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Web Radio and the RIAA
Andrew Leonard writes: "Steve Marks, VP of legal affairs of the RIAA, is duking it out with critics in a point-counterpoint debate focusing on the nitty-gritty details of how artists will be compensated by the new rules on Webcasting royalties."
Since the FCC allowed Clear Channel to own up to 49% of as many local radio stations as they wanted, I've heard a lot more crap on the radio, both from shitty Creed ripoffs and more screaming car salesman. Stuff like live365.com keeps me going during work hours. If this passes, I'll probably just turn the radio up till I go deaf. It would be better than commercial radio is now.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
The process was completely undemocratic -- none of these stations was allowed to testify at CARP. WCPE was specifically excluded
see also WXYC's save our streams page and Save Our Streams
Certified Black Helicopter Pilot *** Unwitting Dupe of One World Gov'ment
Personally, I don't understand why record companies want to charge for webcasts or why they think they are entitled to. AM and FM have always been free after price of equipment (a radio). A webcast is simply the progression of this using new technology. From the point of view of the artist, I would want my songs to get as much air (and web) play as possible in an attempt to sell more records, tapes, cds, minidiscs, dvds, etc. All casts, that is streaming music whose content is not decided by the listener directly, should be free. That, is the entire point of advertising. Don't make people pay for the ads, which music on a cast is for the artist's cds anyway.
While the informed elite on /. already know this information, further widespread discussion of the lack of compensation to artists by the RIAA and the like can only be a good thing. The soundbites on national and local news only ever discuss "stealing from artists" and "artists not getting paid."
So far the RIAA has been feeding the information to the wide audience. The more the general populace understands that many of their favorite artists don't make a dime from record sales, the more likely the RIAA will be forced to join us back in the real world.
Do the FM radio stations that I listen to pay the artists for playing their music?
If they do- I have to admit, I did not know that. If they don't, why are internet radio stations any different?
Personally this matters less and less to me as I become more and more disinterested in what "popular" music is floating around out there.
As is regularly posted in this discussion, there are a lot of bands that just want to be heard and have not sold out. They are usually much more interesting. And lets be honest - it does not take a whole lot of talent to produce most of what you can hear on the radio or buy on a $17.oo CD
.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
I don't know about eliminating Internet webcasters, but maybe moving them to other countries? But it would definately be the end of internet radio in the US. And with all these crazy restrictive laws on content the US seems to be proposing lately I wouldn't be suprised if the whole tech industry moved away.
Don't ever listen to the RIAA saying that they're fighting for artist rights, or ensuring that artists are properly compensated. That's not their job. The RIAA's job is to protect the interests of the recording companies.
If BMI, ASCAP, SESAC, AFTRA, etc. weigh in, then you can listen with a slightly less-jaded ear, but the RIAA saying they're looking out for artists is like Microsoft saying that they're only trying to squash unix for the good of their customers.
Like them or not, the RIAA is a very effective organization for what they do - but I take offense when they purport to represent the interests of recording artists.
Slashdot comments... splitting hairs since 1997.
Media Industry really seems enamored by the pay-per-view ideology. Instead of hearing songs from radio for the cost of being assaulted by ads, we get pay-per-songs in web radio? Wonderful.
The real pay-per-view experience of renting a movie is fundamentally different experience from listening to a CD. How many times have you listened to your favorite CD? How many times have you seen your favorite movie?
If the former does not exceed the latter by an order of magnitude, you're probably one of those Rocky Horror Show freaks..
I have to wonder how much of the new revenue from digital media will end up fueling lobbying to outlaw DRM-free hard disk drives etc.
Steve Marks "5) Your statement that all the royalties could end up in RIAA's or the labels' coffers is most misleading of all. As I've already said, 50 percent of the royalties go DIRECTLY to artists (without passing go). The provision you referenced in our agreement with the artists' groups doesn't change that -- that provision was an agreed-upon mechanism to ensure that RIAA's investments in building the infrastructure of SoundExchange won't be lost to reckless decisions by the board. Remember, RIAA (not the artist community) invested millions to establish SoundExchange, and it is now giving 50 percent of the organization over to artists. Isn't it prudent to protect that investment with some kind of safeguard remedy in the event the board, without a super-majority vote, does something to undermine that investment? In any event, no one expects that that provision will ever actually be invoked, and the artist groups agreed to it. "
"..., 50 percent of the royalties go DIRECTLY to artists (without passing go)"
AND
"Isn't it prudent to protect that investment with some kind of safeguard remedy in the event the board,..."
so... which is it? DIRECTLY without passing GO or protection of your investment? Ah... gotta love lawyers
As much as I'd like to say that that is indeed the causation I'm very skeptical. I'd say that at the same time Napster was flying high the economy was bouncing around quite nicely, and the same time Napster got shut down the economy went tankola. Record sales I would think mirror economic conditions fairly consistently. Now, that's not to say the record industry's take is correct either.
Hopefully other govts won't follow the US precedent.
Anyway how can they enforce this on some 14 year old shoutcasting through his cable connection?
Well, since you asked...
He's holding some kind of celebrity golf tournament out on Kiawah Island (South Carolina)for charity. I'm not sure of the exact date, but it's sometime soon, I think, because I just heard about it on the radio.
This is what you get for living in Charleston, SC. Too frigging many churches, and Hootie and the Blowfish living in your town.
Pope Felix the Scurrilous.
Computer Geek by day, religious Icon by night.
A writer can't publish a book without a publishing company to edit, revise, print, promote and distribute the book.
You're kidding, right? People do indeed publish their own books all the time, either because the intended audience is too small, the subject matter is too controversial, or because they have a burning desire to publish something that the media cartels won't touch for whatever reason.
Thoreau published some of his own works. So did Robert Ringer of "Winning Through Intimidation" fame and Henry Martyn Robert of "Robert's Rules of Order". So did Mark Twain, Zane Grey, Upton Sinclair, Carl Sandburg, James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, Edgar Rice Burroughs, George Bernard Shaw, Thomas Gray, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Alexander Pope, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Edward Fitzgerald, Leo Tolstoy, Stephen Crane, Willa Cather, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, Thomas Hardy, James M. Barrie, Walt Whitman, Vachel Lindsay, Francois Mauriac, Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, Richard Bolles, Joseph Smith, Mary Baker Eddy, Rudyard Kipling, A.E. Houseman, Marcel Proust, and Rod McKuen, among other names you would and wouldn't have heard of.
It is indeed possible to break through the cartel wall and be recognized if you have an audience waiting, although it isn't easy. For every name above there are 500 people who printed a thousand copies of "Aunt Wilma McGillicuddy, A Nebraska Life" and sold four. The Internet is probably the best facilitator for self-publishing and letting talent be discovered there's ever been, which is why it's so important the media moguls not be allowed to cut off its air supply.
Someone you trust is one of us.
Which is rather humorous in and of itself since the artists STILL won't see a dime for each time one of their songs is played online.
This is not the sig you are looking for...
One way to circumvent the RIAA is to go to Kazaa or Morpheus or wherever and download music from your favorite artist... and then mail the artist an anonymous money order for $1.00 for each song you download. Download an entire 12-track album, send 'em $12. You'll be saving money over buying albums in stores, and the artist will see a lot more green.
Heck, $0.50 per song would still be ten times what the artists get now.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
There are 2 copyrights involved. One is the songwriter's copyright. The other is a "mechanical copyright" for reproduction of a sound recording. Radio stations must pay the former, not the latter. Webcasters, on the other hand, must pay both. The former is handled by performing rights organizations, or PRO's (ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, SOCAN as mentioned before.)
In theory, the mechanical copyright pays the producer and recording engineer for their talents. Since most of these work for record labels, guess where the money goes.
The agreements between the radio industry and the recording industry go back over 60 years and don't include mechanical copyrights. The recording industry's take is that radio should be paying mechanical copyright but the existing agreements and strength of the radio industry prevent them from doing anything about it. Don't be surprised if the recording industry tries to change this in the future.
What I'd like to know is if the "50/50" split is based on performance/mechanical split or is there some other rationale behind it? It almost appears as if the RIAA is trying to buy artist cooperation with this offer. (Not that I think the artists will see much)
Caveat: I volunteer at a public radio station which simulcasts over the Web. We are memebers of the CPB, which negotiated with the RIAA on behalf of its member stations. I don't know the details of the agreement.