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 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?
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!
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
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