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RIAA and Royalties From Webcasters
kootch sent us a story explaining something I didn't know about. Radio broadcasters pay a royalty to the composer & publisher to play a song. The record company doesn't get anything. But under the terms of the DMCA, the recording industry is trying to collect royalties from webcasters who are streaming audio.
So why should RIAA want to, or be allowed to, insert themselves into this picture? Are you relatively unique in paying royalties? Even if you are, why is another collection/distribution system needed?
The aspect of the article that struck me wsa that RIAA is trying to differentiate webcasting from traditiional broadcasting. I just don't see why that is valid.
"Our agreement with Yahoo confirms that music on the Internet will thrive when parties work together," said Hilary Rosen, president and chief executive officer of the RIAA
What this means is that Any agreement which involves RIAA would succeed, because they could use their clout to bludgeon through any opposition from both Artists and public.
This sickens me and anyone out there, something goes wrong in any industry and the Govt steps in to mend the ways, or so it says. M$ Trial is one, RIAA and MPAA are other two stories. Now now.. Microsoft probably deserved most of it, but its setting a dangerous trend. Inviting the Govt to tend to squabbles, which then uses mass media to brainwash people behind it, spread dogma and try to instill wrong notions amidst the public about whats right and wrong.
RIAA wants to become the Iron Curtain behind which Big Arm Record companies could flourish, just like what Firms used to do by paying a cut to the Mafia. Theres no difference here, only here the Govt is doing it. The beaureacrats would try to control technology because they dont understand it, and they fear anything that they dont comprehend.
I could be wrong, but then there are others who think the same.
Rapid Nirvana
And the major labels
Yup UhHUH
They are only looking after my best intrests after all. and ANOTHER 300 boys bands all singing the same souless crap is in my best intrests.
And it is not like Record Execs have a bad rep in the morality department.
Right....
Right....
please tell me I am right.......
Yes I can not spell...Wait....for a second there I almost cared.
Not really. Radio stations can use a variety of methods to get around this. There is, AFAIK, no standard contract for a radio station to play a certain song.
And there are many ways that a radio station can play a song more often then others without paying more money for it (i.e. the publishers are not asking for money or even paying the station):
1) Play a few songs, including the one you want to play often, and ask listeners to call in to vote on the one they like best. Play the ones they liked best again later. If this doesn't result in playing that song again, skew the results so it does.
2) Have each DJ play it at least once during their shift. You'll get the song played 4-6 times a day this way.
3) Hold a promotional event around the album the song is on. The publishers of the album will help with this, more often then not. Give away free albums, posters, concert tickets to listeners who call in when the song is played. Do this all week long. You can play the song more often then normally because people are winning something.
See how this can be done?
Now, here's the problems that the publishers have with web-broadcasting:
1) You never know who's playing your songs. Publishers love looking at station demographics as this affects their marketing strategy.
2) You never know how they got your song. Did they download it illegally? Get a dupe from a friend?
3) Song quality. Radio stations tend to get new copies of CDs if the old ones get messed up. Web-casters rarely have enough money to replace damaged music. Song quality does affect how the song is received by listeners. If it's really grainy or scratchy, then what incentive does someone who doesn't own the album have to go buy it?
4) Royalties. Let's face it. People are greedy. Not just song publishers, kids. Also, when recording from a radio broadcast, you're likely to get a bad recording. If recording from a web-cast, you can (not will, can) get much better quality for your own home recordings. Publishers hate the thought of anyone owning the album without paying for it.
Just some points...
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
Maybe I ought to get the RIAA's lawyer's on them? If it backfires and the music is offered free in exchange for more playing time, I'll sue the RIAA for promoting a public nuisence(sp?)
- Signed,
Man with broom handle holes in ceiling
It's sort of like having the radio station pay the the publisher to use the music, then the publisher paying back the radio station to be rotated and played more on the playlist.
In some cases this goes to an even higher extreme, with the publisher not accepting pay at all (the radio station gets the music for free, but must play it often) or even the publisher paying the radio station (where they then have to play it very often).
I know that is how the major station here in New York, K-Rock, does it.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
If the webcaster is operating in a radio-style format, then the royalties should be paid to ASCAP/BMI as they are by a radio station. By radio-style I mean the content is decided on the server-side, as opposed to a juke-box style, where the client determines the content.
17 USC 112(e)(1)(D)
If so, what's wrong with such a clause? And why the mention of antitrust laws?
--
Webcaster on the other hand have a very low entrance fee, but the cost of broadcasting raises as the listener base increases. For instance I have a 768K DSL line, and I am streaming out a 128Kbps stream. Now each listener will suck approx 14K/sec of bandwidth (once you add TCP header etc..). so that means that means that I can support a total of about 50-52 listeners before my connection maxes out. My DSL connection cost me $140 a month. That means I spent roughhly $2.69 per listener, per month.
Who taught you math? You can support 6 listeners with no TCP or UDP overhead and assuming you have SDSL. 5 will max you out completely well with ADSL. You got KB and Kb mixed up. Plus you divided 128 by 10 not 8. A 14KB/s stream is only good for 96Kbps MP3. If you really have a 7 MEGABIT DSL line for $140 please put me in touch with your provider!
Ok that is over a quarter-million dollars a month, so why dont you tell me how traditional media has a higher profit/listener ratio?
I didn't. I said Internet radio has a higher profit per listener. It has to.
There are also better ways to scale to multiple users than your linear model using MBONE and multicast routing. But yes, it's still more expensive.
~GoRK
Yes. You could; but they probably wouldn't let you.
You would have to first, start a business to do this. Secondly, you would have to report your playlists to ASCAP, SESAC, and BMI. Thirdly, you would have to send them your company's financials along with the coming year's budget and plans for growth. Lastly, you have to make sure that the music you are "broadcasting" is licensed under ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC. Things like bootlegs, concert recordings, etc. are not, and they will nail you for "broadcasting" that kind of stuff if you're not licensed for it. Lastly, you would actually have to make it available as a public broadcast as per the terms of your contracts with the licensors.
All in all, trying to do somehting like this would be pretty cool, but it would probably get you into a legal mess that you wouldn't want to be in.
~GoRK
Not only in the Netherlands. Even in Canadia, we're taxed^H^H^H^H^Hcharged a levy on blank audio(and data) media. Info here.
I wish there was a stricter law on DJs who find it necessary to talk over beginnings of songs. Or in worse cases on Friday and Saturday nights, holding telephone conversations with dumb listeners before the vocals kick in. Hey now, the beginning 20 seconds of a song is part of the song too, so why do the DJs have to trample over it? And yes, we know what station we are listening to, so we don't need to be reminded on every song.
I miss Rev 105. They woulnd't do that shit(okay, maybe they did, it's been a while)
The really sad part is that the artists really get very little out of this arrangement. After taking a very healthy cut off the top, ASCAP (et al) divvy up what's left according to a complicated formula that mostly takes into account current record sales & radio airplay. This means that a radio station that plays only Classic Rock pays in royalties for playing Pink Floyd & Led Zepplin, and then ASCAP pays that money out to Brittney Spears & N*Synch (or whatever other no-talent studio creation is at the top of the charts this week). The whole music industry is built around screwing the artists, as Courtney Love points out so well in her famous rant.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
Public Domain? HA! Nothing ever goes into the public domain anymore, not with the giant mouse of doom extending copyrights to the end of time; and don't even try to hide behind "fair use", the MPAA and RIAA are making sure that every possible circumstance is exempted from fair use.
performance rights and the printing of the sheet music is protected.
I don't think this is true, as long as the song was written before Walt made The Mouse (IE in the public domain), you are free to recreate the song in sheet music form or as sound waves as much as you like. Who would you pay the royalties to? The grandchildren of the composer? That totally violates the entire purpose of copyrights.
Dang, in the preview window this looks like shameless karma whoring. Oh well.
I read the internet for the articles.
Here in the U.S., businesses such as hair salons that play music radio stations have been targeted for fees. I'm not comnpletely certain, but I believe that if they play CDs, they're expected to also pay a fee for giving a 'performance'. I'm sure if the industry could figure out a way to get away with it, they'd find a way to charge you for playing your own CDs in your home.
All the desperate attempts to control what I want to listen to and/or watch drives me absolutely nuts.
The 14-year period specified in the original copyright law sounded pretty good. About the only modification I might suggest is something requiring that the listener/viewer always have a way of determining the creator(s) of the copyrighted work, even after the copyright has expired, with the criminal penalty of fraud if someone tries to pass off someone else's work as theirs.
The difference is that background music is just that -- background. That's not the primary reason people are coming. A live band probably IS the focus, and should [maybe] pay royalties if they are getting paid to perform. Part of me agrees with you regarding movies; but honestly, I think once a studio releases a movie to videotape or DVD they are pretty much giving up any right to tell you what you can do with the copy you purchased -- except to BROADCAST it, which is different than exhibiting it in a particular public place.
By your definition I should pay royalties for singing in the shower if my neighbor can hear me doing it. Everyone who plays their car stereo loudly enough for anyone in another car should pay royalties [actually, I think those rude fsckers should be flogged, but that's another rant.]
I think there's somthing very wrong with this sense of entitlement the entertainment industry has for getting paid every time a piece of recorded music/film gets played. Pay-per-view schemes like DivX are the media companies' wet dream. If they had their way, EVERYTHING you watch or listen to would be ppv or time-limited. Imagine buying your music on a cd-r with encrypted contents. You can only play it on a "blessed" player, and after you've played it N times, your player goes into write mode and erases it. It's only a matter of time before somebody trys a scheme like that.
Intellectual property law is broken. It does not reflect the realities of the modern era.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
Well it is sort of valid in my opinion because the two are very different mediums. In broadcast radio, stations make money through traditional revenue (advertising on air) and non-traditional revenue (promotions, merchandising, etc.) The problem is really that schedule fees for ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC have been heavily weighted against the traditional revenue -- of which webcasters generally have little to none because they use banner ads! Plus the fact that webcasting *is* different from regular broadcasts. It can be much higer quality, much more "on-demand," and have a higher profit/listener radio than traditional broadcasters. They need a new model.
ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC are changing policies to reflect the new medium, but because of the 'small pebbles' sort of problem in dealing with webcasters, they don't exactly have the facilities to deal with them effectively. (It took us 5 months to get BMI to notice us!)
I would be greatful for a better (or at least effective) method of licensing webcasters. I don't really care who does it either. Let RIAA create and spin off some entity that licenses webcasts like ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC do. Heck, they could even handle bulk licensing with these three big licensers and sell small license packages to webcasters just to sort of streamline the whole process.
The point is that the current system doesn't fit webcasting. That's all. At least someone's finally talking about it and not just denying that internet-only radio stations do exist and are thriving without traditional revenue models.
~GoRK
All they want to do is squash the small net radio operators just like they do to the meatspace radio stations. If you aren't part of the big "family" you don't get to play the "good" music unless you pay this different/higher rate. All it is going to do is force some webcasters underground, and therefore we will generate a pirate web-radio genre because of this greed.
Most radio operators that operate Pirate radio, WANT desperately to run a legal station. But the big guys like the RIAA,BMI,FCC,etc.... do not want them to and therefore make it impossible for them to operate legally. (You try and start a station after paying almost 600Grand USD for the transmitter that is no better than a non-FCC certified transmitter, but has the shiny sticker, and then get gouged by BMI at the tune of $15,000 a year to play their music. After you notify them that you are actually a pee-wee power station (Less than 5KW and dont have the same coverage than the megawatt station down the street) and they reply with, we dont care.
It is easier and safer to run a pirate station than it is to run a legal station. I know of 1 station here in michigan that has ran for 5 years now as pirate. They sound better than the top40 stations, and to a casual listener do not sound illegal.
nobody reports them because they act like real radio, not the pirate crap that typically is broadcast... (you know, the 13 year old spewing 20 minutes of profanity, screaming for anarchy, and playing acid punk while overdeviating by 50%)
I look foreward to the new pirate webradio the RIAA is forcing us to create!
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Bar owners - yes absolutely. They owe royalties on music that they play on their jukeboxes, in their DJ booths, and for covers that live bands play. They can't just go to the store and buy a CD for private use and then play it publicly -- the same way you couldn't open a movie theater and play copies of films you bought at WalMart (even if you didnt charge for it!). Bar owners are the absolute worst to whine about laws they don't know about and raise a stink about it. But a camp fire shakedown?- hmm seems the urban legend filter is kicking in there. Unless of course it was something like the popular Cowboy Breakfast things in TX ranches, where you will have 100-200 people out to your "campfire" and have a band playing country music or something. They owe ASCAP too.
I hate dealing with these people as much as anybody, but your statement about ASCAP is totally off base. If you report properly to ASCAP about your music, they make sure that the funds get to the proper artists.
~GoRK
Ok I agree with you that it can be "higher quality", and I agree that it can be "on demand", but I will have to totally disagree with concerning the profit/listener ratio. There are a couple of problems concerning webcasting. Where do you expect the profits to come from? In traditional media you have a local audio and local adverisements there is also a fairly clear demographic that you can target. With internet broadcasting there is no local regions or targets, everything in global, which make it a little harder to bordcast.
Also take into consideration that the volume of listeners is alot smaller for webcasting. The most popular station in shoutcast right now pulls about 700 people during peak hours. There is one more thing for you to chew on. In traditional radio there is an entrance fee for setting up the equipment which is expensive, but the cost of broadcasting remains fairly constant regardless of how many people are listening.
Webcaster on the other hand have a very low entrance fee, but the cost of broadcasting raises as the listener base increases. For instance I have a 768K DSL line, and I am streaming out a 128Kbps stream. Now each listener will suck approx 14K/sec of bandwidth (once you add TCP header etc..). so that means that means that I can support a total of about 50-52 listeners before my connection maxes out. My DSL connection cost me $140 a month. That means I spent roughhly $2.69 per listener, per month.
Ok lets take this picture and scale it up some. A popular Seattle radio estimates that I gets about 110,000 listeners on avaerage. Lets apply a little math and see how much it would cost to supply a stream to that audience.
2.69 * 110000 = 269000.
Ok that is over a quarter-million dollars a month, so why dont you tell me how traditional media has a higher profit/listener ratio?
We're talking like 100 bucks per year, for Christ's sake!
The most bizzare thing about paying these royalties is that as long as the songs we play are covered under the licenses, we can obtain the music via any source and broadcast it legally.
So what you are saying is that for a few hundred bucks a year I can get all the music I want from any source as long as I broadcast it? Ok, sign me up- Forget paying $20 a CD when I can get just about every song on the planet for $300. I'll just broadcast to myself.
Of course the record company wants to collect royalties! The development and adoption of the Internet as a medium surpases anything ever seen with either Radio or Television. The RIAA is looking at the Internet as the biggest cash cow to hit the world EVER. You have to expect the recording industry to do everthing in their power to get their fist into our pockets. It makes good business sense. A lot of people claim that the RIAA is trying to shutdown Napster, Scour, etc. because they "Don't get it." This is not the case. The Recording Industry "Gets it" probably more than anyone else (slashdotters like me included.) The RIAA is going to continue to appear to fight "internet technologies" like streaming webcasts of music, file sharing and the like BECAUSE they are great technologies. The RIAA just wishes that they had developed them first so they could be the ones making the profits. The RIAA will, of course, try and shut them all down so that in a few years, when they are ready with their business plan, they can mimic the exact same technologies themselves. And make the money from them.
Brought to you by Frobozz Magic Penguin Fodder.
I'm just wondering when the RIAA will start charging me for playing music at home.
I wonder if there will be and added surcharge depending on the number of people in my house at the time.
Also, will the RIAA charge me depending on the number of pets I have who might listen to the music being played.
I'm sure someone's mentioned this before, but we really should just put ads into Napster and pay artists royalties from that. I think that Napster has at least the advertising potential of radio. I mean, five million users.
Sure, some of us would get around the ads, but most people wouldn't. They wouldn't really get in the way or anything.
It's an idea that needs work, sure, but I think it would be good. I certainly have no problems giving the artists the money they've earned, it's when the RIAA gets involved that I complain.
I run the technical operations for a larger webcast company (one that produces our own music stations). For a very long time now, we have been paying ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC fees just like traditional broadcast stations.
I'm sorry for all the shoutcast people out there, but legally, if you run a radio station for profit or not, be it Internet or Broadcast, you have to either pay royalties through ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC or you can alternatively negotiate with *EACH INDIVIDUAL ARTIST WHOSE RECORDINGS YOU PLAY*.. in practice you have to really do both, as many independant bands are not signed or covered under ASCAP BMI or SESAC licensing.
Another thing I should mention is that these fees are NOT EVEN EXPENSIVE for small stations (read: stations with little to no profit) We're talking like 100 bucks per year, for Christ's sake!
The most bizzare thing about paying these royalties is that as long as the songs we play are covered under the licenses, we can obtain the music via any source and broadcast it legally. We usually get our music via promotional lists directly from record companies, but if we wanted to, we could LEGALLY download and broadcast music from Napster users! I know of many regular broadcast stations in the midwest that are gaining an extra day or two (mailing lead time) by downloading music from Napster so that they can play the songs one or two days ahead of competing stations.
What a twisted mess this all is, isn't it?!?
~GoRK
The complaint is not just against the recording industry - it is just that they are the ones with which more people on this forum are familiar.
Oh wait, I just re-read your post and realized it is a troll - never mind.
Why?
.ca, .uk, .de, .fr, .es, .it, .jp, .au ......
Why should there be two different standards?
The recording industry and motion picture industry of America are the most bureaucratic fascist set of companies on earth.
If your ideas are not in vogue, meaning not some copy of a prior successful movie, you can zark off and put your idea in the drek pile.
You say, what about Blair Witch Project. Fair enough, the guys that shot it couldn't show it at Sundance and had set up the film co execs to see it at a restaurant. Fine. It takes some big courage to do that sort of thing (unless you're in SoCal, The Pit Of All Evil, in which case the LAPD will beat your sorry ass if they don't shoot you first).
These industries, like any established megalithic company, are refusing to change with the times. If the RIMPAA wanted to, they could have embraced MP3 and downloadable distribution. But their claims of '(potential) piracy' and 'artist's rights' (laugh now) swayed Sonny Bono's widow (who probably would've done this anyway, considering the speed with which she took his seat) to make a new copyright length of life plus 70 years for humans and 95 years for coroporations. (This means that a good number of copyrights will be held longer by a corporation than by a person's estate.)
But back to the issue. The difference between a broadcaster and a bandcaster is that the broadcaster paid the FCC a truckload of cash for broadcast rights and is highly regulated, while the bandcaster doesn't pay nearly as much in connection costs (unless dude's sucking on a T3 or higher), doesn't have the same rules to follow, and can reach people worldwide.
If the RIMPAA starts charging, expect a lot of bandcasters to move to domains ending with a
Nothing like extranational status to protect your sorry ass..
I used to be someone else. Now I'm someone better.
Real life is underrated.
This one is a little thick, but it's a nice biased look at what ASCAP/BMI are all about. Whether the RIAA or ASCAP/BMI control the online version of this extortion scheme so they can continue to foist bad music on the public is irrelevant.
I do not have a signature
Can be found at:
http://www.ascap.com/weblicense/license.html
I still don't understand exactly who a publisher is, and what they do (other than collect money).
Examples?
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
also, if you run a bar and live music is played, you should pay ASCAP a yearly fee which would cover you for bands playing "cover-tunes." and believe it or not, ASCAP enforces this by sending detectives to bars where bands are playing, seeing if bands cover songs by ASCAP artists (eg Freebird by Lynard Skynard) and then if they have not paid the yearly ASCAP fee, they sue them (or offer them the chance to buy one with a fine attached. ) this happened to my buddy's bar in TX. i never knew that existed.
ASCAP, as i understand, it is an organization that looks out for the well-being of the artists.
RIAA is an organization that looks out for the record labels.
/* Half alive and half dead too, work is for suckers and the sucker is you. - "Half-life" by Local H*/
Wouldn't a Record Company BE a publisher?
I think ASCAP and BMI and all collect the fees, and then redistribute them to artists and publishers, which may include record companies.
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.