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.

Comments

Webcasting Royalties?

[Synchis]

I'm not sure about other wedcasters, these are just my opinions.

The very idea of having to pay royalties for the songs I play through a web cast is outrageous. I run a shoutcast from my computer, the playlist is managed by my girlfriend. The bitrate is set much lower than cd quality, and is really mostly for her and her friends enjoyment. The thought that the RIAA wants to charge me for broadcasting sub-standard quality music that one could record just as easily from a radio, is absurd. Radio stations broadcast music for several reasons:

1. entertainment. This I would rank as the primary focus of radio stations... people want to be entertained, and the less it costs them, the better.

2. To promote the artists. Lets face it, without radio stations and music video channels, most people would never buy the albums from the local music store. We hear a song that we like, find out who its by, and buy the album. I don't believe I have ever heard of somebody going into a music store and picking a random album and buying it because they thought it looked interesting. The music industry just doesn't work that way.

Why should I have to pay the music industry to entertain there fans, and to promote there music? When was the last time you heard ANY company complain about free advertising?

I could see the headlines now: "Microsoft Sues small-town software company for promoting microsoft software." This doesn't make sense, and neither does royalties on webcasts. Forcing webcasters to pay a royalty on a webcast is like making them pay the RIAA to promote the RIAA's product.

There is no piracy involved in this. There is no music bootlegging, or recording and any such thing. If the webcast listeners want to record and distribute illegal copy's of 24kbs, 22.05kHz, Mono music, by all means, let them. But do not make the webcasters pay for this. We want to entertain, and we want to promote our favourite artists. This is all, and the only fee we should have to pay, is the fee to obtain legal copy's of the music to begin with. This would merely involve taking a trip to our local music store, and purchasing a copy of the artists album.

Compulsary licensing

[coyote-san]

That argument is libertarian bullshit that's totally ignorant of history.

The record industry has historically abused its monopoly power at every chance it had. It's happening today, it happened when radio stations first became common, and it happened when phonographs where first introduced. (Did you know that early phonographs could only be legally played on some phonograph players (those who paid the bribes to the copyright holders), and the records could never be loaned, sold, etc.)

The abuse was so bad that Congress made an exemption for phonographic copyrights, and phonographi copyrights alone. ANYONE can produce and sell a compilation CD of ANYTHING, and the copyright owner can't do anything to stop it as long as the compilation producer pays a modest compulsary licensing fee set by statute. Likewise radio stations and other commercial users can pay a compulsary licensing fee and tell the RIAA representative to get lost when they try to force the station to pay more, or change the presentation, or whatever.

On the one hand I'm surprised that the RIAA is trying this same shit once again. The public may not be aware of its sordid history, but the industry lawyers and regulators certainly are and there is absolutely no chance that compulsary licensing will be enacted for webcasts. The only question is the amount charged... and this proposal is *way* too high, and the burden to documenting individual users is far too high. In particular I remember that small college radio station example - the numbers were so high that I think it would be cheaper for the station to pay the compulsary licensing fee and distribute free CDs containing their entire playlist to every student than it would be to operate the webcast for a few weeks!

On the other hand, there's a libertarian born every second. Libertarian principles aren't bad, but most libertarians have a big blind spot when it comes to the fact that there are some "bad players" who have a CENTURY (or more) of demonstrated history abusing the rights of others whenever they have half a chance. Only the government is able to stop this abuse - individuals and smaller companies simply don't have the resources to fight them.

Re:Compulsary licensing

[Waffle Iron]

Communist slime like you shouldn't be allowed to post on slashdot. If record companies have a monopoly then it's only because they have run their business better than everyone else.

Yeah, business is business. Any attempt at outside interference is communism. Hmm... wait a minute. What would the record companies be worth if the government wasn't granting little 95-year feifdoms over each sound recording? They'd be worth JACK SHIT.

The recording companies are a product of government fiat. On what grounds does the government grant these copyrights? To "promote useful arts and sciences". They're regulating what I can and can't do to help out a certain class of people. Sounds kind of socialist to me.

Here's an idea...

[JoeShmoe]

What exactly has been done to define "webcasting?" The very term seems completely outdated. No one uses the "web" (HTTP) to deliver music any more. So what is the difference between webcasting and standard radio? Let's examine.

Is it having a web page? Of course not. Regular radio stations have web pages, same as webcasters. So clearly the web page itself is not the key factor.

Is it being digital? I don't think so. Consider the new XM satellite radio systems as well as small regionalized experiments with digital radio transmissions. Yet these would seem to be considered closer to tranitional radio than webcasting.

Is it being interactive? This is a big issue for the record companies...but how much control is required before something is interactive? Almost every radio station lets you e-mail song requests. So then, if a "webcaster" used the same mechanism, and disable any form of direct control, wouldn't they fall under the same category as radio stations?

Is it the content delivery mechanism? Consider the hypothetical situation where my computer has an FM radio card. Clicking on a link tunes my radio card to a radio station playing the song I want. Now I'm doing something interactive, web-based, and on-demand...everything that would seem to point to it being a webcaster, but since the music is coming in over standard radio waves, is it?

All of this brings me to my idea...let's grow 802.11 wireless networks specifically for broadcasting music. We aren't webcasting, it's radio wave transmission...same as regular radio stations. The 802.11 spectrum is licensed by the FCC, same as regular radio station.

Then once we are all broadcasting music via radio waves in our localized region, let's join the NAB and pay the same low royalties as regular radio stations. Could they stop us? What could they use to draw a distinction between one form of radio wave carrying music and another?

- JoeShmoe

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