Slashdot Mirror
Broadcasters Appeal Royalty Ruling
tanveer1979 pointed out this story, but his summary of it wasn't much good. :) According to Reuters and Kurthanson.com, broadcasters (regular radio stations, not webcasters) are appealing a year-old ruling which would require them to make the same royalty payments for webcasting that webcast-only stations have to make. They're arguing that Congress intended the royalty payments to apply only to internet services which allow one to pick what music one receives - if the listener is force-fed a stream, like regular radio, Congress didn't intend for the royalty payments to apply.
I always thought that this particular law was garbage but, it passed anyway.
But, the radio broadcasters arguement to try to get out of it is so lame even I am not impressed.
I wish these guys the best. But I seriously doubt they have much chance of changing the ruling. I fear the RIAA and big business has too strong a hold on the key parties in congress for them to be able to make much head way. It is really sad that the RIAA seeks to have such a strangle hold on every possible outlet for media. Which of course means one thing...support your local independent music scene!!!
and broadcast giants like Clear Channel Communications Inc. would be on the hook for 70 cents for each song played to an audience of 1,000 listeners.
Would this be a textbook example of an "unintended consequence?"
"Slashdot is about legos and staplers." -Cmdr. Taco
On the one hand the law makes life difficult for teh webcasters so maybe the law itslef needs to be looked at. But if IRL radio stations get special treatment just because they happen to be IRL radio stations, thats just wrong. Suck it up and take your lumps like everybuddy else. Hopefully the stations will begin to realize how dangerous the RIAA is when it starts cutting into their profits. The more infighting the better.
Why not fork?
because they RELY on radio to make thier music popular. No radio, no money, no RIAA.
From the article (Reuters): "But Congress intended the law to apply only to services that would enable users to select and download songs, not online radio-style broadcasts that do not allow users to save songs, the broadcasters said in their appeal." [emphasis added]
If the ability to "save songs" is the main issue, there could be trouble if somebody realizes how easy it is to record streamed audio. Just click your favourite "record directly from the sound card" application, and there you are: a nice sound file containing the song you want.
Of course, you can do this with real radio broadcasts, too, but everyone's decision-making abilities go haywire as soon as the word "digital" enters the debate: the streamed version would yield a DIGITAL copy of the song in question, and is therefore evil and scary.
But here's hoping the broadcasters win. It would be great news for webcasters: just eliminate choice, the way God intended, and you're allowed to broadcast over the Web for free!
If they lose, well, that goes without saying what would be bad about that.
But if they win, it could put a real squeeze on webcast-only stations.
At the moment, they've been lumped in with traditional stations that simulcast, in a kind of middle ground.
If this goes through, it could split that middle ground, sending the traditional stations back to where they used to be (a good thing), but send the webcasters further into the perverbial abyss of royalty payments.
Dark Nexus
"Sanity is calming, but madness is more interesting."
Money is not only the only issue here. A big portion of the law requires radio stations to keep an unreasonable amount of records regarding the number of listeners at any given time, all kinds of information about the song. This alone would crush the independent (college etc.) radio stations that simply cannot afford to implement the infrastructure. What is happening is that independent stations will forced out of the market, while the big boys who can afford the equipment will serve to further homogenize American music.
I'd actually prefer the local editions of the shows, so I have local ads and news which are directed at my area (some are commercial shows, some are by non-profit stations with local news). Some of the national shows have their own digital feeds but I'd prefer local versions.
Yes, I can record them directly off the broadcast signal. But some shows are on the air at the same time, requiring more juggling of audio and radio cards. And I keep tinkering with the house/LAN cabling, which tends to leak some RF near the antenna every couple of months.
unfortunately, this law pretty much kills local/college/independent webcasting, and leaves the the crap from regular radio with a monopoly. the web could provide some really interesting stuff down the road, particularly with wireless capabilities in cell phones. stream'n web broadcasts through your web enabled phone, mmm!
and clear channel is not exactly a pussycat!
Given this, I don't understand the objections I'm seeing here.
umm, not to be fussy, but I would like to point out that an appeal is usually heard before the JUDICIAL branch, and the only time the RIAA is going to be able to "lobby" is when their legal team is on the floor.
Personally, I believe that they might just get it thrown out, as selective enforcement, but the issue is really what the "intent" of the law was. The danger of my "stealing" a song from streaming audio is about the same as my stealing it off the radio.
I'd love to see the lawyers say something like this: "It doesn't matter whether they _could_ copy it from our stream, because they are FAR more likely to copy it from kazaa" and watch the RIAA's head explode.
hmmmm?
Well, here's an interesting catch-22.
If CCU gets the rights to broadcast online without paying the fees, then it looks really bad for everyone involved because it'll look like congress and the big corps are all scratching eachother's backs. As well, the recording companies will raise more hell because they won't be getting all of the money they feel they deserve.
If CCU doesn't get the rights to broadcast online without paying the fees, then CCU will raise all hell, because they already broadcast for minimal fees over radiowaves. Plus, having a media conglomerate mad at you isn't a good way to win elections, I think the politicians have found.
This situation, if resolved, will be resolved totally behind closed doors I think, because short of repealing the law altogether, the only solution will leave everyone with egg on their faces.
Just a really interesting catch-22 when laws aren't thought through completely.
~ kjrose
Its ironic the biggest winner is generally keeping its mouth shut. The behemoth AOL Time Warner is keeping its mouth shut, it stands to be a huge winner on both sides of the battle. AOL will continue charging consumers and taking out of one pocket to pay the record companies in the other pocket. It gets to easily eliminate smaller competitors through "legislation" while consumers lose out in the end.
Jeremy
http://www.faithfriends.com
Is protected under the Digital Millemium Act 2002.
It is illegal to moderate this post.
Straight from the Linux counter:
At Jul 17 2002 18:22:01 GMT, there are
128683
users registered
100241
machines registered
Now I will be nice and not even discount the number of double registrations that is no doubt included in these stats. Doing some simple math, based on the fact that the world population is over 6 BILLION, that means that rougly 2% of the entire world uses Linux.
Yeah, the laws have softened in the U.S. yet no Linux distribution (other than ones originating from outside the country) will ship with an IPsec implementation pre-installed.
There is still alot of fear that this softening of restictions will eventually rebound.
SUPPORTING INFORMATION
----------------------
Here is a list of some distributions that do include IPsec and their country of origin:
SuSE Linux (Germany)
Conectiva (Brazil)
Mandrake (France)
Best Linux (Finland)
Polish(ed) Linux Distribution (Poland)
come on fhqwhgads
I propose a new anti-royalty slogan: "In 1776 we fought to rid America of royalty. Let's not bring it back." It uses the two definitions of "royalty" to add humor to the message, which is that royalties are unamerican. Thoughts?
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
How about, "What you talkin' bout, fool!".
It's still easier to use Streambox Ripper to grab the link and record the stream, rather than the audio. That way you get a copy that is exactly as good as the one that got streamed.
There's currently no way to prevent stream rippers from saving songs. Even with a lot of fancy Javascript hiding the stream's URL, you can get it through a packet sniff of the http request.
I still don't understand why RIAA is so anti-radio. Okay, I do understand that they try to protect the authors and collect fees, but without the radio (any form, radio, webcast, etc.) nobody will hear the music. I would not buy music that I haven't heard. Would you? If they want to profit, they must give up their law suits and let radio and webcasters play whatever they want. That's how people hear the music and then buy it. People tend to buy what they like, and I do not think that all the past law suits against radio stations made associations like RIAA and people behind it very popular. Tag's Trance and other small webstations were closed as a result of their actions and that makes me want to stay away from buying music.
P.S.: and if your music doesn't sell, well the problem is not with the people who listen or broadcast it.
If I capture a song from the radio on my computer alla mp3 then webserv that, would I still be doing wrong?
I mean come on, It was just given to everyone for free right off the radio.
Yeah someone paid for the airtime so that everyone could have it for free, but I'm not understanding how the internet is effecting their business. They give everything away for free anyway. Yeah yeah, with pop up add type comercials you can't seem to get away from.
These laws that are about controlling people are going to get this government in alot of trouble.
I am ashamed of the country I live in. When it comes to ip. When a company with big money has more of a voice than the people who live in it, I call that proto-fashism.
Even this Capitlist-Socalism that people like to hang on thier sleeves is a far far cry from Democrocy. What on earth was I taught schools. It's Time for a COUP! I'm sick of being controlled by the actions of a few idiots with golden parachutes.
Down with the Fed's having more Control than the States. This country is obviously to big to control under one Government.
nuff said.
pestihl
"What do you do with the mad that you feel when you feel so mad you could bite?" - Mister Rogers
So, assuming this appeal is accepted and you can webcast for free as long as you don't take playlists, what then happens to requests? Can a DJ take a request from a caller and play it over the air and simulcast it over the web? What about picklists on web sites (radio station has a list of their 40 "top" songs, pick and click to request it be played for the 3rd time this hour)?
Welcome to the murk.
I have to side against this appeal... if only because maybe then the radio broadcasters will fight for something vaguely resembling reasonable tariffs. In a purely self-centered way, it doesn't affect me since I don't listen to webcasts anyway. But, on the whole, I think that slapping down the RIAA and getting reasonable tariffs put into place is the Right Thing anyway.
Maybe the RIAA could work with us instead of trying to force everyone to bow to their authority. If they squeeze webcasters to death and put fair use in a straight jacket then they are forcing us to find our music elsewhere, like Open Audio projects.
No, what you are missing is that radio stations are saying that the NAB fees they are already paying should cover them regardless of the transition method (radio or Internet)...which makes sense.
So in a sense, the radio stations say they don't want to be charged twice for the same thing. The FCC license only gives them permission to be on the air, it doesn't have anything to do with what they can play on the air. If it wasn't for the NAB, radio stations would be pretty bleak (probably just all talk shows).
So webcasters are still screwed. Even if the radio stations succeed and get the precident set that stream-only radio-style webcasting doesn't get charged an additional fee...there is still the problem that webcasters can't join the NAB and pay a general royalty tax to gain a compulsary license.
A silver lining this is not...
- JoeShmoe
.
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
-
Summary of Argument:
...
So the NAB does want a special deal for FCC-licensed radio broadcasters. Internet-only webcasters would not benefit from this deal. Nor will they benefit if the NAB wins this lawsuit. Read the filing.AM/FM streaming -- the Internet transmission by an FCC-licensed radio broadcaster of the program fare offered by such broadcaster pursuant to its FCC license -- constitutes a "nonsubscription broadcast transmission" within the meaning of Section 114(d)(1)(A) of the Copyright Act, and thereby is exempt from the limited performance right in sound recordings conferred by Section 106(6) of the Act.
While there is thus no need to resort to legislative history, that legislative history nevertheless confirms the plain language construction of the "nonsubscription broadcast transmission" exemption, and demonstrates that Congress did not intend to impose sound recording public performance copyright liability upon FCC-licensed terrestrial broadcasters that simultaneously stream their radio programming to listeners via the Internet.
This might actually be helpful to some webcasters if they win. All of the web radio stations I've played with have been non-interactive, so if the broadcasters win this one it might apply to them as well.
Way back in 1995, the NAB and RIAA already began to realize that the Internet might be a threat to their established business. (Hey, they may be greedy, but they're not stupid!) So, they did what you might expect an established American business to do: they bought a law to protect themselves against competition, the DPRA (cool - another 4-letter acronym to hate!)
According the NAB's own words in the linked "summary" posting, p.4:
The impetus for the legislation was concerns of the recording industry that certain emerging businesses enabled by developing digital transmission technologies might provide music transmissions of such nature and quality as would displace record sales.
This little gem of a quote is part of the NAB's appeal document! The NAB/RIAA does not even attempt to hide the fact that the purpose of the DPRA was specifically to target select-and-download services and prop up "no-choice" broadcasting.
Unfortunately for them, the US Copyright Office refused to play along, and decided that all Internet streams would be charged similarly. So, they're understandably upset that the law they bought and paid for isn't protecting them as well as they'd like. (Some days, even a CongressCritter is a lousy investment...)
Unfortunately for the rest of us, the law was clearly intended to exempt them from royalties, so they'll probably get a "clarification" buried deep within the next huge steaming pile of legislation regarding the Office of Homeland Security or whatever.
As to those who have posted "hey, Congress won't do that -- it will make it way too obvious that they're supporting the fat cats in the RIAA!": what color is the sky in the world where you live (and how can I get there?)
Didn't the BBC get in trouble earlier this year by deciding to not carry some broadcast of some royal happening? I thought maybe this was the typical late slashdot news.
Infuriate left and right
Dude, sign in. Someone might hear the great point you just made.
Nope, no sig
How can this be off topic? IPsec is a collection of cryptological transformations for encrypting IP traffic!!!
come on fhqwhgads
There, I fixed the topic for you.
isn't that what SomaFM et al. do? You don't pick the songs on Groove Salad, for instance.
sulli
RTFJ.
Can anyone detail for me exactly what the fees are today? I run a small station with a handful of loyal listeners and if the fees are very small, I'm not opposed to paying them.
.02 cents per song listed on this page?
Who exactly gets the fees? Where do I send the money? And should I even bother with it when I only have a few listeners? Are there any other fees besides the
If I pay these fees can I pretty much stream any music I want to no matter what?
--It's Pimptastic!--
First, they made the customers the Evil ones.
Now the radio stations that Advertise their product (payola notwithstanding) are also the Evil ones.
I wonder who else is there to piss off... Artists have been raked over the coals already... I guess that leaves the shareholders of the media conglomerates.
Look for large accounting scandals and dismal profit warnings...
Seppuku is not viable business plan.
On an aside: Anyone know of a list of recording labels that do not belong to the RIAA?
"Piter, too, is dead."
Michael whips out his big censor stick and rewrites the story submitter's post then goes on to name and deride the original poster! Maybe some of those anti-Michael trolls have it right.
If radio stations can't/don't want to pay and stop playing big business music, instead only indie/etc music, someone will lose a lot of money, no?
I think the Slashdot community should start practicing a little bit of civil disobedience. Refuse to pay the fines, and broadcast over the web anyways. There are at least several thousand web radio services out there, if somebody wanted to enforce the law, they would have another DE-CSS or Gnutella on their hands.. They could try to shut down sites, but inevitably fail, and cause a huge uprising amongst the online community, and probably most of the offline as well. Any and all lawsuits involving money will eventually crumble, because it's hard to call a nerdy kid in his parent's basement an evil cybercriminal for simply playing back music. Also, good luck trying to get any money out of him.
If you don't agree with the laws & regulations, don't abide by them. Take some risks. I mean, I'm not going around saying we should start torching the RIAA building with molotov cocktails or anything, but when stupid stuff like webcaster royalties comes up, complain about it and broadcast anyways.
You guys need to get more guts. We've been fighting corporate radio with no-license pirate radio for years.. they send MARSHALS to bust those places, for god sakes! Saying you disagree with something is important, but you're not making any progress until you start being an activist, too. The big wigs that create things like webcaster royalties don't talk, they ACT. You need to start acting too, or they're just going to trample on your rights while you sit there saying "Well I don't agree with this.."
Ah bend over and take it like a man, RIAA wants ALL your money!
I used to work for "the evil empire (AKA Clear Channel)", at their Internet portal station Worldclassrock.com. They had intended to run all their net stations as regular radio stations with one single exception: the ability to click on the title and buy the record online. Seems to me that this would benefit the RIAA, not hurt it.
At the time we ran about 12 different streams, only three of them approaching FM quality. Those three streams (64K Win Media, 64K Real G2, 96K Real G2) were constantly rebuffering even on big pipe broadband connections.
I'll tell you this with certainty: making a good quality recording with real time streaming is almost impossible. There's simply too many interruptions to the stream! I think the reason downloading music files is so popular is that they don't happen in real time so the resultant file has time to become complete.
Once again the RIAA has proven to the world how purely dumb they are.
Everyone knows the line has to be drawn somewhere, they just don't want to be on the outside of it. Maybe instead of trying to avoid paying royalties entirely, the should try and negotiate a lowering of the royalty to factor in the greater number of listeners.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
At least it's not very likely.
If you listen to the May 22'nd broadcast of the Diane Rehm show (crappy RM format though), the recording industry's representative makes it very clear that the rates agreed upon will only be used as a base... and that they will be happy to lower rates (even possibly to nothing besides ASCAP/BMI)... for the webcasters who play the music they like, and want promoted.
I'm sure CCU will get a sweetheart deal, and it wont really take a suspicious looking law to do it, just a lil handhsake with Rosen.
this is a reply I received from Nancy Pelosi after writing her regarding the CARP proposal:
Thank you for contacting me with your concerns about the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and the royalty fees for webcasters that
were recommended by the Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel (CARP). I
appreciate hearing from you.
As you know, on February 20, 2002, CARP released its recommended royalty
fees for webcasters. The rate for Internet transmissions and for
retransmission of a performance in an AM/FM radio broadcast was
recommended to be set at $.14 per performance. On May 21, 2002, the
Librarian of Congress issued an order rejecting the CARP recommendation,
and on June 20, 2002 the Librarian of Congress set the rates at $.07 per
performance. Rates for noncommercial broadcasters as well as the fee
webcasters and broadcasters must pay for the making of ephemeral
recordings were decreased from the CARP recommendation.
When Congress passed DMCA, our intention was that artists and copyright
holders be fairly paid for commercial uses of their work, while webcasters
though the Internet would be able to provide competitive programming of
value to consumers. Congress intended the statutory license process to be
fair and efficient, so that the webcast industry could be free of legal
uncertainty, grow quickly and pay creators increasing amounts as the
industry developed.
As these rates go into effect for webcasters, please be assured that I
will be watching this issue carefully. Thank you again for taking the
time to express your views on this important subject. I hope you will
continue to communicate with me on matters of concern to you.
Sincerely,
Nancy Pelosi
Member of Congress
Or just use xmms and select 'save stream'. ;)
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
Now that the big trend is radio stations simulcasting all over the world, I personally think that internet broadcasting should be seen as an extension of previously existing range. I worked for a 10-watt college radio station, and we recently went on the internet. Granted, our ASCAP/BMI fees were only $5,000 a year (roughly), since we were so small and educational, but our broadcast range is increased with internet broadcasting. 75 to 100 listeners can tune in over the internet, which, even on a small scale, increases our listenership. For larger commerical stations, they ought to have to pay some, too. They pay quite a bit in music licensing, but internet broadcasting allows them to extend their range. Therefore, they are reaching more of an audience, and are a more "powerful" station. I don't see the problem with it -- ASCAP/BMI really isn't that much to begin with, in the grand scheme of things.
what about GPLing music or such and then streaming that? if the artist is the one offering it via a webcasting service and they are not tied to the RIAA then they are not tied to all this leagle bunk right?
or am i just too stupid to understand all this monopoly junk?
or how about moving the servers to native american reservation colocations where you would be imune to all this junk?
there has to be away around this monopoly junk and be able to make a very viable, leagle underground.
So the trick for a Webcaster would be to also be an "FCC-licensed radio broadcaster," which means all the college stations could Webcast. It also brings in the issue of what the minimum cost is to become FCC-licensed. Are there HAM licenses that allow for music broadcasts?
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
If we're having a debate about what congress intended, as opposed to what the law actually says, then somebody did a p*ss poor job of writing the legislation. Golly, which moneyed interest could be behind such a poorly conceived bill's being voted through?
"Force-fed" -- unusually good word choice for slashdot. If we have too much choice about what we're getting, that's piracy -- PIRACY! If radio programmers get to steer the boat, though, stopping off only at Disney-owned resort islands along the way and keeping us from collecting any shells except from the sanctioned gift shops -- well, Welcome to the Love Boat, I'm Julie McCoy and I'll be your cruise director. It's piracy, see, if you try to steer the boat yourself...
Man, do broadcast industries just not get the point-to-point mojo. These are companies that think the internet is just another distribution channel, and that advertizing Time Magazine on CNN's Web site is really happening "synergy." Hoo-boy, what a grand vision that is, huh?
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Just think, some pitiful little geek out there is hunched over a computer keyboard, gleefully moderating posts to make up for their lack of self-esteem. Yay!
I think RIAA got it wrong. They make money by selling the music, radio station advertise their products (songs), therefore RIAA should encourage the broadcast of the songs in every way. Moreover with declining quality of songs, I think that radiostations should charge artists for playing some songs. Come on guys, aren't you tired of listening to crap like "Its getting hot in here" or "H to the izzo"? The constantly try to shove some crap down our throats. Every time I turn my TV on to MTV or E! (happens once in a month, when I press a wrong button or browse through channels) I see rappers, and all the other pop-stars decked out in gold, driving brand new luxary cars and living in enormous houses. How do they get the money? They make money on CDs that are promoted by different media channels. It hurts, becuase it seems like they don't get enough and they want to sue the ones who provided them with popularity and wealth. Thanks,
From the Reuters article: "But Congress intended the law to apply only to services that would enable users to select and download songs, not online radio-style broadcasts that do not allow users to save songs, the broadcasters said in their appeal."
That's idiotic. Neither downloads or interactive services are not covered by the DMCA's compulsory license. It says that in the legislation. There's nothing grey about it. Congress intended the performance license to apply to web radio (or rather, the RIAA, who pimped the legislation, intended that), and if webcasters have to pay, then Clear Channel and everyone else who simulcasts their radio brodcasts should have to pay, too.
Rich
"the streamed version would yield a DIGITAL copy of the song in question, and is therefore evil and scary"
And what's the bitrate on the stream? 64K or less? No MP3 collector would ever bother saving a crappy 64K MP3 of a song they wanted to keep. It would sound better taping off the radio. I know there's a few 128K Shoutcast stations out there, and someday 128K and higher might be the norm but not anytime soon.
I don't think any Internet music law could be completely fair unless it took into account bitrates to distinguish between high quality (good enough for archiving) and low quality (for previewing and sampling) streams.
The danger of my "stealing" a song from streaming audio is about the same as my stealing it off the radio.
The likelyhood, or the dificulty may be the same, but the danger certainly is not. If you record the song from a digital stream you have a same generation copy that you can distribute ad infinitum with no loss of quality.
Nobody really cares if you tape the radio and share the tapes with your friends. They do care if you make perfect copies and share them with the world on the Internet.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
It's lucky that the Judicial branch is well known to be fully impartial, and would never vote along party lines. If they did that, they'd have the power to annoint their own preferred president.
---
Silence is consent.
The Nat'l Assoc. of Broadcasters has a very powerful lobby, hence why they have resisted at every turn the RIAA's attempts to make them pay for sound recording royalties.
The NAB wants Internet radio dead as much as the RIAA does. The NAB HATES college radio. All they do is draw listeners away from their commercial stations, either by providing different content, or by "potentially" interfering with the coverage area of large broadcasters.
"On an aside: Anyone know of a list of recording labels that do not belong to the RIAA?"
I found this through a little gooogling. There's also a link on the page to fake indies.
Thanks :)
"Piter, too, is dead."
If your argument is that a stream, any stream, provides its listeners with a perfect copy of music being played over it, you are wrong.
MP3, RA & WMA are lossy to begin with. The lower the bit-rate, the less they sound like the original.
- A 256K stream might approach the quality of the original CD...
- A 128k stream might approach the quality of hearing that CD on FM radio.
- Most webcasters are using 56k streams or less - roughly the same as AM Stereo. Why? They want to reach as many listeners as possible, given the limits of their connection to the Internet (not to mention the limitations of the Internet itself.)
You might make a perfect digital copy of the stream, but the stream is not a perfect digital transmission of the music it's transmitting.
-HubCity
(I have many streams at www.altrok.com courtesy Live365, whom I'll be paying to keep them running; if you believe they transmit perfect copies of the music I'm playing, you need your hearing checked badly.)
Here is a list of label members of the RIAA.
RIAA Affiliated Labels
It is safe to buy from any label that is not listed here. Please do not support these labels affiliated with the RIAA.
As for me, I am an observer that has observed there is a lot of observing to observe.
1. Record companies pay radio stations to play their top-40 music.
2. Radio stations pay record companies for playing all music.
3. Webcasters pay record companies for playing all music.
Where does this leave those stations (web or otherwise) that don't play the top-40 stuff, and don't get paid by the record companies for that?
And now, the top-40 radio stations don't want to pay extra for webcasting the same top-40 music that's everywhere anyways.
> They're arguing that Congress intended the royalty > payments to apply only to internet services which
> allow one to pick what music one receives
All my radios have a Tuning Knob, don't yours?
I work for a very powerful college radio station with millions of potential listeners. We've been streaming for years and years, but we still don't have that many online listeners. Of course, it's very convenient and cool to have the stream, but the proportion of online listeners to potential listeners for us is quite minimal. And if we did start to have a deluge of listeners, it would eat up our bandwidth.
By the same token, commercial stations are not going to have the same quantity of listeners on the Internet. If they do have a good number, the stream bitrate has to come down to compensate, or the service becomes non-free. The station owners have to make money somehow.
Seriously though this is what is such bullshit. I'm all for laws protecting legitimate intellectual property rights. But the law in question is not about that at all; it's about protecting a business model against competition. These freakin' armchair capitalists hide behind free market ideology to justify their actions, and yet they have the government step in to squash their competition.
As opposed to the technical challenges involved in dropping a Cassette in your tapedeck and pushing "record"?
Why?
Quick summary of RIAA/NAB position, "Give us a break, because we suck. Those other guys offerd you the ability to chose what you wanted and that hurt our sales, so we crushed them. Now let us further wreck the digital media by eliminating choice there too."
What I'm missing is choice in the music I'm exposed to. It's not on the radio, and it's hard to find legitimatly from the internet these days. MP3.com is owned and other services have been shut down or are being poluted with crap. I have to go out of my way to hear anything but 40 year old recorded crap here in Baton Rouge. Oh yeah, NPR, the voice of the community is helping out. Thanks, Big Brother, your laws have set me free to chose between you and utter shit.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
No, the RIAA/NAT will simply continue to make the internet look bad. That's why they are currently polluting the sharing networks, no? In this case they are asking for special treatment, because they suck no less, so that they will be the only providers of "internet music". They will make the new media suck like the old and laugh all the way to the bank as each broken stream and each advert played on the internet competes for bandwith that "pirates" use to get around them. Bogus! Not dumb, oppresive. Not creative, but effective. Sounds like the schoolyard bully to me.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
If I make an analog copy of the digital stream (trivial), and then redigitize it, I can make infinite generations of copies from that analog copy.
Silly argument?
Yes, absolutely. But its essentially the same argument that you're making.
And what if you just record a regular radio broadcast digitaly?
If you don't have anything nice to say, shut up you stupid prick.
Of course, you can do this with real radio broadcasts, too, but everyone's decision-making abilities go haywire as soon as the word "digital" enters the debate: the streamed version would yield a DIGITAL copy of the song in question, and is therefore evil and scary.
My Psion Wavefinder receives DAB digital radio, and allows me to directly record the mp2 stream, exactly as it was transmitted (at 100% signal, which I usually get), without conversion of file format. Digital radio, however, was hailed as a revolution by all concerned, and it didn't seem to bother the recording industry that I have a nice little source of 192kbps stereo music whenever I feel like it.
Oh, and I can record from all the stations on the DAB multiplex simultaneously without tying up my sound card. So why do they have problems with Internet stations?
Like car accidents, most hardware problems are due to driver error.
Petition to Remove CARP!
[insert witty comment here]
But interestingly, digital radio is now a reality. So if you tape off that? or even better, record to your PC and blow it onto a CD? Hmm, guess they've not really thought about that! :-)
Grab.
"Rather than seek special treatment from the courts, we encourage the broadcasters to work with the labels and artists as our industries transition into new businesses," said Steven Marks, a senior vice president at the RIAA.
Now, what I find interesting about this is that the RIAA is basically telling radio is that there is a new business model being built, one that revolves more around collecting performance fees and royalties than the actual sales of a physical product. This would make sense from their POV, seeing as how physical media sales are slipping. What better way to keep the income rolling in than to find a way to charge for every single type of song out there.....every time it is broadcast/played/thought about.
People desperate for money can be scary.
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