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Webcasting and the DMCA
nknouf writes: "A recent article on Salon talks about how college radio stations that webcast could face fee increases from $623/year to $10,000 to $20,000 per year. What's more interesting is information that Congress is considering a bill called the Music On-Line Competition Act, co-sponsored by Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah and Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va. The bill aims to "break the hammerlock the recording industry has over music distribution." My favorite quote, from Rep. Cannon: Napster is "one of the coolest inventions of modern times.""
How many people could these webcasters REALLY reach? If everyone in LA listens to a station at once that's fine, and you have millions of listeners - but since the practical reality of many webcasts is one of limited bandwith, perhaps pricing (if any) should be reflected based on how many simultaneous users could really listen at once.
The other thing to consider is how many of the artists a station is playing are really going to get a piece of that ASCAP pie. If all you're playing is experiminetal stuff, why should ASCAP get anything from you? How about a pool composed of exactly the artists played, that seems a lot more fair.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
...is to recognize the nature of their audience and the utility of the Open Audio License. All of the colleges I am aware of have a significant population of aspiring musicians eager to be heard, as well as many young, fresh minds open to listening to something other than what "Mom and Dad" listened to at home. So you have willing producers and open consumers, and the Open Audio License allows the college radio stations a way without fees to bring them together.
In such an environment, a college radio station should actively promote the Open Audio License and encourage student musicians to release their work under it -- and then give it plenty of airplay (it costs them nothing). Open Audio might not work well in some markets (i.e., those where listeners expect to be given what the music industry convinces them to listen to via advertising), but I can imagine no market more prime than college radio.
No Laughing Allowed!
Jamie Zawinski wrote a most informative rant on the labyrinthine regulations and pitfalls that potentially face anyone wishing to Webcast. As he owns and operates the DNA Lounge nightclub in San Francisco, which does its own share of Webcasting, the man has definitely done his homework. Definitely worth a read.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
or you could try to help build other sites like RadioFreeNation.net or GlobalFreePress.com, or AlternateNews.com, or SmirkingChimp.com, etc etc etc
The point being is that maybe one percent of people reading will even post a comment, and a lot less will submit a story. so when there are hundreds of submissions, there is a plenty good chance that someone will post it before you. It is again a scalibilty issue
Then you have to see if one of the editors will like your write-up or not. Or if it confuses them, or does it entertain them enough, etc.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
MOCA was co-sponsored by a Republican and a Democrat. A bi-partisan bill which is needed if it is to have any chance of passing. The RIAA spreads its money across the board, Republican's or Democrats, it doesn't matter. The RIAA is losing a lot of credibility on Capital Hill after the USA Act fiasco
In particular, I'm thinking of a system where anyone can broadcast audio (or even video) streams semi-anonymously. Listening nodes automatically forward the stream packets to each other, meaning that only the nodes directly adjacent to the source know who/where it is, and only those nodes use any of its bandwidth.
Such a system could be as scalable as "real" radio, since the bandwidth available increases with the number of people listening, and it could be lawyer-resistant enough that the RIAA couldn't stop it (similar to how they haven't been able to stop mp3 file trading).
Time to start coding I guess
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
What about small "non" label driven webstations? I run one of those Stations We only do unsigned bands in the North West,I've read the ASCAP and BMI agreements, even if I don't do any advertising, Or make any money from the site, it still costs me money . Ascap and BMI have had a strangle hold on the industry for years. If they had their way, All the sites that carried "free downloads" from the artists ( yes some bands give you one or two songs free) The sites would have to pay for every song downloaded.
If you think of it this way, RIAA is hurting the economy.. So is ASCAP and BMI Webcasters let music be heard that may not have a venue elsewhere,be heard. In turn the listeners are interesed in the band, they go out and buy the CD(which pays BMI and ASCAP), In turn the bands have to play more shows... In turn they buy new musical equipment, to play more shows where more people are coming,In turn the clubs make more money and continue to have live bands. If webcasters are charged outrageous fees, then we can't play the music, thereby shutting us down, the bands don't sell any CD's the clubs don't make any money, the music stores don't sell equipment. Pretty vicious circle... my site www.nw-radio.com doesn't sell records, we let people hear music that they may not have any idea is out there ... So Why should I have to pay RIAA or BMI or ASCAP for helping THEM ?
"College Radio" ?? How many RIAA major label acts ARE there on "college radio" anyway?
An artist on a truly indie label or an artist with self-released material receives no compensation for radio play anyway (and much of college radio consists of this type of material).
The most ironic aspect of all is that we EASILY have the technology to track and pay the actual performers for either broadcast or webcast WITHOUT pooling the money the way the present system operates. We can arguably track even the number of LISTENERS of webcasts.
Perhaps this scenario will further a movement to create truly independent mechanisms for distributing and compensating artists/labels for material... that an alternative system will develop (that isn't ASCAP, BMI, RIAA, etc...). I doubt major label artists would feel much pain by NOT being included in college radio.
Those that suggest you "dance like no one is watching" really want to see you make a complete fool of yourself.
Because 1) this isn't fair use. Fair use is well-defined, both in its original judicial form, and its more recent legislative embodiment, and doesn't cover this. And 2) because they are being efficient; something like fair use applies all across the board. Here they only want to carve out an exception for a particular class of works. Archival copies of books, for example, wouldn't be protected here.
Law is really not all that complicated -- it's just that there's TONS of it. There need to be.
Heck, I'm a law student, so let me ask you a question as a programmer: why don't we have OSes that can fit in a kilobyte of memory and be clear and plainly understandable, while not sacrificing any of the features or ease of use we want? Or are we stuck with it just having to be larger than that in order to get what we want out of it?
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.