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RIAA Says Webcasting Royalties Are Too Low
Karl writes "The RIAA announced today their intention to appeal the royalty rates for internet radio decided on by the Librarian of Congress. Today was the very last day to file for an appeal." The webcasters put out of business by the royalties include SomaFM, Monkeyradio, KPIG, and many others. At least a few Congressional representatives support revising CARP to give small webcasters a chance to survive.
Jesus, I just said it RULED, and I'm not even American. Indeed it RULED.
I dont quite understand the reason tho. They've killed just about every decent net radio station out there - are they just making sure there's none left so they dont receive any royalties at all?
Invoicing, Time Tracking, Reporting
How does the RIAA expect people to make revenue?
Webcasters have a hard time paying for bandwidth as it is!
This is bullshit. Waiting till literally the last second to appeal. When the fuck are the American public going to get their collective heads out of their collective asses and see that "the man" truly is STICKIN IT TO YA.
Today, I announced that CD prices are too high. I appeal to all people to purchase more used cd's. The notice of my intent has been officially filed as a Slashdot comment.
"I don't think it's selfish, to eat defenseless shellfish." -NOFX
Does anybody know if the royalty rates apply to on-demand streaming as well as Internet Radio?
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
The Term "Nail in the coffin" comes to mind.
The RIAA are quickly making their way to the top of the hate list for any free thinking individual. Does anyone know whether their appeal opens up the possibility for other groups to argue that the rates are too high??
I have such difficulty imagining what the high-ups at RIAA are thinking. Crushing diversity and turning broadcasters against them isn't going to help even them one single bit.
The only option right now is for brave broadcasters to practise civil disobedience and find ways to continue broadcasting. Support your favourite internet radio station!
A little planning goes a long way...
Nice to see that Hilary Rosen's email address isnt anywhere to be found on the RIAA website. Guess she knows better.
Fscking RIAA, glad I haven't bought a CD from them in 3 years or so. Now if you'll excuse me, time to go pirate some more music. Fuckers.
dog barks in pain!
("Dawgs In Da Payne" by RIAA Lobby Lobby")
[joke post]
are too low. They haven't put all the webcasters out of business yet so obviously the royalties are to low. I see where the RIAA is going with this.
I am begining to wonder about the RIAA business plan.
1) Bad PR
2) ???
3) Profit
Capitalism: unequal distribution of wealth
Socialism: equal distribution of poverty
The Librarian of Congress was duped by Yahoo!'s self-serving testimony in the CARP.
This is, of course, opposed to the self-serving testimony of the RIAA.
Think For Yourself. Question Authority.
Here's how it would work. The broadcaster takes an audio file, and converts it to an image (e.g. a png). Each client would have a plugin which converts the image file back to a music file. Now since you're not actually streaming audio files, the CARP charges wouldn't apply, would they ?
I am surprised nobody has suggested this before.
They won't be satisfied until ALL internet streaming stations are DEAD DEAD DEAD. This much is quite clear. The RIAA doesn't want to play fair.
What I want to know is, why are so many musicians and artists completely silent on this issue? We've heard from Janis Ian, but what about the rest of the musicians the RIAA "supposedly" represents?
I realize that they are musicians and perhaps not netrats like the rest of us but still... it would be nice to hear of some actual ARTISTS standing up and telling the RIAA to get bent, for a change.
Of course. The RIAA doesn't want to become obsolete. With everyone gone, they will still keep making money. They make deals with radio stations. They play what they want you to hear, They play what is cheap for them. They own your songs.
Of course, there are ways around everything.
Streamer
Slashdot: Streamer
This will be the future of Internet radio.
"The Librarian's decision was based on a misguided reading of the record. Not only was improper weight given to the testimony of Yahoo! but some 140 separate licensing deals were thrown out by the Librarian. The end result significantly undervalued the music used by Internet radio companies."
Silly Librarian, you dont read records, you LISTEN to them!!
and for bad joke number 2...
Wait a second, isnt that exactly what the record companies do to the artists, undervalue their music and pay them pennies??
Let the mod points fly!!
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
Perhaps government decisions like that should be treated just as if someone had declared that internet content will be strictly monitored, and that one no longer has control over what he/she can publish on the net. Otherwise, one by one the gov't may put into place smaller laws that affect the privacy of smaller groups on the net, and before we know it, each of us has some sort of net restrictions, and we won't be strong enough to do anything about it. :)
So, don't let the government profit in that way...they're one, we're many. Computer users of the world, unite!
What with all this legal rambling the RIAA/MPAA is doing, they are both missing the point completely. Any laws set up un the US will (for the most part) only have effect in the US. What about the rest of the world? Are they gonna care about the royalties of the RIAA, or weather or not is legal to tradde movies over the internet? No. These organizations (or rather the companies they represent) should stop worring about such small potatos and fix a failing business model
The Internet; it will change your life (for better or worse)
Why can't these stations stream off an offshore host. To me that appears to be an easy solution to give an FU to the RIAA. I'm not saying that they still couldn't shut people down, but it might be much harder.
Or maybe Peercast will save the day.
In radio, you can't tell how many listeners you have. On the web, given retransmission technology is desirable to reduce server bandwidth, the same problem is likely to arise. So, does it make sense to charge per listener?
THATS BRILLIANT. It doesnt even have to be an Image file per-say, you could go and INVENT and whole new type of file, just for the use of sending music that will be reconstructed at the other end. Seriously. Somebody get on this. I expect source on sourceforge.net within the day :)
Those SOB's at the RIAA still haven't gotten it... if they just keep quiet, then actions like the following will not be neccesary...
/.ing of the RIAA website or alternatly click here
Click Here to help the
There is no mod option "-1: Disagree" for a reason. "Overrated" is not an acceptable substitute. Post something instead.
they don't want anybody to listen to their music, so, why are they publishing?
The obvious solution, IMHO, is that there should be fees... that are based on percent profit. Why should the RIAA profit from someone who isn't profitting in the first place? This would essentially be free advertising, that the RIAA would not have to pay for.
Besides, who pays for radio anyway? So unless someone actually does pay, and the internet radio guys have ads... they get zero profit, and so the RIAA gets zero profit.
But still gets free advertising for whatever is being played. So what exactly was the problem?
And if they think that people will record songs from them and what not... well, its more difficult than it sounds. Recording a live stream is very annoying... similar to recording a radio stream. First, you have no idea when a specific song will play. And even if you continually recorded the stream to get to the song... or for more than once song, you still gotta edit it down to the individual songs. This is more trouble than its worth, when Kazaa or the like would do just fine.
http://www.riaa.com/contact.cfm
Here's a contact form to make your views known to the RIAA.
A little planning goes a long way...
So the RIAA has the jaw-dropping temerity to accuse Yahoo! of "self-serving interest" (isn't that what business is all about anyway?). This is from the same organisation whose press-releases appear to suggest that CDs didn't appear until the 1990s, who even suggest that "turning music into a file is great" whilst trying to stamp out the ability of the rest of us to do so, and who wrote the book on "self-serving interest". Just what version of reality are these people partaking in? It's obviously not the same as the rest of us.
It's too late for me to die young
It has nothing to do with royalties. Copyright and Patents are designed for one thing:
1) To enforce existing market monopolies for those companies that have the legal cash stockpiles to do so.
2) Making sure the consumer never has a choice of any other medium or format that isn't controlled by the attorneys/board of directors of said company that currently has a market monopoly.
3) Using the power and cash that comes from that power, of such a market monopoly, companies and board of directories buy our lawmakers, and insure that laws are made to enforce any market monopoly in place. All perfectly legal I am afraid.
Finally this is not a question of royalties. Companies/organizations that control whole markets are not interested in third parties tiny little royalty payments. They want to own the ENTIRE market. That is the only way to stay in power.
Secondly, market volatility is prevented because you can squash any competitor to your organization that comes along that may destabilize the "status quo".
Entire markets online have closed for competitors to what the RIAA is and represents because they have enourmous cash stockpiles to grease the collusion of government lawmakers and therefore the legal system.
The AntiTrust system in this country is a joke, quite frankly. I don't even know why it is on the books. I think it is a TAX law. (i.e. If a company "all of a sudden" falls under the anti trust act they must not be paying someone in Washington enough money. As we have seen with Microsoft, you hand over enough money lawmakers go away, and you retain your market monopoly.)
Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
So... you'd like for the free market to kill off all the non-comercial small guys? Yeah, that's the type of pressure I like to see.
Not.
And as for your opinion that the RIAA is 'trying to make internet media work' I say, pzzzzzzzzt. Wrong. There's absolutely no reason I shouldn't be able to download (for a fee) any song ever created by any artist. The only thing preventing this is the RIAA extreme lack of trying to make internet media work. They don't give a god-damn about internet media and if it's 'working'. You know what they do care about? Money and Power.
Let's pick a time, at the moment I think February would do the job, and take RIAA sales *and music downloads* as close to zero as we can. Let's get heard. But getting the music downloads to zero is as important as the purchases, if not moreso. We need this to be a political statement, not just an economic one, even though economics are an important part.
Personally, I've been on a low-level RIAA boycott for years. A bit too much like Frank Zappa's "half-hearted war against apathy." The other side is getting my family to buy-in to such a thing. For that reason, I don't believe a Christmas boycott could be made to stick in a broad population. But I believe the month of February could make a loud statement.
We have 5.5 months to get it organized.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
(nt)
There is no mod option "-1: Disagree" for a reason. "Overrated" is not an acceptable substitute. Post something instead.
To start off - try JJJ which is an Australian alternativish station. For cool beats try Xanu FM.
I don't think it would have made a lick of difference if the L of C mandated royalty rates ten times as high: the RIAA still would have appealed, saying it's too low.
Just the nature of the game. Whoever dies with the most money, wins. The RIAA is just playing to win.
- SMJ - (It's not just a name: it's a bad aftertaste.)
im sorry, i have to disagree. this move of the RIAA is to help them get a stronghold on something they dont yet have. I VERY much enjoy 3wkUnderground Radio. I have yet to find a station, over the air or web, that matches its variety. It is NOT corporate sponsored so real artists get their music heard and are not studio creations. They arent trying to make internet radio work, they're trying to make a profit. What about all of those bands that are independant and are on labels not a part of the RIAA? what about them? Web radio is how i found out about ALOT of music and is what turned me off to the crap the RIAA puts out. please think about their true intentions.
"Only the continuous and steady application of the methods for suppressing a doctrine, etc., makes it possible for a plan to succeed."
-- Adolf Hitler
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
when do we get it? They want big partners, with which they can make big deals with big margins allowing them to subsidize other marketing campaigns (like paying DJs to play stuff). They want to control it and with too cheap to setup webradio we will just end up in chaos where everyone listens the music he likes.
Unfortunately music consumption is not about arts, aesthetics and stuff. It is about event fun, like Hockey, Baseball and Festivals.
So they want to build groups who listen to the same shit and that takes marketing and lots of money. Control is key there. Actually I think with the smaller spots offering alternative Music, that the alt music could finally bring down the entire music industry we know today, because they make 80% gross of non music products (like events, t-Shirts, Videos, collectibles). As long as webradio was a small side effect they liked it and read futer trends examining it. Now they are faced with the fact that they don't control that channel so they had to do something about it.
Somehow I hate them for their sheer power to invade my life by surrounding me with Britney Spears prints everywhere I go. Even the cutest tits running around town occasionally are convertet to penalty-spots for my eyes by that shirts. If I lose my eye-sight one day I will have to take THE MUSIC INDUSTRY to court
Listen, I'm no fan of the RIAA or the trends in intellectual property law madness, but the people who own the rights to copyrighted material have a right to be compensated for the use of that material. And spare me the guff about information wanting to be free or how it can't be illegal to violate copyright because you don't physically steal anything or prevent the original owner from using the product. There's no law of physics that says cars can only go fifty-five, nevertheless we have speed limits.
Advice to the MonkeyRadios of this world: get a business model. Get one not based on being allowed to freely distribute someone else's property. And to you listeners who think it "rules," figure out if you want advertisements or subscription charges, or if you'd rather just listen to your CD collectiona and whine. 'Cause guess what - your news flash for the day is that this shit ain't free.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
"Corporation admits that it 'wants more money.'"
Uh, yes.
Does internet radio really need to go out of business? Is it impossible to exist without broadcasting the same copyrighted music that everyone else broadcasts? There are lots of independent bands that would love to have their music played without royalties. There's probably a lot of talented people who could do talk shows and news as well. Wouldn't this avoid any royalty payments? Surely someone in internet radio can produce original programming!
If the Justice Department could just finish up with Microsoft, they could get started on these guys...
The RIAA, and MPAA both need some old school trust breaking justice visited on them. These f***s are organized and legalized crime at its best.
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
I have started my switch to indie only music (It's kinda like switching from windows to linux btw...) as I have gotten sick of the crap that is being pulled.
well you know what... Local artists and indie artists are actually better than anything that is part of the RIAA's clan... You can actually talk to these people, and when they play for you they play their heart out for you and for the music.
My reccomendation to anyone upset about the RIAA? screw em, avoid their music, support only your locals and indie artists... (And look watch for the sellouts.. several used-to-be indie artists are now minions of the RIAA... and if they are, speak your displeasure and add them to your avoid list too.)
this is the only way it will change, and you will discover that your music will start to taste better.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Higher start-up and running costs mean less people using their technologies.
Of course I'd prefer to use Icecast but Real and Apple have far more cash to fight this than the Xiph crew.
Phil
I can see RIAA's strategy now clearly.
Net radio station have to move their servers to countries where RIAA has no influence.
After few years all radio listeners have switched to the Internet radios. Since by then USA has no working net radios the 3rd world countries gain all profit.
This just a way to support poor countries!
I feel like firebombing Rosen's office. I swear.
When I read this story I got a bad feeling. I whent to www.reallifecomics.com , a good comic by the way, to listen to some good old final fantasy radio. live365 now requires $5/month. Jesus fucking virgin Mary Christ.
I now have to pay the RIAA money to listen to old video game music?? Music which I know was written and performed by the Japanese?? Yeah, I'm certain Hilary will send Square the check. Yeah right.
ARGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!
No more final fantasy radio??????!!!!!!!!
Check out this band, one of my favorites: Devics.com.
Any other bands you people recommend?
There is no problem with getting a business model, or even adding commercials. The problem is that CARP rates are REDICULOUSLY HIGH. Look at this.
CARP Rates - Final
What it boils down to is this... Are you a friend of the RIAA? If not, prepare to pay the price. There is no way that any webcaster can stay around at these rates... And that's the point. They want them to be even higher so that those that might barely get by also don't have a chance. That way, only those in bed with the RIAA that play what THEY want you to hear can afford a license... A different license that doesn't apply to the normal CARP rules.
Listen, I'm no fan of the RIAA or the trends in intellectual property law madness, but the people who own the rights to copyrighted material have a right to be compensated for the use of that material.
Fine. How about we get rid of the of the webcasting surcharge and just pay the regular royalties that both radio and webcasting already pay? The whole point of the webcasting royaltis is to make it so expensive to do that it's prohibitive for anyone that isn't already an established broadcaster. This has nothing to do with business models - this is about preserving the status quo.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
To find unsigned artists that _are_ willing to have their works broadcast over the web in terms that internet stations find agreeable?
I don't see any reason why internet stations in large metropolitan areas couldn't spend a portion of their time seeking local artists that _would_ be willing to have their stuff played, and maybe even local businesses that would be willing to carry a bit of the load financially.
You give local artists a worldwide platform, give your site a sense of community and undermine the RIAA. Sounds like win-win-win to me.
"First you get the Linux, then you get the power, THEN you get the women"
I am willing to sue the RIAA, to gain the rights that we should all have. If we can find a way to attack the suit, and reason in support of it.
Goals should be:
1. To establish that once a CD is purchased it is mine and I may do with it as I please.
2. Establish RAND fees for streaming music that fair to the artist who recorded it.
3. Prove the RIAA is a Monopoly and should be taken apart piece by piece.
4. Prove they have controlled the music industry for far to long...and have done a piss poor job of it.
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
There's not much point in paying to setup an internet radio station which broadcasts exactly the same as the broadcast stations: there's a lot of work involved (and I think a lot of people listening to mass-market media aren't really inclined to do that kind of thing).
So you tend to find a much wider variety of music on 'net radio, which gives people choice of music from different countries, and genres not traditionally represented by RIAA members. Not really conducive to having member's music heard all the time.
I think another part of it is that it's quite a bit harder to push music to a large number of online stations, all run by different people, than it is to promote to the normal broadcast stations, which are often represented by a few parent companies, and I'd guess probably common playlists.
Compare with some of the reasons people came up with as to why they thought the RIAA went so hard after AudioGalaxy. (AG really went out of their way to filter mp3s of artists who didn't want their wusic shared, not just RIAA members but everyone, so I don't think the copyright-violation claims by the RIAA entirely ring true there).
This is all about control. The record companies want internet radio to pay royalties, so the stations will have no choice but to accept payola from the record companies. The fact that internet radio stations tend to play independent music further threatens the RIAA.
I will say it again. This issue is not about royalties. It is about controlling the market and silencing the competition.
...if you're a webcaster, if you don't play a single bit of music, under the new "agreement", you still owe the RIAA $500. If you play nothing but independent labels not affiliated with the RIAA or foreign labels (also not covered)? Still owe them $500.
They get more money from webcasters who play their property, but they also get money from webcasters who don't. How does that make sense?
Easy does it!
This comment has been submitted already, 276865 hours , 59 minutes ago. No need to try again.
I went to send the riaa some fun hatemail, but I kept timing out. Did the /. flood work, or did something else take them down? ;)
Fucking 'tards. They'll never get it.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Screw unicasting.
Multicasting is the answer. The RIAA wants huge royalties per listener, right? If stations started multicasting their music it would literally be impossible to calculate. You'd just be firing a fixed bandwith of packets out there, and ANYONE with a digital "ear" can listen in.
Internet broadcasters would also be using a LOT less bandwidth.
As others have pointed out. The RIAA's "business plan" is to run interference for the big 5.
We're all too busy fuming over Ms. Rosen's latest pronouncements to bother remembering that it's Sony and Vivendi and the others that are ultimately responsible for this.
So the business plan is:
1) Bad PR
2) Distract public from Sony
3) Sony makes mondo profits.
4) Sony pays RIAA.
Feel free to substitute other RIAA member companies for Sony.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
There is simply one thing that we can. Locate and determine which artists are signed with recording labels that are part of the RIAA. I believe that there are a number of smaller labels that aren't members.
Perhaps I am wrong. Anyway, instead of buying the music provided for by RIAA members, simply buy music produced by those smaller labels or your favorite local band that turns out their own stuff.
Get your friends to do it, if you can get them to turn of MTV and the radio, that is. Sure, it sucks! There are more than a few bands that I enjoy and would love to own the music they create. However, I have to give it up.
I suppose that makes me one of the few (perhaps less than 5%) that ACTUALLY votes with my dollar. If you feel that the RIAA is bad, simply stop buying the music they create.
We are all mostly geeks, right? Being geeks, we should be able to locate information as to what bands are with labels that are members of the RIAA.
Someone can provide a list a web-site, something that will help people in buying the music that supports freedom. I would, I am just to damn busy and quite frankly music is just not all that important to me.
-.-
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
Besides, the RIAA keeps costs down for the consumer by making sure that only well-known, popular music gets streamed, not obscure artists who haven't proven themselves on MTV.
Clearly, the RIAA has our best interests in mind. Copyright and royalties are complicated and should be left to them to figure out. This also frees up artists like Britney and N*SYNC to focus on what's really important. The music.
This saves us all money and trouble in the long run. Go RIAA!
Someone needs to hit the people in charge of the RIAA with a clue-bat several times, and not for the inducement of concussion.
"Hey, we're not nearly gouging the artists and the paying public out of nearly enough money, and we have these completely bogus statistics that webcasting is costing us money somehow. Why don't we drive this free method of advertising out of business?"
"Sounds like a plan. Oh, and people are humming some of the songs we control, and not paying for it either. Why don't we get Berman to enact a law against that as well?"
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
A way out of this is to have a webcasting radio station that plays only artists that are not involved with the RIAA. I know of a few hundred artists that aren't and I'm sure there would be plenty of content.
I hear all this stuff going on about people bitching but CD sales are still happening. A lot of you guys still buy CDs.
Support the people that make money without the RIAA and the artists will be happy, and the RIAA will not.
shameless plug->
check out my band here: there will be another 8 mp3's posted next week after we record this weekend.
www.awrittendeathwish.com
Get paid to code OSS
How does this affect webcasting in other countries (Canada, the UK, etc)? If the RIAA institute higher royalty fees, doesn't that only take effect in the US?
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
While this looks good on the surface, it is a very few representatives. The RIAA can even use this as PR. "Look even Congress thinks changing the laws are a bad idea." The RIAA has shown little hesitation in throwing money at the issue of their bottom line. If this gets any headway at all, it will die in committee.
Until someone shows Congress why they should not support the RIAA/MPAA (i.e. they do not get re-elected) expect it to be a long cold winter.
Sadly, this is exactly the attitude the RIAA wishes to foster...hopelessness.
is the RIAA's self-righteous attitude. While they'd like us to think they are heroes protecting exploited artists, the truth is that they're protecting the recording companies which steal from both musicians and consumers. Recording companies: .75 cents to a 1.25 per cd for artists? I mean sure it equates to big bucks, but if someone has to get ridiculously wealthy I'd rather it be the artist who created the music, not the company that produced it.
1) Overcharge for cd's, knowing full well that they have a strangle hold-on many consumers who buy wholeheartedly into MTV hype.
2) Give artists a disportionately small amount of the revenue generated by their cds.
So basically, recording companies wedge their way between musicians and consumers, steal from both, then say WE'RE the bad guys for violating the artists' rights. Sounds like dog shit to me. I'd say the RIAA is just pissed that the internet has superceded their ability to isolate the musicians from us, the listeners. I'm willing to bet that many artists would (metallica excluded - they've proved themselves to be true assholes) allow their music to be broadcasted over the internet free of charge, provided they didn't have their record label breathing down their necks.
Yeah, let's do it.
But we have to make sure that it doesn't coincide with the release of the special edition DVD of FoTR.
errr...ummmm...
Whoops.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
I work for a small radio station here in the US. We had a few listeners in Germany that liked us. They'd e-mail us all the time and request stuff, it was pretty cool.
Then the mighty hand of the RIAA took away our webcasting. We couldn't afford their rediculous fees and the audio server is now someone's workstation.
Here's what I don't get. By playing the music we play, we encourage those listeners to go out and buy CDs. Apparently the RIAA doesn't understand that. Somehow, allowing people to hear a SAMPLE of music the RIAA produces, encouraging people to buy a full album, is considered piracy to them. Do they realize how much of their sales are based off of listeners who heard it on the radio first? Eventually the RIAA will probably sue radio stations out of existence for this "piracy" that they've only tolerated thus far.
I particularly liked This post yesterday. Substitute in your favorite *AA. I think this is the future of RIAA owned music as well.
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
I was searching for info about CD prices, as a local newspaper said they were on the verge of dropping significantly. I came across the RIAA explanation why a CD cost so much. In typical Slashdot manner, I haven't actually read any RIAA stuff before.
Read it and weep. That should convince you what double-faced bullshit the RIAA is spurring about. A few extracts:
Then come marketing and promotion costs -- perhaps the most expensive part of the music business today.
So they tell us that a major part of the cost comes from advertising to us, which has no value for us? Great... (Okay, this is a bit beside the point.)
For example, when you hear a song played on the radio -- that didn't just happen! Labels make investments in artists by paying for both the production and the promotion of the album, and promotion is very expensive. New technology such as the Internet offers new ways for artists to reach music fans, but it still requires that some entity, whether it is a traditional label or another kind of company, market and promote that artist so that fans are aware of new releases.
Are they saying they pay the radio stations to play and promote their music? A bit of a contradiction I'd say...
Between 1983 and 1996, the average price of a CD fell by more than 40%. Over this same period of time, consumer prices (measured by the Consumer Price Index, or CPI) rose nearly 60%. If CD prices had risen at the same rate as consumer prices over this period, the average retail price of a CD in 1996 would have been $33.86 instead of $12.75.
The CD was invented in 1980. They're comparing the production price of a three-year-old technology to its price 13 years later? Oh, give me a break...
I doubt, therefore I may be.
... and what we need to do is publicise the dangers of internet music piracy, as in this article.
(The Onion has had some very, uh, informative stories on this issue. They're well worth reading, and passing on to friends.)
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Hilary probably gets all wet and squishy inside when we say she's a bitch, because this means she's doing her job. The bad guys here are Sony, Vivendi, AOL Time Warner, Bertelsmann, and the fifth that I can't remember. They're the ones to bash here, except certain parts of AOLTW as they are also on the other side of the fence (own Nullsoft).
sulli
RTFJ.
They aren't even the ones creating or selling music. What a freakin crock!
These people just want money.
These tactics surpass microsofts bullying business tactics by far. I don't see a difference between this and using force to maintain a monopoly. RIAA is basically ensuring that the music industry as it is now is and will be the ONLY major player. Screw consumers, screw artists.
Pisses me off.
The price we pay for immortality... is death. Narnia The Great Fall
If that's true it's insane but I'm having a real hard time believing it's true. Yer gonna have to prove it to me. Link?
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
Last Sunday morning I was on a 3.5 hour drive, and listening to a radio show called "Flashback." They were doing 1973 rock songs, blended with news and ancient commercials from 1973 (and of course, modern radio commercials -- mostly for Florida's teeming personal-injury bar).
Anyway, during one of the "1973 news" segments, the host read something official from (a group like the RIAA but not the RIAA itself, I think it was some sort of musicians' union?) that forbade musicians from recording any more albums on vinyl, because record albums took jobs away from live musicians! Once he had read this very-brief news-piece, the announcer didn't comment at all, but he went right on to play what I'd call "album rock." (I forget the song.) I sat there, thinking about the RIAA, and Jack Valenti, etc. doing the same thing today.
I wish I could be more precise, but this is the best my memory can do. My point is that these groups, whose "generals" want to continually "fight the previous war," always end up doing their own side more harm than good.
IMO what's needed is more ways for fans to pay for individual songs they like (rather than entire expensive CDs) with LESS friction & more freedom-to-choose. This would benefit all consumers, and the productive people in the entertainment industry.
JMR
Try e-gold - (contact me). I'm NOT e-
Copyrights and patents are designed for one thing, and then you list 5 things? :)
:)
silly silly!
If riaa doesn't want to let you stream files or pirate their music then thats their business.
www.fuckriaa.org
"The more you tighten your grip, RIAA, the more musicians will slip through your fingers."
-Thomas
I have to agree that cd prices are way too high. I make descent money, but I still cannot afford to pay 15-20 dollars just to hear something that I like. What makes it worse is that I listen to alot of stuff like vai and the donnas, who don't tend to get very much radio play. For the last 5 years or so, I have only purchased one new cd, and that doesn't include the ones I have recieved as gifts. I sometimes feel that even used prices get to high at big chain music stores, so I try to shop at pawn shops -- there's no telling what you can find there, and at 1-3 bucks each, that's a steal!
http://page33.port5.com -- Spread the paranoia.
Most of the good artists are dead and almost all the good stuff can be found used and cheap! The perfect solution.
THIS SPACE FOR RENT
I mean, they only pay rates proportionally dozens to hundreds of times higher than radio, and radio stations don't make much money, so it must be poor accounting that's driving hobbyists and people with virtually no costs off the net-waves, right? Get a fucking clue.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
As a record store pointed out elsewhere, the RIAA likes the status quo of 10 years ago (ie, airwaves over internet) because there are fewer stations in each market and it's easier to control them all. They pay money to get certain songs and artists promoted. They can't do this with internet, so if internet flourishes, they will have virtually no control.
The RIAA needs to do this because they make less than NO money on most artists. They need the bulk of sales to come from a relative few artists or they will start losing lots of $$$. With internet radio free, consisting of many different formats, listners will get turned on to all kinds of new artists, so fewer people will buy the next Brittney or Dave Matthews album and will search out an indie artist. This will be bad for the RIAA under their current model. So they need to kill internet radio - their pricing scheme has nothing to do with them making money off net radio, they don't want to!
Of course, the non-Luddite method for the RIAA would be to embrace the internet as a great and new means of distribution and production that could actually help them cut out middlemen and such. How great for them would it be if they could get people legally burning their own CD's? Goodbye expensive fabrication plants. Goodbye shipping costs. Goodbye record stores. They could about double their profits this way. Hell, they could lead the way in internet radio - huge RIAA-sponsored internet radio stations dripping with bandwidth would be immensely successful, possibly even marginalizing the current indie internet radio stations just like they have the indie "airwaves" radio station.
But they won't do any of this because they fear technology - they and the MPAA always have. Always will. So have fun with your Top 40, so-called "alternative" (currently a talentless mixture of metal, distortion, and whining), and drum-machine hip-hop.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Please everybody, we need to get together on a SPECIFIC DATE on when to start a CD boycott. This has to be publicized and noted to everybody possible so that the decrease in sales will not be attributed to piracy.
The problem with the current "boycott" is that everybody started at their own time and pace and now there is just a "slump in sales" that is blamed on piracy. Let's get together and set a date. We need a date that is meaningful and will have maximum impact.
Help guys! (and gals)
...And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me." - Martin Niemoeller (1892-1984)
If I were the Librarian of Congress, I'd be pretty damned offended at that press release. I mean, they all but called the guy an easily manipulated idiot.
"The Librarian's decision was based on a misguided reading of the record..." Because a Librarian is someone who really has a problem interpreting written documents...especially a guy who's been running the Library of Congress since 1987. Give us a break. As if the RIAA doesn't make a big enough ass of itself with everything else they pull.
With these sorts of press releases, it should be more obvious how the RIAA is slanting things. I mean, "internet radio companies"?? Internet radio stations are people in basements and bedrooms - not giant corporations like Hillary would have you believe. They undertake the expenses of web broadcasting at little or no benefit to themselves. They were playing music that for the most part could not be heard anywhere else, and giving new artists a chance to get promoted. Anyway, I'm sure that's all been said.
The murder of internet radio by the RIAA is nothing less than cultural destruction.
free speach
Did you mean: free speech
Just walk in and ask where the independent music section is..They say "We don't have one" and you thank them and turn around and leave. Have all your friends do the same thing. The Recording Industry won't listen to the consumer, maybe they will listen to the merchants. Every store has limited floorspace, and if they add independent, then the RIAA cabal loses space.
Since when does sanity play any part in our government? And prove it to you? Read the text of the ruling yourself: http://www.loc.gov/copyright/carp/webcasting_rates .html.
Here's the proof Notice the row with the heading "Combined minimum fee." I'm not sure who that money goes to, but even if you're streaming YOUR OWN MUSIC, you pay $500. Does that make any sense to anyone???
Also, I did some quick calculations regarding the back fees that are due. Assuming someone has been streaming music nonstop since October 28, 1998 (the earliest date for which back fees are due), with 5 minutes per son (which seems overly long), I figure that person owes $29 307.60. Most people don't have that kind of money.
The webcasters put out of business by the royalties include SomaFM, Monkeyradio, KPIG, and many others.
KPIG? The PIG makes it sound like this identifier would be more appropriate for a station the RIAA ran.
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
First the rate was fine, they didn't even grouse when it was lowered by the Librarian of Congress. Now its not ok.
Currently, a Copyright Royalty Arbitration Panel (CARP) meets once every two years to decide on royalty fees for web radio broadcasters.
Does one expect non CRAP'y decisions from a panel that's named like this. They even changed the acronym so we wouln't realize this.
the us gov't thinks it can step in and control the internet... which I find to be funny. I realize most of the internet's content resides in the states, but if my net radio station is hosted on canadian or other out of the country locations, its not illegal.
Talk about a bunch of idiots (RIAA) thinking they can stop anything on the net...
ya rite.
My favorite webcasting site, DigitalGunfire.com was about to shut down but was SAVED by 3 of the labels they played, who gave them SIGNED contracts saying they could play their music 100% Royalty free! These labels recognize that DigitalGunfire is actually helping them with FREE promotional broadcasting.
So if you are into industrial/electronic music, check out these three labels and buy from them if you like what you hear (check out DigitalGunfire.com for a few hours or days if you want to listen before you buy!)
Here are the labels: (Industrial/Electronic genre)
Alfa Matrix
Metropolis Records
Inception Records
If anyone knows of other indy labels who have given sites permission to play Royalty free, please add them here and list what Genre they fall under!
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
....in fact, I think pedophiles *have* tried this, or something similar, with kiddie porn, and they were convicted. If you really want to make it to work, there are ways of encoding (hiding) data in pictures, and the picture still looks like a picture, so as to be undetected. Unfortunately,it would obscenely tank the bandwidth of the sound to damn near prevent streaming. My opinion is that the best way to fight this is to listen to artists who promote themselves without an RIAA-affiliated label.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
"A witty quote proves nothing."
--Voltaire
Though I suppose it doesn't strictly apply in this case, as nobody is arguing the counter-case in support of the RIAA.
Freedom: "I won't!"
Check the schedule...about three hours in 24 is actual music. (Most of that is probably advertising.)
Ad luna, Alicia! Ad luna!
OK, then get some non-Americans with some servers, throw up some internet radio. Really, does anyone know how these sorts of contracts apply to foreign countries? Are there international treaties that deal with these issues?
Is there a lawyer in the house?
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Because there's no end to those pricks. Jeez....
Ad luna, Alicia! Ad luna!
LART! LART! LART!
Luser Attitude Readjustment Tool. 1. n. In the collective mythos of scary devil monastery, this is an essential item in the toolkit of every BOFH. The LART classic is a 2x4 or other large billet of wood usable as a club, to be applied upside the head of spammers and other people who cause sysadmins more grief than just naturally goes with the job. Perennial debates rage on alt.sysadmin.recovery over what constitutes the truly effective LART; knobkerries, semiautomatic weapons, flamethrowers, and tactical nukes all have their partisans. Compare clue-by-four. 2. v. To use a LART. Some would add "in malice", but some sysadmins do prefer to gently lart their users as a first (and sometimes final) warning. 3. interj. Calling for one's LART, much as a surgeon might call "Scalpel!". 4. interj. [rare] Used in flames as a rebuke. "LART! LART! LART!"
It was me, I did it, I moved your cheese
1. Good luck. You'd probably have better luck suing the Church of Scientology. Hilary R. would crush you and anyone helping you like bugs.
2. RIAA is not really a "monopoly". They're a trust ("a combination of firms or corporations formed by a legal agreement; especially : one that reduces or threatens to reduce competition" - Merriam Webster Collegiate dictionary). In fact they've been shown to be guilty of price-fixing.
Freedom: "I won't!"
Are there any true sources for broadcasting independent and free music? Can the RIAA attack stations in the US that do NOT broadcast their music?
And I worked in a couple so I should know.
[This was satire, ICYDU.]
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
and I doubt they will be doing that any time soon.
On business plans -- I guess I haven't been paying attention, but are any of the commercial radio station webcasts still advertising? I remember the blow up a few months ago when advertisers quit paying, so a number of stations cut off broadcasts. Has the RIAA nonsense complicated this?
On the parent comment -- how does this royalty paid to RIAA ever benefit the artists? I know you state you're no fan of the RIAA, but how does any of that money actually make it to the artists?
The precedents set so far do not seem to clearly indicate what would happen if an offshore webcaster began filling the void left by the stations that were effectively shut down by the recent CARP ruling.
However, the RIAA could probably argue for jurisdiction in some American court if said webcaster did not go through a few steps to ensure that it's audience was not American. Indeed, the courts will probably weigh heavily on the interpretaton of the webcaster's intent, target audience, and the effect of their service (If, at the end of the day, it's still easy for most Americans to receive service from said webcaster without licence fees being paid to the RIAA, said webcaster would probably be in for a rough ride).
The only way a foreign webcaster could fight this would probably be to execute an origin check, say with a combination of IP address identification/localization, a clickwrap agreement, and even probably an offline check such as a credit card number (for the billing address)
Net result? American audiences would still be left without access to these offshore webcasters. Such measures need not be 100% effective though, as it seems that the courts will accept that this is near impossible. Nevertheless, it would probably have to be shown that a concerted effort was made to block 90-95% of the American audience.
What if the webcaster ignores this and proceeds? The US courts, due to the lack of a defending opinion from the webcaster, would probably rule that jurisdiction applies. The RIAA would get a monetary judgement, probably for estimated licensing fees outstanding + legal costs, and try to have it recognized by the webcaster's local courts. The local courts would once again have to decide if jurisdiction applies. Even if they decide in favour of the webcaster, the webcaster's executive, and any funds/financing they have would have to avoid US control for the remainder of their lives. Not an enviable position.
So, I don't recommend trying to circumvent by attempting to operate outside the USA, IF a webcaster indends to target a US audience. My advice would be to stick to the basics, and support this bill. Call your congresperson, etc.
Although 15% is an unusually high profit margin in any industry, let alone retail, as several have already pointed out. 10% is usually a target margin.
But even 6 bucks is too much for music if you ask me. The marginal cost of that CD is probably no more than double the cost of running the CD stamper, when you only count production costs. The rest is distribution markup for a product that can be distributed for free. Unfortunately, record stores are on the wrong side of that equation . . . they are the distributors for the evil music industry. It's not a supportable business model in the long term.
That's what people who "make their money on the music industry" simply don't get. Nobody cares about supporting the existing sales infrastructure or the existing business models. We want our music cheaper, and we can get away with taking it for nothing, so we do, legality and morality be damned. Arguing about how the rules should be made, or how we should voice our unhappiness to those "in charge" is moot from the beginning: we're in charge, and we've already made the new rules. The new rules say we get our music for next to nothing, and no amount of arguing is going to change that.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
After the RIAA wins this battle, they'll want webcaster's blood as well. After successfully implementing their new blood and cash payment system, the RIAA will roll it out to consumers. Before long you'll have to fork over $20US and a pint of red (or in some cases blue) for a CD (in addition to signing all the correct "I promise never to pirate" forms).
>Although 15% is an unusually high profit margin in any industry
Depends if you're talking about net or gross margin. I agree that 15 is high for net margin, although M$ was in the 50s at one point. I was talking gross margin which is unbelievably low in anything but distribution. Distribution of small value hard goods is anywhere between 12-15% in general (again I am talking gross not net).
At retail, most retailers shoot for 40% gross. Apparel retailers shoot for at least 50 gross. Higher ticket items/electronics shoot for 20-25 gross although that is declining over time.
Why is it terrorists rarely attack the cartels?
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
"Someone needs to hit the people in charge of the RIAA with a clue-bat several times..." Which makes me wonder, "Where have all the good assasins gone?"
Heh. Reminds me of a Tom the Dancing Bug comic, where he exposes the immoral trade in library books (and the evils of the Dewey Decimal System).
In the last panel the RIAA raids a guy's house because he's singing in the shower.
-- clvrmnky
With all the major ones gone, I wonder what their goal is? Getting all webcasters to move to another country? No one will be able to pay the royalties!
This is to the annual report of Publix Super Markets. Their Gross Profit Margin is 26.5% and their Net Profit Margin is 3.5%. So we all have it right :o) we were just talking about different things
0 .h tml
http://www.hoovers.com/annuals/8/0,2168,40378,0
Sorry that I'm too stupid to figure out how to make this a link - I'm just a record store guy, be easy on me!
I'm in NH, and if you're selling stuff at that price point, i just might come by.
Where are your stores located? I'm in the Seacoast Area (Durham).
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
I am so sick of hearing everyone whine and complain about the DMCA/RIAA it's not even funny.
How many people read /. ? Why'n the hell don't any of you get up and DO something about it, instead of sitting back on your fat little arses and take a stand?
Jesus christ.
How many of you /.ers are in NY? LA? DC? Find eachother. Get together and picket, write, stage a media covering event -- make a stand. You won't get anything changed unless you actually do something.
You think there would be women's rights today if they didn't get up and force the issue? How about rights for African Americans?
I hate to tell you this, but sitting on some message board where 90% of the readers are techies and students and complaing isn't gonna get anything done.
Who's gonna step up and make the stand? You? Probably not. Your having too much fun, wasting away sitting in your little cubicle with your caffeene IV, popping zits and wiping the juice off your monitors to do anything about it.
You techies - you (or most of you) have systems that can host websites where people can gather together to discuss or arrange public meetings for local activists (course, that means you'll have to get off your asses and possibly go OUTSIDE.. god forbid you loose that sexy pale white color).
Students - flyers on campus. Campus rallys. Get together with others and go sit on the steps of the state capitol.
EVERYONE can write a letter to their congressman, senator and president.
What's /.'s readership numbers now? How many of you are in the US? If every one of you wrote a simple 1 page, well thought out letter to your congressman, senator, and the president..
Oh wait a minute, I said "well thought out" didn't I? After reading some of the comments posted here, are you capable of doing this? If all your gonna do is write "the RIAA sucks. F*you for supporting it" don't write.
And to those of you who say it doesn't make a difference, that lawmakers won't listen to a single letter or petition.. so do something else. stage a giant Million-CD Burning session in a major metropolitan city. Make the press aware and the rest of the public just exactly WHY the DMCA and RIAA are so Evil.
Sheesh. If you ain't gonna do anything about it, you ain't got no right to complain. Period. I for one am sick of hearing about it.
Oh, and for all you grammar and spelling freaks -- Bite Me
You ARE a nut!!
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
Ewwww. Hey, what did I ever do to you to cause you to wish such an evil upon me?
Amongst our weapons are...
ect., etc. snipped to avoid copyright infringement
But even 6 bucks is too much for music if you ask me. The marginal cost of that CD is probably no more than double the cost of running the CD stamper, when you only count production costs.
You'll have to wait a few more years before you can dictate the price of recordings of music, I'm afraid.
Maybe after you've been appointed to the board that runs the 'Ministry of Culture'.
Run along now, and sell some more Party newspapers.
Is there an official list of RIAA artists anywhere? I looked at their website but I only saw a few that they were using for exploita...errr....promotional reasons.
"For a successful technology, honesty must take precedence over public relations for nature cannot be fooled." -Feynman
I love a lot of the artists signed on by Metropolis Records.. VNV Nation, Apoptygma Berzerk, Icon of Coil, Theatre of Tragedy.. they're some of my favorite artists and I am SO glad Met Recs granted them that.
Yet more reason for me to actually buy the CDs from those artists. Of course, I walk into Tower or HMV or Strawberries and ask for those artists and I get a blank stare.. do you know how much a new Empires - VNV Nation CD costs these days tho.. ouch.
Not until it learns it's way around a corporate firewall, something that SomaFM, MonkeyRadio, and other shoutcast streams have overcome.
Jack Valenti, the absurd caricature if the Simpson's Mr. Burns, was found dead in his crypt early this morning. Authorities report that a wooden stake was apparently driven through his wallet.
You may not have enjoyed paying $8 a ticket for air-conditioned movies, but he was an American icon.
...I didn't know that you owned a record store!
But seriously, guess what? CDs are still too expensive.
If we cut out all of the middlemen, like pretty much the entirity of the obsolete recording industry (the labels and their "bosses"), and retailers like yourself (sorry!), we could get CDs for super-cheap and there would still be plenty of money for the actual artists to make a comfortable living. Maybe not enough for them to live like royalty, but big deal. Any artist who will only create if he or she gets millions of dollars in return is, let's be honest, probably not pouring his or her heart into the music.
And I'm not afraid to admit it!
If you support the Internet Radio Fairness Act to protect small webcasters, it's worth spending two minutes at SAVE INTERNET RADIO! to automatically fax your support to congress.
Doc Searls has some interesting points on Nielsen Hayden's site (scroll down or just read it copied below):
Regular radio pays fees to ASCAP and BMI that go to composers, not to performers. And they are based on a station's revenues, not on a per-play/per-listener basis.
There is little or no copyright burden on ordinary radio. You pay nothing for what you hear on your city's KISS-FM station, and that station pays nothing except to composers. Generally they get the records for free ("for promotional puposes only" it says on the CD) from the record companies, or for a fee from some other service.
There is no equivalent between the burden placed on regular radio by current regulations and that placed on Internet radio by the CARP/LOC regulations. The burden on Internet radio -- in fees, in reporting, in every other respect, is stuff NEVER experienced by ordinary radio. If somebody ever even thought of bringing them up in Congress, the NAB and its legislative tools would squash it like a bug.
But Internet radio got lined up for execution because the DMCA, under pressure from a paranoid entertainment industry, characterized webcasting -- then still very young -- as something other than radio: as a "performance" delivery system, kind of like a digital venue -- a virtual club.
This characterization was born of the fear that eventually digital copies would in fact be "perfect" copies of a performance, and that therefore the artist should be compensated on a per-listen basis.
Then the DMCA based fee guidance on a "willing buyer/willing seller" concept wrapped in fuzzy and circuitous guidance language which was based in turn on the assumption that the only thing close to webcasting in prior reality was commercial radio, which has no such thing as a "willing buyer/willing seller" relationship with its audience -- only with its advertisers, which is irrelevant.
The DMCA authors ignored the example of public radio, which *does* have a seller/buyer relationship with its audience (who are customers, or at least in that position). The authors also ignored the existing webcasting successes on the Net itself, which include KPIG (which sold advertising at a higher rate because it had this bonus 2000+ people all over the world at any time, listening live) and countless other stations that put out a PayPal tip jar that collects up to $3000 and more a month in some cases.
Of course, most of these first economic models for the industry hadn't yet happened while the CARP was meeting, so they missed it. Why pause to actually observe an industry in the midst of birth? Hell, why even invite them to a meeting?
Nearly none of the major webcasters (KPIG, WCPE, Radio Paradise, SomaFM, etc.) were invited to the hearings. Live365 was, and apparently botched it by submitting and rescinding testimony, according to one RIAA guy. (That story is in Salon.)
So the CARP panel based their fees on the Yahoo example, which was worked out by Mark Cuban before he sold Broadcast.com to Yahoo for $5.7 billion in stock that he later unloaded way before the crash. Now he's known for buying big toys that most famously include the Dallas Mavericks.
Mark's plans for Broadcast.com were to scam the feds into helping him drive the small fry out of the market. He'd do that by negotiating a per-stream deal of some kind, rather than a percentage of revenue deal. That's because percentage of revenue would favor the small guys who had no revenue. Fair enough, but his scam was to agree to charges on a per-stream basis, and then multicast all the streams through one porthole, so it would be charged as just one. That porthole never got done, and was under wraps when the "Yahoo deal" was negotiated. And Yahoo has since dropped out of the radio business (wasting the whole $5.7 bil), making the CARP rationale even more absurd than it already was.
Most of this, including a highly disclosing email from Mark Cuban, is archived at RAIN.
Wordnik, a dictionary project which aims to collect
any change of getting RIAA broken up under RICO statutes?
On SomaFM's home page they claim to have calculated their annual royalties to be $176,541. Of course they don't show their math, but using the same 12 songs an hour figure we can arrive at 176,541/365/24/12/.0007 = 2,399. Wow! They have 2,400 people listening to their station 24 hours a day and they can't figure out how to make $180,000 a year off of it?
I have some suggestions for them:
If the had 4 30 second commercials each hour they could charge $5/spot. That's a CPM of $.20. I'm sure they could find some sponsors who want to support Internet Radio for that much. If they are willing to increase the commercial loading they can lower the CPM.
They can play music from non-RIAA labels, and they can also deal directly with the labels for better rates. Regardless of what the other poster said if you don't play covered music you don't have to pay any royalties including the minimum.
As for the Monkey Radio guy, he went off the air because he didn't want to give *anything* to the RIAA, so it wouldn't matter to him what the rates were.
And to those bitching about the retroactivity of the rates, you should know that the reason they go back to 1998 is because that is when the decision was made to start charging the royalties and it has been known all this time that when the rates were finalized they would be retroactive to that date. Anyone who didn't want to pay no royalties no way no how could have gotten out then.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
Well, I just headed over to live365.com to listen to some malayalam music - hardly RIAA controlled stuff, it's made in India. I couldn't listen because the broadcaster hadn't paid his pay per performace royalty fees as dictated by the librarian of congress. Where exactly does this royalty go? I can't imagine that some small music company in southern India is getting royalty checks.
It's not a science. All it does is use a different port, and maybe a tweaked protocol.
The RIAA would take your first born child if they could get away with it!
Seriously though, does this surprise even one of you? I didn't think so. It probably doesn't surprise Congress either...and it actually might HURT the RIAA. How? The past few months have been bad times for big companies. Their greed has ruined many people's retirement. Even Bush and the Rebublicans in Congress are running for cover - look at how quickly Republican opposition to the Democrat's business ethics bill evaporated and how quickly it became law.
Now here comes the RIAA...a cartel of five companies that control most of the recorded music in the U.S., claiming the established fees for streaming (the biggest cut of whom goes to them) that either already have or will put most of the smaller webcasters out of business need to be even more.
This could be a P.R. disaster for the RIAA.
Radio royalties are just another way of ripping off artists.
Here's why.
1) Record company signs artist. Loans artist money to record the album. Artist records album and gives it to the label to promote.
3) Label pays "independent promoter" $100,000-$500,000 to have the song placed on the radio. Strangely enough, it works, and the song is added to radio station playlists.
4) Every time the song is played on the radio, the radio station pays a couple of pennies to the label.
5) The label takes their 90% cut from those couple of pennies, and applies the remainder half-cent -- the "artists's share" of the radio royalty -- towards paying off the "independent promotion" payola bill.
-----
Broadcast royalties are a sham -- a smokescreen. The record labels know full well that there's no money to be made on radio royalties. The real money comes in when people start to buy the vastly overpriced albums. For the record labels, radio play is nothing more than advertising for their cash-cow albums, and they have no problem with paying heavily to get that "advertising" on the air, be it payola or "independent promotion." The record companies want to pay radio stations to get their songs on the air, and they do it any way they can, because it's the only way that they will ever start selling albums. This is the reality of how money flows between record labels and radio stations. It sharply contrasts with the official fiction that radio broadcasts are a source of revenue for artists and labels.
If broadcast royalties actually reflected the market, then radio would have reversed royalties -- The record labels would pay the radio stations every time their songs are added to their playlists, or played on the air. Everyone understands that radio stations are in the business of putting commercials in people's ears, and we understand when they are paid for doing that. The disconnect comes when people deliberately try not to understand that radio stations are also in the business of putting music in people's ears, and the record labels line up with cash in hand to get their advertising on the air.
Somehow payment for exposure is OK when the product is soap, but not OK when the product is Backstreet Boys albums. Why? Both are advertising!
The answer seems to reside in this elaborate fiction of the airwaves as a "public trust." People want to think that the radio stations are providing a valuable service -- by playing music on the air -- and the statutory royalties reenforce that fiction. In reality, radio stations spend 95% of their time playing two different types of commercials -- commercials for advertisers, and commercials for record albums. Except that the record industry has the law rigged to conceal the fact that radio station music is also advertising as well, by requiring tiny, tiny royalties to be paid to artists, and concealing the real huge cash payments that are the real driving economic force between record labels and radio stations.
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Back to the royalties. Who the hell can afford to pay those royalties? What's the real agenda here?
There is one group of companies that can afford to pay the statutory royalties, no matter how expensive they are per user. Those companies are the RIAA companies themselves, because they will essentially be paying themselves. I suspect that the real reason that the RIAA is pushing for sky-high royalty rates is to ensure that no one except for the RIAA corporations themselves can possibly afford the rates.
Then they will be free to "take over" internet radio, have used the royalty rates to drive the rest of the competition off of the net.
Or so goes the theory.
no-fee internet broadcasting licenses are the catch.
It will be interesting to see if "no-fee" internet broadcasting contracts become a trend. I think that royalty-free internet radio could become enormous for a couple of simple reasons:
1) It is something that a hobbyist can do
2) Therefore, if it can be made easy and legally safe to do, thousands of people will do it
3) Those royalty-free stations will only be playing songs from non-RIAA labels. Thus, the entire medium will be indy-saturated, the playing of major label songs on internet radio being, essentially, forbidden by law.
Eventually, those indy labels are going to start making money, because people are going to start hearing the music, and eventually buying the albums. The turning point will come when an independent album starts to rise up the charts -- even though it has ZERO broadcast radio play -- soley on the strength of internet radio exposure.
At that point, you'll see record companies start to quietly offer successful internet radio stations money to place their songs on their stations, except that this time there will be no "public trust" fiction to interfere with the natural market forces.
At the point when it actually becomes possible to make money on internet radio, watch for an explosion of new internet radio stations.
Ruled.. in my pants.
I have written a haiku about this ruling:
Monkey ruled my pants
like a bird that also ruled
in my pants, it did.
I guess you haven't heard of a little Internet site called Ebay? They have lot's of CD's and you can set your own prices. If no one is willing to pay more, you win!
It's interesting to note that some of the auctions close at or above the retail price, indicating the cost is not the limiting factor, but the availability elsewhere.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
--I have such difficulty imagining what the high-ups at RIAA are thinking. Crushing diversity and turning broadcasters against them isn't going to help even them one single bit.--
One word, "monopoly", ove all IP, that's what they are thinking.
An interesting quote I found on the RIAA web-casting FAQ: "Moreover, in the recent webcasting CARP, the arbitrators concluded (and the Librarian affirmed) that webcasting has no promotional effect on record sales." This is from an association that was tried for paying DJ's to play their songs, and still does so under the table, so clearly regular radio HAS some promotional value. The only difference in web-casting is that you can see the artist and title instantly, you can order the cd in a matter of minutes (and there's usually a link to do so), and most people can listen at work, where regular radio is not as availible. The problem basically comes down to the RIAA trying to ride the pop-wave. They understand that if people are given alternatives, then they will flock to independand labels and lesser-known artists (i recently discovered Portishead this way and have purchased all three cd's even after downloading them) so it's not a case of losing money due to "piracy", its losing money on pretty-boy bands with no talent, shiny packeging and faces. All the RIAA wants is a free-ride; if they had it their way, they would sell us a cd of silence.
Really people. The RIAA was set up by the big record labels for exactly this purpose: to take the heat. As long as the agency footing the stinky policies is "the RIAA" and not "Sony" "EMI" or whomever, the labels branding stays intact and the corporations get to retain the illusion of keeping politics out of commerce and culture.
The RIAA is comprised of a group of labels who are behind all of this. They are the ones who should feel the heat. It's the RIAA's job to be a scapegoat. Don't let them.
When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
The thing that pisses me off most about this all is that there is genuine music and a legitimate format that I simply cannot get any anywhere else (and I live in the US's 6th largest city): eclectic radio.
GoGaGa.com was the greatest thing since sliced bread. With its completely kitschy (sp?) mix of World music, dance, reggae, spoken word, radio play snippets, radio play remixes, and anything else anyone happened to bring in, they truly re-defined the term "eclectic radio".
GoGaGa went under, but many of the personalities and behind-the-scenes folks tried to restart it at AirBubble.com. They were doing a great job, too -- until the royalty issue hit
Evil, evil, RIAA...
(That's a good link to keep up to date about the royalty fight, they're staying pretty on-top of it.)
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
It's amazing what you can do with 5 open browsers and the refresh button.
An kiddies, dont forget to turn your browsing chache off!
The Solution:
The RIAA was created to insure that artists were compensated for their work in a time when such compensation of indevidual artists for their work, would have otherwise been impossible. Times have changed. Artists no longer need the RIAA, or for that matter ASCAP or BMI but broadcasters need to provide the artists an alternative. I'm no fan of direct mail marketing but they have a trade association which acts to implement self governance where otherwise there would be legislation governing the industry.
In the case of the Recording and broadcast industry, a private organization has stepped into that governmental role, and through extensive lobying efforts, actually has legislation on the books that backs their esentually userous behavior. IANAL, but I assume this legisltaion doesn't name the RIAA specifically, instead requiring that through some means, the artists must be compensated for their work. It follows that a new organisation could be established that managed escrow accounts for ALL artists, into which royalties would be paid by broadcasters, in an ammount a little more than they are paid by the RIAA, on a per broadcast basis. The accounts would be structured such that ONLY THE ARTISTS would have access to the funds. Any artists wishing to gain access to these funds would simply have to provide appropriate identification as the performer for which the funds were being held, then agree that these funds were being paid as appropriate royalties for the rebroadcast of their music by the broadcaster-members of the organization. Certainly issues atround copyright onership of the music (where in the eample it is assumed the artist owns the copyright to their music) would have to be addressed, but the point is simple. The RIAA keeps a large percentage of the funds they collect, supposedly, to dispurse to artists. Certainly a modern organization, using modern technologies, and without all the baggage of the RIAA would be able to handle this situation in a more efficient manner.
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
Cool sig - but you'll need to put a ';' after your   if you want it to play nice with standards compliant browsers.
Excellent troll. :)
Do you like German cars?
I dont know if a system like this already exists, but seems what we need is a real system where people can share CDs. People get to post their CDs to a common pool, and a person can get (at a time) as many CDs as one shares. So, no freebies, but still you can listen to all the music in the world, withoug paying royalties. all it would cost is the cost of shipping per CD, whatever that is. Effectively this will become a library of CDs, where the source comes from the members of the library.
I consider myself to have good taste in music, I don't like much.
But I did like everything monkeyradio.org had to play... they ruled, plain and simple. I will never forgive the RIAA. What's left.. forming a terrorist organization that bombs the RIAA and streams music? Fucking bastards.
Quit complaining. The lot of you deserve to be locked up for criminal conspiracy.
It's been a long time.
That RIAA is greedy, manipulative, corporate swine that need to be destroyed in a horrifying pile of burning rubble? Somebody kill these assholes already!
It is my opinion that the RIAA is not even entitled to payments; here's my reasoning:
DMCA addresses distribution of "perfect" digital copies of data/music; CARP is the rate structure to compensate document owners for distribution via Webcasting.
If the distributed media cannot be retained by the end user, or is below "perfect" quality, these fees should not apply as the copy is non-existent or not perfect.
When assessing the means of distribution, quality must be taken into account. FM radio is not perfect quality; neither is a 40 kbps or less Real Audio stream. Similarly, a 128 kbps or less MP3 file distributed via a P2P system is not distribution of a perfect product. Distribution of a quality product is no longer occurring; therefore distribution compensation is not warranted. Authorship rules still apply, as do appropriate broadcast fees, such as those paid by radio broadcasters.
t_kiehne
-- t_kiehne
Further, a spin-off of KPIG is what I listen to all day: Radio Paradise. It has no commercials; mainly funded by donations, but gets a small kickback from CDs sold by referral to CDNow.
As a bonus - when their stream (from shoutcast) is interrupted, I know that some route is screwed up on the web - and I can quickly check to see if ATTBI is screwing up again...which seems to be 20% of the time a route is down.
db
Cig:
ôô
"If you own, rent, or buy a radio, know someone who does, broadcast a radio program, live next to someone who does, or ever heard about the radio phenomenon, you have to give us 150% of your annual income per year. In return, we will do nothing. Breathe to agree."
Karma
...broadcast from outside the US ? Afterall the us is the only government in the world who gives RIAA permission to charge royalties on webradios!
-- Would it be acceptable to just put my name on my sig?
Personally I havent bought a CD since 1996. It all started when EMI started going after the On-Line Guitar Archive. For those who havent heard about it, OLGA started in 1992 and grew to be probably the biggest guitar tab archive on the internet. Tabs are basically text files that explain how to play a song and the lyrics for that song is usually included.
However the fucks over at EMI figured that if people knew how to play and sing the songs noone would buy their records. So they basically managed to kick OLGA of its servers. However they relocated and things were running smoothly until 1998 when Harry Fox Agency managed to shut it down.
If noone learns to play guitar who the fuck is gonna make records in the future? (yea yea, im sure you pill popin tranceheads got a smart ass comment, but you know what I mean). Kind of like shooting yourself in the foot huh?
OLGA is still around but its alot more complicated to use because servers have to be located in Poland and such.
So thats it, havent bought a single fucking cd since 1996. Instead I pirate every cd and visit festivals and go to concerts to support bands touring (actually working) which equals more money to the bands and less for the cunt Hillary Rosen.
THE RIAA'S WORST NIGHTMARE.
That's "hear, hear!"
Spell it right.
..but you knew that already.
i'm linking to this comment from my forum. please don't sue me for illegal use of hyperlinks ^_-
quite a few of us listen to bands off metropolis. Mad props to Digital Gunfire and the labels.
many Webcasters are currently generating very little revenue, a percentage of revenue rate would require copyright owners to allow extensive use of their property with little or no compensation," the regulators' report said
here is their entire reasoning; they want to take more money than the web-casters even make
I wonder how long it will be until humming a song
will require paying royalties if anyone hears the tune?
Lesson In Law
==============
You made a great point, don't let these people's cluelessness get to you.
Judge : Law as
Compiler : Computer Program
is INCORRECT.
There are two types of judges. One type follows the legal code EXACTLY. Example: "The police department did not reply to the Public Information Request within 10 days according state law. I find the defendant NOT RESPONSIBLE for the speeding ticket."
Then there's the other type that adds his or her "judgement" (stuff like his beliefs, past experiences, if he thinks people like you lie, if he thinks you deserve a speeding ticket because a cop wouldn't have stopped you for no reason, etc. Stuff not part of the legal code.)
Example: "Some of your defense has legal value but I find you responsible." (i.e. I feel you did it regardless of the cop insulting you, not monitoring your speed for the required time by state law, not replying to the PIR in a month let alone ten days...)
So some judges go by law exactly. Some feel like they are god and judge by their "common sense", feeling their "common sense" is above the law, regardless of separate law sections saying otherwise.
But with the case of image files versus audio files, I feel that EITHER type of judge will find you guilty of distributing music by ruling it's the content that defined the files, not the 3 letter extention.
Cover your eyes and click this link!
Yeah, I already sat that - and it isn't proof. I still see no evidence that says this fee applies to anyone who is not transmitting materials owned by people/organizations that are collecting these royalties. I don't believe for a minute that the government is claiming the ability to make me cough up $500 for streaming my own music. Y'all wanna yap and yap and yap at me for pointing out the obvious, but you don't have a hell of a lot of a command of the facts.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
I agree, compensation should be given to those who information we use. But the problem is the system for patents and copyrights don't do that.
Patents are enforced for way to long of a period of time, and how patents are enforced and issued in this country with regards to technology is not well policed. (i.e. submarine patents...with JPEG for example...)
Secondly, I think we have to recognize that other countries that do not recognize these particular forms of information lockout (patents and copyrights) may very well destroy our economy.
I am of course referring to countries that build thier entire infrastructure markets on Linux for example.
You could also argue, that if it wasn't for Linux, alot of ISP's would have gone out of business and we quite possibly would have a very very different kind of internet.
One that would probably be only for the rich and the very powerful who could afford the access fees, the computers and software to get online in the first place, etc.
We need a revised patent and copyright system, starting with getting rid of patent law, and DMCA and copyrights to begin with and creating something that provides equity for the producer and consumer in this country.
It can be done, but I am afraid too many powerful and very rich companies won't permit the status quo to go away anytime soon.
Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
Surprise surprise, asshole, violating others' intellectual property rights without their permission is not a "hobby." And the reasons these stations had "virtually no costs" is because they weren't paying anything to the people who owned the product they were distributing. "The numbers I've worked out?" I don't need to do the kind of bullshit back of the envelope equations that are floating all over this discussion to know what's common knowledge - these stations aren't making any money. Not making money = no business model.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
I already read it which is why I'm perplexed. Did you? By my reading it's real simple: Some copyright holders apply to receive the benefits of these types of royalties. If you play ANY of their stuff, you have to get licensed to do so, and your minimum annual fee is $500. If you do not play ANY of their stuff, you do NOT have to be licensed to transmit non-affected materials, that is stuff you own, stuff you have been given private permission to transmit by the copyright owner, stuff in the public domain. If you don't need a license, you don't need to pony up 500 bucks to anyone. This is all just more hysterical bullshit and I defy anyone to demonstrate otherwise.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
Sorry; the RIAA thinks that is piracy too and is looking to tax that next.
"9. A typical record stores' profit margin on new CDs is LESS THAN 15%. .. That's less margin than gas stations and grocery stores."
- A typical business has a 15-20% profit margin.
- Supermarkets make money by volume. Their profit margin is around 2% to 4%.
- The profit on gasoline is 1 to 3 cents (~1%), while if you can get people into the store you can sell them soda, candy, coffee, lottery tickets and so forth, where the profit margin is upwards of 40%.
jesus, I'm glad I got at least a couple of intelligent replies to my only partially tongue-in-cheek comment. I'm thinkin' hard about what you say, asking myself: could a better way exist side by side with the not-very-good publishing company/royalty system, by consent between artists not encumbered with publishing industry contracts and webcasters not addicted to tainted intellectual property?
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
Stop, Pop, and Roll is pretty cool about stuff like this. The label has what it calls, "Dark music for bright people."
Yeah, we all need to march on our centers of government and demand that they subsidize all businesses that "rule," whether or not they have a business model or any rational method of generating income.
Ok, replace 'subsidize' with 'not issuing insane retroactive fees, above and beyond those already paid'.
Listen, I'm no fan of the RIAA or the trends in intellectual property law madness, but the people who own the rights to copyrighted material have a right to be compensated for the use of that material
As they were! That's right, internet radio stations already paid the same fees as regular radio stations. These new ones and on top of the ordinary radio fees.
And spare me the guff about information wanting to be free or how it can't be illegal to violate copyright because you don't physically steal anything or prevent the original owner from using the product. There's no law of physics that says cars can only go fifty-five, nevertheless we have speed limits.
That we do, we impose copyright law in order to foster creation. These webcasting royalties are intended to crush distribution other then from the RIAA.
Advice to the MonkeyRadios of this world: get a business model. Get one not based on being allowed to freely distribute someone else's property. And to you listeners who think it "rules," figure out if you want advertisements or subscription charges, or if you'd rather just listen to your CD collectiona and whine. 'Cause guess what - your news flash for the day is that this shit ain't free.
They're not in this to become rich. They aren't freely distributing someone else's property.
Copyright and Patents are designed for one thing
I just thought I'd point out that copyrights and patents were not designed this way, but instead corrupted into their current state. The original copyright and patent laws in most countries were originally much more sane.
Tha thing that really galls me about the current royalty rates for webcasters is how much higher they are than for all other manditory/RAND licensing for music. The fees for broadcast radio and TV, cable radio (DMX), muzak, background music in stores, DJs music at nightclubs, etc. are all far lower per song and per listener than the rates set for webcasters.
Happy Fun Ball is for external use only.
What about the right not to make a profit?
Perhaps someone might want to set up a streaming station, to stream their own music, and not have to charge people to listen to it.
This stupid law forces the issue - if you're not trying to make money: FUCK YOU.
The story has been misfiled under "mo-money-mo-money-yo dept." It should be filed under "our-greed-knows-no-bounds Dept."
I understand the frustration at the greed of the RIAA but this is a bad idea. The RIAA will seek out and sue people streaming music. Don't underestimate the depth of their greed!
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
If this doesn't get modded up here, I don't know where it will.
http://www.petitiononline.com/nocarp
[insert witty comment here]
You're assuming that their only expeneses are the webcasting royalties. This is obviously not true.
Quite right. But the other expenses aren't new, nor are the brodcasters bitching about them. The broadcasters can pay the royalties any way they choose the same as all their other expenses. It is perfectly understandable that the webcasters don't want to take on any additional expenses, but they want to continue to use other's music. How is that fair?
I didn't reply to the AC, but of course no one is forcing the webcasters to attempt to make a profit, or even have a business model. If they want to continue operating at a loss and living off personal money and donations, fine this is simply an additional expense. An expense that they have known was coming for the last 4 years. No one can claim to have been blind sided by this.
As for those who choose not to make a profit, the rates for non-commercial broadcasters are half the rates for commercial broadcasters.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
Or much more realistically, 1000 people listening to 12 songs an hour for about two and a half hours a day. Or twice as many listening tuning in for about 90 minutes while they browse the web in the afternoon or hang out on a chat or game service. The numbers work out just the same, and on the internet, a couple thousand hits a day is hardly anything. It's not a hard figure to accept, even if it is a little bit contrived.
If SomaFM had an average of 2,400 listeners around the clock they'd be paying around $20,000/month just for bandwidth. 2,400 streams X 16kb/sec (just a guess) = 38.4Mb/sec. Of course I don't think they were because I think their numbers are bullshit, but if they have been paying $240,000 a year for bandwidth they must be getting money from somewhere.
I have seen lots of webcasters claim they will be out of business because their bill will be $x (where x is a large inflammatory number) but I have yet to see a single webcaster show their math. Until they do I will remain skeptical of their claims. I'm surprised so many here take these numbers at face value.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian
All the best music I hear these days is always way more obscure than anything the RIAA gives a crap about anyway.
It's clear all internet radio needs to do is stop playing RIAA-backed pop bands like Metallica (who started the Napster bashing, remember?) - and start playing smaller labels and independent musicians who play ball with them. Internet radio has it's own power - it should use it, instead of shaking cups at the RIAA.
Internet radio and file-sharing are the only reason I buy CD's anymore. I hear it online, and can only find a few crappy rips on Gnucleus - so I buy the CD.
Pop bands and massively-hyped labels can't compete in this new bottom-upcracy. Good riddance.