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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
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)
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.
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.
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?)
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.
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
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