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Copyright Office Publishes Final Webcasting Rates
Ghaleon writes: "The Copyright Office just released the final rates for webcasting. Looks like the rates are lower than the CARP recomendations, though I'm no webcaster so I'm not sure if these rates are good or not ..." nbrimhall points to a bit more at soma fm as well. Update: 06/20 21:54 GMT by M : See our last story for background information. The final rates are nothing to cheer about: most webcasters will not be able to afford them. Update: 06/21 03:13 GMT by T : An anonymous reader points out the continuing coverage at kurthanson.com, including reactions from Reps. Boucher and Inslee.
So either cough up 10s of thousands of dollars to pay for your theft of copyrights for the last 4 years, or take your hobby into the toilet. Doesn't matter that you only had, say, 10 listeners at a time or that the stuff you play doesn't belong to RIAA labels or that you had 0 income related to your webcasting. You still owe.
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
And heres why: only unsigned bands will be able to get on U.S. net radio stations. Seriously, fark the RIAA. The other good news is all the streams with copyrighted music will be overseas, either hosted there or run by foreigners, it doesnt really matter. Either way more people will be looking overseas to give the finger to the U.S.
This really does make me sad, though. Hopefully this will jumpstart artists to move to more independent labels.
The problem with this rate is that it's still based on the number of songs the station broadcasts. Most webcasters were hoping for a rate based on a percentage of their revenue. But, this was rejected.
So, even with this reduced rate, we're still going to see almost all webcasters go out of business. It's even going to be hard for the big businesses. I work for a large internet radio company, and I was just told by our exec in charge of working with the RIAA that our rates would probably go up about $500,000-600,000/yr from our current rate. He said one reason is because even if a user skips a song, it still counts as a play.
For more info, I highly suggest checking out RAIN (Radio And Internet Newsletter).
Well, the government has spoken, and the rates have been set, at a level high enough to kill webcasting as we know it. The RIAA must be cheering -- if they're not planning some sort of appeal to raise the rates even higher.
Personally, I think the RIAA has just finished the job of cutting its own throat.
Let's look at the facts: These rates apply to "commonly available" music, as a default royalty system. Webcasters are free to sign contracts with content performers and bypass these rates entirely. "But there's nothing good out there!" For now, perhaps.
Thing is, broadband is spreading like wildfire, as is the potential audience for webcasters, and more people will be edging to push their way into it. I'd expect to see underground webcasting stations pushing unknown bands grow common, and then some of them (both stations and bands) will grow increasingly popular. Meanwhile the bands pushed by the big labels (and big prices) will seem more and more stale.
The end result will be the decline and fall of the record companies, which will probably drag their signed artists down with them. Oh well.
Traditional radio stations pay the rates and fees that they do, at least in part, because they are given slices of the "public" radio bandwidth by the FCC for their broadcasts.
The biggest problem with the new rate structure is that completely non-commercial, amateur Internet broadcasts, which are entirely *legal* (unlike their radio equivalents) will be *effectively* prohibited by the fees, tracking requirements, and back royalties enforced by the FCC.
Today we see another fine example of the federal government becoming the enforcement arm for major corporate interests. This new fee system was not made to benefit consumers, or to protect the innovative world of Internet audio broadcast, but to answer the fears of the RIAA.
Big conglomerates already own something like 80% of the radio stations in this country, and this new set of regulations will give them all the bargaining chips in snapping up any popular Internet stations. So much for finding new, interesting music on the 'net...it'll be Top 40 for everyone, from here on out.
Reposted from digitally imported's forums
I don't know how it will affect DI, but if anyone was listening to Tag's Trance Trip, he shut off just before 3pm Pacific Time.
He was in tears thanking everyone.
Last song on the air was "Days go by" by Dirty Vegas
The anarchy of the net can prevail though. As streams drop off the air (every shoutcast stream may be affected), we must trade the files via FTP and P2P networks if we are to stop the music cartels. Blank cds are cheap, hand out cds full of mp3s with information about what has been done to our beloved streams.
As the streams are shut off, open up the archives and distribute them. Show them how much worse it will get when they block off one avenue of our expression.
Our culture should not be locked away from us and sold back to us.
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The ideas contained herein are free to republish by anyone not affiliated in any way shape or form with the RIAA and MPAA
`/\/\
(^.^)
(")(")
not quite an analog pussy, just a cat that plays with vinyl
It's time for civil disobedience.
It's time for someone to setup a streaming radio app that works similar to P2P. Something that can't be shut down.
This is total bullshit. Commercial stations don't pay $500 per day. Why should Somafm?
I know the guy running Soma watches Slashdot. What can we do to help, short of giving in and paying these mobsters? I'll do what I can for you, but I'm not sure what to do aside from continuing to sign online petitions and send letters. I sent one to my rep in congress on this subject. Received a worthless form letter in reply that refused to take a position on either side. The punk.
I have 1Mbps of upstream bandwidth. Maybe it's time to put my private 15GB MP3 collection up on the various P2P networks? So far, I don't let anyone but my family access it, but I'm thinking it's time to reconsider...
I know at least some of you bastards in the industry are reading this. Get a clue: The public won't stand for this greed. Swapping music on the Internet is only going to increase because of this. You people need to change your attitude, and fast - you can't prosecute us all.
-Ryan, with the unoriginal sig
1. stop playing riaa music. This will help independant artists (such as myself) alot, but will cause people to not hear the music they want to hear at first.
2. Don't host in the US, use overseas servers. The riaa will probably try and make their laws apply to other contries (stupid), but I doubt it will work on all countries.
GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
But all players are free to negotiate any other terms, including lower terms, and including free for bands that want to get more play for their music and don't want the revenue.
This is a maximum because if they ask for more than the .07 or .02 cents, an internet radio station can just invoke the compulsory license and pay that lower amount.
Think this through again. The norm for copyright law is you can't perform somebody else's copyrighted work without permission. This ruling (common in the music industry but not elsewhere) says that you don't have to ask permission, you can just pay this fixed fee. If you go get permission you can arrange any fee both parties want. This ruling came down because people could not agree on fees.
In the end, this might mean that independent labels, which can now band together and declare lower fees for their music, dominate the airplay on internet radio stations. They might even declare free airplay for their stuff. This could mean independent labels begin to dominate the big labels on the internet.
Already projects like the Creative Commons are defining ways for works that want to allow free play to encode it right in the file.
Frankly, I don't think the government should be setting the price of music at all, however.
In addition to the other good followups that have been posted, another difference between broadcast and Internet radio is that an Internet station cannot possibly serve as many listeners as a broadcast station.
The more listeners the Internet station has, the greater its bandwidth costs -- whereas with a broadcast station, more listeners in the broadcast area do not mean higher costs. That means advertisers would be willing to buy advertising on broadcast radio, giving them an income stream that Internet radio will never have, and that can be used to pay royalties.
I do think it's absurd that a 500-listener Internet station has to pay the same per-song royalty as a broadcast station that could cover an area with millions of potential listeners.
This is just another example of the media Goliaths destroying everything they don't already control.
- Have a picture
Some victory... instead of cutting off both arms, you get to keep one. :(
Ryan T. Sammartino
"Ancora imparo"
Even more disgusting, but certainly not suprising, is the RIAA's response to the announcement, saying, "[the rate] simply does not reflect the fair market value of the music as promised by the law."
Who's up for burning RIAA at the stake?
from the copyright.gov article: However, the Librarian concluded that the CARP misinterpreted some aspects of the RIAA/Yahoo! agreement. One of the most significant errors by the CARP was its conclusion that the parties must have agreed that radio retransmissions have a tremendous positive promotional impact on sales of phonorecords - an impact that it did not find Internet-only transmissions have - and that this promotional impact explained the decision of RIAA and Yahoo! to set a higher rate for Internet-only transmissions. In fact, both the broadcasters (who benefitted from the CARP's conclusion regarding promotional value) and RIAA agree that there was no evidence in the record to support the conclusion that RIAA and Yahoo! considered and made adjustments for promotional value for radio retransmissions. The Librarian agreed with the Register of Copyrights that the CARP's conclusion about promotional value was arbitrary and was not supported by the evidence in the record, which provided no basis for concluding that radio retransmissions provide a promotional value that Internet-only transmissions do not provide.
RIAA is once again ignoring the fact that Internet radio transmissions provide MORE benefit to them by being able to reach MORE people at a lower cost. I've bought music from only hearing a single on a spinner.com broadcast--I'm a heck of a lot more likely to buy a CD if I can see who is playing than if I have to guess at who it might be.
Now that I've vented, can someone please explain to me how retroactive unspecified charges can be applied? If the IRS were to say, "We're going to tax you next year, but we're not going to decide how much those taxes are going to be for a couple of years and then you'll have to pony up the dough," I would think someone would take them to court and manage to get the charges wiped. Can someone with some real background in this explain this to me? Also, what am I missing with the label "Non-Commercial Broadcaster"? Does this mean that if you weren't making ANY money off of your broadcasts, you have to pay a lower rate? (Not that having to pay despite making no money doesn't suck...)
And why the heck was Yahoo selected to negotiate on this? Sure they've got a broadcast service, but they have money to blow, unlike Joe Schmo broadcasting out of their basement...
Denver Isuzu Suzuki
Seriously. I've had a lifetime of listening to recordings, and get far too little live music in my life -- and I seek it out and go. This ruling applies to recordings. But... imagine what a grand thing it would be to have an internet feed from a jam studio where musicians came to make *live* music, not Muzak. Where musicians came to make the music live and breath, to make mistakes, to laugh, to improvise meandering, soaring solos -- to share the joy that is true, live music. Why can't we have this? Recordings are so sterile, so frozen in stone. So the same-every-time. Let's have some real music.
It doesn't really have anything to do with the RIAA directly. These are compulsory license terms and fees. What that means, is that these are figures that broadcasters get to forcefully impose upon copyright holders, and there is nothing the copyright holder can do about it. If he wants more money, or he doesn't want you to broadcast his music at all, you can tell him "tough shit" and do it anyway (legally), as long as you follow these rules.
Effectively, all that means is that it sets the upper bound.
Where RIAA comes in, is that they are big business and won't negotiate with you "little people", so these rates and terms aren't just the upper bound, but they're the lower bound also. This is the only offer on the table when you are broadcasting their stuff.
For non-RIAA music, such as that garage band that played at the bar last weekend and then had a few beers with you, they are probably very happy to negotiate with you and offer you other terms. So instead of you paying these rates, you'll be able to work out something better. Maybe they'll even let you play their stuff free, because they want people to hear it.
IMHO, it's pretty fair. The ball is in the musicians' court now. They need to either commit to working for the corporations (who can push them pretty hard and effectively when they want to (e.g. you have probably heard the name "Britney Spears")), or work for themselves (and offer pleasant terms to underground supporters who will push thme in a different way). Choose wisely, dudes.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Here is what will happen:
Internet Radio continues to grow/develop, outside of the United States.
The number of US-based listeners continues to grow.
Non-US based Internet Radio stations begin to generate revenue.
US-based groups and industries begin to realize that they are missing out on a large stream of revenue/listerners, and begin to look for changes.
Sometime in the (near) future, new laws are passed that open up the United States market for Internet Radio.
So while I'm disgusted by the Copyright Office's decision, I have to say that I'm cautiously optimistic. Optimistic that sometime in the future people will realize what a big mistake this was.
I run Detroit Industrial Underground. My station has a 20 simultaneous listener capacity, and I've been broacasting for 3.5 years. To give you an idea of the small scale of most internet broacasts, DIU is currently ranked 222 out of around 2800 stations on the Shoutcast directory for total time spend listening (TTSL).
Some thoughts, based on what I've read here:
Terrestrial radio stations with webcasts are as unhappy with these rates as internet broadcasters are, and they'll be lobbying against this as well.
Some people have said that these rates won't apply to stations which only play non-RIAA material. While common sense would suggest that, it has not been proven yet, and common sense doesn't seem to apply to anything involving the RIAA and U.S. Congress.
Ephemeral recordings are "temporary" recordings made solely for broadcast purposes. In the case of internet radio, they're referring to MP3s. In practice, its an excuse to add another 8.8% fee on top of the per listener per song $0.0007.
Moving outside the U.S. won't save internet radio. U.S. based Broadcasters can be tracked through ISP's and billing relationships with hosting companies. Also, other countries have licensing bodies which are just as rapacious as the RIAA. In Canada, SOCAN is pushing Tariff 22, which imposes a $0.25 per unique listener per month fee. This adds up to more than the RIAA + BMI/ASCAP/SESAC fees, and forces listener tracking/subscriptions for auditing purposes. See the Stop Tariff 22 website for the details.
The battle isn't lost yet. On the Shoutcast list, we're working on our response to this. In the meantine, check out Save Internet Radio and the Radio and Internet Newsletter. Finally, write your reps in Congress, and include your snail mail addresss so they know you're a constituent.