hope to see it stay I have been wondering why some of the more popular music themes on the internet are not available on commercial radio. I am talking about the sounds of SomaFM's Groove Salad, Digitally Imported and other internet radio stations playing Ambient, Trance or any of the other more mellow versions of Electronic House. What in your opinion is the reason we can't find these styles on commercial radio?

Best of luck and keep up the good work!

Rusty:

The audience isn't big enough to make it worthwhile to advertisers. The broadcast band isn't big enough to hold fringe formats. Formats succeed on internet radio because the audience is NOT limited to a geographical area. I think the place you'll see these formats first is satellite radio. We've talked a bit to XM, but they are still under the impression that electronic music = dance music. They don't realize how broad the genre is, and lumping them all together would be like mixing Dixieland jazz and blues and smooth jazz together on the same channel. XM is starting to come around and we've been told that they're actively considering some type of "Chill Out / Downtempo" channel.

8) Will CARP (crap) affect overseas operators?
by an Anonymous Coward

The beauty of the Internet is that no single government (or stupid government person) could stop an entire class of service - look at Internet gambling. That said, why not relocate to a co/lo service in India?

Or, better yet, just run amok of the law? Last I heard, the Library of Congress is a library, not an authorized body to create policy. Since they are attempting to do so, why not block them on the grounds that they are exceeding their charter, and therefore, acting against the constitution?

Also, the fact that internet based transmissions are treated differently than FM based transmissions is ridiculous. This is the foundation of the "separate but equal" crap that CARP is funnelling.

128k MP3 (and less) is not a perfect reproduction of sound, as the LoC contends. It is no more perfect than FM, and no less perfect. Both formats mangle stereo separation, both add audio artifacts, and both deduct from clarity and depth of the source's timbre. The only real difference is one is digital, and the other analog.

And both formats HELP drive record sales. The big difference to the RIAA is that they don't control the channels of distribution for MP3 servers. All SomaFM, or any other internet broadcaster needs is a music library, a fast connection to the net and powerful servers. In order to broadcast on the air, you need to give some slimy FCC official a kickback, and/or be owned by TimeWarnerAOL, Vivendi, or Viacom.

I can't help but see the future of the RIAA - all the offices burned to the ground and the leadership decapitated. This another one of those infuriating instances where their feeble attempts at limiting distribution channels so that everyone listens to the same, soulless crap that record producers are puking at us.

Rusty:

Why not set up in India? Well, I like living in San Francisco and can't afford to move to India (I have to have a day job to pay my bills, SomaFM loses money). So we'd have to "virtually" run out of India and control things from here. That's a pretty lose loophole and won't protect us. It sounds good in theory but when you dive into it you realize that we would still be a target for the RIAA. Unless we were buying the CDs here and mailing them over there to be digitized and loaded into playback systems over there, we would still be breaking copyright law. Not to mention we could never do any more live broadcasts from the US. So that option is out.

While the Library of Congress is only setting the royalty rate, they're not charged with enforcing the law. The law is set in place by the DMCA. And as I get older, it's scary enough for me when I get a letter from the IRS, let alone a knock on the door from the FBI.

If we were rich enough, and had enough money or a bunch of lawyer friends, we would form a LLC and challenge them. But just to give you an idea of what it would cost- the costs associated with being a part of the original CARP hearings came out to $300,000 per each participant. Yahoo and MTV can afford that, but we can't.

Keep in mind that CARP only sets the fees that are required by the DMCA. We can't change provisions of the DMCA by going after the Library of Congress, or complaining about CARP. We can only hope to get a fee basis from CARP that will not bankrupt internet stations.

9) Business Model
by Everach

How does SomaFM compare fiscally to a traditional FM or AM business?

Specifically, are there any fiscal advantages to using an internet-only format to outweight the disadvanges (like a lack of big-name advertising)?

Rusty:

The fiscal advantages to being internet-only:

Massively lower startup costs. We were able to get started almost immediately. Even if we could have gotten a license and construction permit to build a new FM station, it would have taken a year with all the regulations you have to go through. Not to mention the ongoing regulations that over the air stations have to deal with (FCC licenses bring with them lots of FCC mandated record keeping and such).

The disadvantages:

Incremental costs increase as audience increases (bandwidth mostly). Can't reach people in cars, which are a huge potential audience. We don't get respect from record companies (e.g. we have to call and beg just to get copies of CDs, they rarely automatically send them to us), nor do we get the legalized payola known as indie promotion to play their music.

But to me, the most important thing is the global reach we get by being internet only. We can now get decent sized audiences for extremely niche music genres and formats.

10) Big Earl [spelled 'Big URL' actually] by hitchhacker

Hi Rusty, thanks for the beautiful music!

I wanted to know what you use for Big Earl's voice synthesis. It sounds awfully similar to Dr. Sbaitso from the early 90's.

Also, I noticed that there are many songs that have disapeared from Groove Salad's playlist from around last year. (GOOD songs). I wanted to know if this is because you were forced to remove them, and how many other artists/labels are being held back this way. This music is so good it gives me goose-bumps, and I can't stand the thought that there is more that I am missing.

my letter is off to my controllers^H^H^H^H^Hrepresentatives.

Rusty:

Big Url's voice is driven by an old bell labs text to speech demonstration site. He's the "Big Man" voice. Google for Bell Labs TTS and you'll find it. Sadly, the site crashes from time to time - I'm not sure but I get the feeling it's one old timer who keeps the site working. We're glad whoever keeps it up does, because we'd miss his voice otherwise.

The only songs that have disappeared are songs that we only had in MP2 format and have lost the original CDs for them. We try and re-encode them as we re-discover them. The reason for this is that the playback automation software we now use (from OtsJuke.com) only handles MP3 compression. But there were less than 50 songs that way. I don't think there are any others we are missing, we generally don't completely remove songs, we just play them a lot less frequently. In the last year, we've removed less than 20 songs from the playlist. There are probably close to 15,000 tracks that we play on the air.

This week, Rusty, the general manager of Internet Radio's SomaFM, is the subject of the Slashdot Interview Spotlight. Some of you may remember Rusty from a recent Salon interview. Now he's making himself available to Slashdot and I'm sure you all can figure out a few questions to ask that weren't covered before. I'm sure many of you have questions about CARP, the future of Internet Radio, and the technology behind it. So let's get to it! As usual, we'll send off the 10 highest moderated questions on to Rusty, and we hope to have the answers for you sometime next week. <PLUG TYPE=SHAMELESS>BTW - If you haven't checked out the streams available at SomaFM, give it a try. Taste the Groove Salad, and the other 8 commercial free streams available on SomaFM. Ah, if only normal FM radio could be this good!</PLUG>

This week, Rusty, the general manager of Internet Radio's SomaFM, is the subject of the Slashdot Interview Spotlight. Some of you may remember Rusty from a recent Salon interview. Now he's making himself available to Slashdot and I'm sure you all can figure out a few questions to ask that weren't covered before. I'm sure many of you have questions about CARP, the future of Internet Radio, and the technology behind it. So let's get to it! As usual, we'll send off the 10 highest moderated questions on to Rusty, and we hope to have the answers for you sometime next week. <PLUG TYPE=SHAMELESS>BTW - If you haven't checked out the streams available at SomaFM, give it a try. Taste the Groove Salad, and the other 8 commercial free streams available on SomaFM. Ah, if only normal FM radio could be this good!</PLUG>

curunir writes: "Salon is running an interesting interview with the program manager for the internet radio station, SomaFM. He discusses some of the effects of the recent CARP recommendations (previously discussed on /. here). We all know the DMCA is bad, but this seems to be a particularly good example of where its broad nature is curbing reasonable web uses."