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.

Comments

Do rates apply to streaming on-demand?

[turnstyle]

Does anybody know if the royalty rates apply to on-demand streaming as well as Internet Radio?

Pot, meet Kettle.

[jweb]

From the text of the press release:

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.

Here's an idea

[Salsaman]

Instead of streaming audio files over the net, stream image files.

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.

Perhaps...

[Anonymous Coward]

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! :)

Re:Bah!

[uncoveror]

The RIAA has nearly ended webcasting, which was a form of promotion that cost them nothing, and now want a royalty scheme that would end it entirely. Enough! Boycott the recording industy. Don't buy CDs.

Re:I announce that CD prices are TOO HIGH

[funky womble]

If you want to buy used cds from stores they cost just as much as it would new.

True (most of the time), though if you're doing it as a protest, that doesn't really matter: the point is that the money goes to someone other than the RIAA labels.

If you're helping to support a small independent music store, which might otherwise not be able to afford to stay in business, all the better.

Re:I announce that CD prices are TOO HIGH

[CynicTheHedgehog]

Amazon Marketplace has pretty much any CD you want, used, for less than $10. To me that's perfectly affordable. And if you buy more than $50 worth, shipping is free. I was recently in the market for Jimmy Eat World albums and I couldn't find them at my local CD store, so I checked Amazon. I ended up getting the 3 CDs for $37 (that's with S&H), and they arrived 2 days later. One of them was even a promotional copy that wasn't supposed to be resold, so I'm doubly screwing the RIAA. Can't beat that!

I somehow find this quote appropriate here...

[Jugalator]

"Only the continuous and steady application of the methods for suppressing a doctrine, etc., makes it possible for a plan to succeed."
-- Adolf Hitler

Re:I announce that CD prices are TOO HIGH

[KUHurdler]

Well, I'm struggling here with a way to win. I continue to NOT buy CDs and have been listening to streaming radio for quite a while now. Many of the internet radio stations I used to listen to have been hit hard with this. Some are still trying to continue with the heavy fees. One has cut their bandwidth so low it isn't worth listening to.

I just don't seem this gameplan winning anymore. I hate to say it, but it looks like the only way to go is underground.

I consider myself a pretty honest individiual that has been kicked in the nards too many times by the Entertainment Industry. I've started heading to piracy out of spite. Is this the general consensus?

SO what ...

[Lumpy]

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.

Re:Clearly the rates..

[eXtro]

The RIAA's business plan is:

1. Profit
   
2. Buy legislation
   
3. Get bad press with a minority
   
4. Characterize minority as criminals
   
5. Higher profits
   

Seriously, most people don't even know what internet radio is. If the RIAA says that internet radio is piracy most of the public will just nod their heads and say "Go get 'em!".

HOTT troll! Except...

[dave-fu]

...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?

Multicasting.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Multicasting.

[MadAhab]

This is a good idea and absolutely essential. But on top of multicast, you'd want a p2p way of multiplying the number of streams served. There are a couple ways this could be done:

1. Work with existing streaming technologies and build p2p reflectors. This will probably require an encapsulating protocol, however, and clients that can use it. OTOH, this will increase the number of peers.
2. Write a ground-up streaming system that can serve to regular clients in a format they can understand, e.g. ogg. OTOH, this makes free riders overly abundant.

There are a couple of things the software will have to address:

1. A lot of people have limited upstream bandwidth or aren't peers on the net (private IPs). This means that there will always be a stream-availability problem. Oh well.
2. For the same reason, low-bandwith streams are probably about it. Oh, well.
3. RIAA and other gangsters are already salivating at the thought of shutting it down from the start. This means having a more distributed p2p architecture a la gnutella.
4. Due to the numbers of people likely to be non-reflectors, i.e. leaves not branches, you would want a tiered system - kinda like ntp - where tier one providers provide streams only to those who reflect streams further. Since clients could be hacked to lie about their level, you would need access controls to stop leechers at the tier one level. But these would also be a pain to maintain, so there would have to be some automated way of checking to see if your downstream clients are in fact making streams available. To prevent trivial hacks, these checks would have to be performed by another peer of tier one.
5. There would most likely be *large* buffering going on. But a stream delayed by a minute or more from the original source would not be a big deal most of the time.

It's non-trivial to write something like this. It could also decide the war being waged against humanity by the information priesthood.

RIAA needs a reality check

[Lxy]

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.

A memory from 1973's "Flashback"

[e-gold]

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

List of labels with a clue,please add to this list

[Arcturax]

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!

Re:The obvious solution.

[audiophilia]

But still gets free advertising for whatever is being played. So what exactly was the problem?

The problem is that webcasting for the most part advertises less-heard artists. Sure, there's the Top-40 channel, but if you look at the most popular channels on shoutcast, there is a lot of techno, a lot of jazz, a lot of classic rock. Recording companies make more money when 14 million people all buy a Jennifer Lopez CD than when 50,000 people buy a Mirwais CD, and 70,000 buy a Paul Oakenfold CD, and 30,000 buy a Grateful Dead live show, etc. Commercial radio is driven by record sales. Webcast radio is independant. It's driven by listeners. And because of this, the RIAA must do everything in their power to shut it down and preserve their control of the music entertainment market.

Re:MonkeyRadio RULED :'(

[198348726583297634]

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.