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Webcasters and Record Industry Both Appeal Royalty Ruling
jonesvery writes: "Both Webcasters and record companies are appealing the proposed royalty structure suggested by an arbitration panel, according to this LA Times story. It should surprise no one that the Webcasters feel that the proposed royalties are absurdly high, while the record companies wants them to be higher -- at levels set in independent deals negotiated between the RIAA and a couple of dozen companies. The fact that many of the companies that made these independent deals with the RIAA couldn't make enough money to both pay the royalties and stay in business doesn't seem to worry the record companies much. Funny, that..." We did an earlier story about the royalty ruling. The internet radio community seems to be just a bit upset about the whole thing.
DJ Ari from Digitally Imported has a lot of good information on what it means to the larger of the (still) free stations. They also have some information on what you can do to help them out.
http://www.di.fm/sos.php
I wonder what the founding fathers would have thought of these guys taking copyright to such an extreme that it threatens the usability of new technology.
Engineers have taken the time to create, patent and license technology to stream audio over the web. Now, copyright holders of the audio content are trying to price content so high that the use of the patented invention becomes infeasible.
I would think that copyright was never intended to be a weapon to strangle invention.
Just my $.02. Keep the change.
Some people have a way with words, and some people, um, thingy.
>The very idea of having to pay royalties for the >songs I play through a web cast is outrageous.
hey, guess what. it's called copyright. to make use of copyrighted material, you have to pay for it. bitrate quality, or no bitrate quality.
i work for a public radio station. we have a rather shitty transmitter. the sound is rather hissy. probably the equivalent of your shoutcast. should we forfeit on our royalty payments because of that? no, because it's the law, and we do what we have to do.
>1. entertainment.
>2. To promote the artists.
as much as we'd all like to believe that, 99% of radio is about stroking the announcer's ego and getting advertising/sponsorship sales.
for many artists, radio royalties are the only way they make any money. if your song gets played on a station that submits playlists to the royalty company, and you have submitted a claim, bingo! i know someone that actually made something like $30000 in radio royalties one year, but sales of the actual product were tiny.
>This would merely involve taking a trip to our >local music store, and purchasing a copy of the >artists album.
sorry, you've bought yourself a single person license which allows you to play your one copy only on one stereo at one time, and you may not make copies unless you are a licensed broadcaster - in that case you can make one 'ease of use' copy.
The issue is that when one group of people controls the channels of distribution to a large extent, abuse becomes possible. Now, the claim to which you replied stated that historically, the recording industry has tried to control the distribution of its products entirely. Court decisions have been made about this issue before. In fact, even though I didn't make the music, nor do I have any rights to it, I can decide who gets to listen to it. I have to pay for that privilege, but it is mine nonetheless.
Now we get into the gray area. The deal does not say that the recording industry can prevent people from webcasting their music. However, if the price for that rebroadcasting is set too high, it essentially creates an impassable barrier; in effect, it makes it economically impossible (if hypothetically feasible) for webcasting to occur.
That's why it was claimed to be abusive. They control the music. They control the rights to the music. If you let them control the distribution of the music, too, you're giving them too much power.
Read Bujold. Free (as in
I presume that if the RIAA deal gets off the ground they will pressure local licencing authorities around the world to match the fee structure.