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

MonkeyRadio RULED :'(

[cca93014]

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?

I announce that CD prices are TOO HIGH

[mcwop]

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.

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!

Re:I announce that CD prices are TOO HIGH

[splanky]

I'll preface this biased statement by saying that I own a record store :o)

Economics 101 of the record store music biz:
1. There are new 'developing artist' price points. A lot of pretty big name artists first came out at this pricepoint (Limp Bizkit's first album did, Godsmack's first, Avril Lavigne)... We (record stores) end up selling them for about 5.99 - 6.99 and they cost us about 5.75 to 6.50.
2. The superstar pricepoints cost us big bucks. The new springsteen album, for instance, costs just a tiny bit shy of 12 bucks. So we all sold it for 9.99 on the first day and, I'm not kidding, we lost about 2 bucks per CD sold.
3. Every store pays about the same for CDs from the manufacturers.
4. Stores make more of the their money now off of cooperative advertising. The cheesy mall stores that you see charge the record companies big bucks to have their posters up or their albums on sale.
5. Record stores have been fighting the labels for lower prices for years. However with the consolidations in the music biz, the labels have their bosses (i.e. the shareholders) pushing for higher and higher returns, so the labels can't afford to reduce the price of albums lest they be sacked.
6. Catalog sales of music are up a little or at least steady. However hit sales are way, way down. The industry believes it to be because of burning.
7. The industry loses tons of money on most artists, but makes it up and then some on the big artists. However since the sales of big artists have been down, the economic detriment to the labels is obvious.
8. Almost all record stores would not make a profit without lifestyle merchandise (i.e. piercings, belts, lava lamps, etc.) and used CDs.
9. A typical record stores' profit margin on new CDs is LESS THAN 15%. No, I'm not kidding. And yes, I very much know what I'm talking about. That's less margin than gas stations and grocery stores.
10. The typical profit margin on used CDs and lifestyle merchandise is over 50%. You can see why we move to selling more and more of that stuff.
11. Consumer attitude towards pricing is that CDs are way, way to pricey and that record stores/labels could afford to sell them way cheaper. Obviously our industry has totally failed here to create value for our customers. You hear nowhere near the bellyaching about software where you buy a Microsoft Office CD that costs them 82 cents to make and they sell for $300! Or about videogames that sell for fifty bucks. It's because consumers feel they've been getting additional value from software and games, but not from music. Is the pop star of today really any better than the pop star of years gone by? Albums now are longer and better produced, but is the music really any better? A lot of our customers don't feel so, so the price of CDs to them still seems to be too high.

What would I do as a reasonable music consumer (as opposed to someone who just thinks music should be free and artists will still record if we steal their works)?

For new CDs, I'd buy those developing artist CDs and only those. That way the record companies will learn that if you charge 6 bucks for something tons of people will buy, but if you charge 15 bucks, very few will buy. If I wanted a big artist that is expensive, I'd wait for it used - The great thing about capitalism is that the almighty consumer will have his/her say and that if you show your elasticity of demand (i.e. you will pay one lower price but not a higher) pricing will change.

Re:I announce that CD prices are TOO HIGH

[TheTomcat]

6. Catalog sales of music are up a little or at least steady. However hit sales are way, way down. The industry believes it to be because of burning.

I believe it to be because anyone who actually likes the "hits" merely has to wait 30 minutes before it comes back up in any top 40 radio station's rotation.

S

Re:I announce that CD prices are TOO HIGH

[PainKilleR-CE]

11. Consumer attitude towards pricing is that CDs are way, way to pricey and that record stores/labels could afford to sell them way cheaper. Obviously our industry has totally failed here to create value for our customers. You hear nowhere near the bellyaching about software where you buy a Microsoft Office CD that costs them 82 cents to make and they sell for $300! Or about videogames that sell for fifty bucks.

I'd have to say that last part is not quite true. Office and Windows are probably among the most highly pirated pieces of software in the industry, and price point has a lot to do with that. A great deal of the popularity of the open source movement in business has more to do with cost than with the availability of the source code. Similarly, most gamers feel that the prices of PC games are too high (this may or may not be true of console games as well, I find that many gamers feel that console games are a better value in some cases because bugs are less prevalent with the limited platform than with PC games). The PC games industry has an added problem in that the early adopters (who pay the most for those games) also are the most likely to suffer from the bugs in that game and have to spend the most time working through those bugs. Software like Office, on the other hand, is something few people buy more than once every few years (Office 97 is still the most common version, though Office 2000 is growing), and usually purchase with a computer (at a lower price point, when they're already spending quite a bit of money).

As an additional point, the consumers of music CDs tend to represent a much broader range of incomes, whereas the majority of Office licenses go to corporations, and the gamers that buy the most PC games are the same people that are spending $400 on a video card that will be replaced in the product line in 6 months (meaning that they'll buy another video card in 6-12 months at nearly the same price point).

What my personal exposure to the PC gamers has shown (through doing tech support and running an online gaming league) is that gamers are starting to pay more attention to the price/performance ratio of their hardware, and are more willing to spend the $50+ for a new game from a reliable developer that has a good history (or perceived good history) of releasing games that are fairly well finished and will provide a great deal of entertainment for their money (ie replay value, online experience, and the depth of the single play-through). Gamers are streaming towards AMD CPUs for their price/performance, and nVidia's GeForce MX line, even though they know they can get something better if they pay more money, they get the best value, knowing fully well that the system requirements of games are well below what they're buying anyway.

It's because consumers feel they've been getting additional value from software and games, but not from music. Is the pop star of today really any better than the pop star of years gone by? Albums now are longer and better produced, but is the music really any better? A lot of our customers don't feel so, so the price of CDs to them still seems to be too high.


Actually, although many people do feel that the value of newer albums isn't as much as older albums were previously, I think the biggest factor is that the music industry said that CD prices would drop, and they have instead risen. When I first started buying CDs they were about $5 more than the cassettes I was buying before that, even though they were already cheaper to produce than cassettes. Since my budget for music didn't grow, I was buying about 2/3rds as much music as I had been buying before, simply because I was spending $15 per CD rather than $10 per cassette. Now that my budget for that has grown, the CD prices have risen as well, and a new CD can run anywhere from $17 to $20 for even non-top-40 bands, unless I take the time to go looking for them at smaller stores with smaller selections to get them for the $14 or $15 I was paying 10 years ago. So, the record industry raised prices, lowered manufacturing costs (CDs cost about 1/2-1/3 the cost of a cassette to produce), lowered the royalties for many of their artists for CDs (experimental format charge), and lied to the consumers, saying the prices would drop when the CD became the prevalent format, and then never dropping the prices. Records cost more today, too, but that's understandable because of a much more limited supply and demand, so they're produced in much smaller numbers (a new record tends to run about $20-30, depending on the length of the album (how many records it takes up), the number pressed, and anything else unusual about it, such as unusual colours for the records themselves).

It's certainly not unusual for me to drop $100-200 every time I walk into a record store, but when I'm walking away with fewer albums each time, or have to spend more time in the store looking for something to spend that money on, I'm less likely to do it as often. I've also spent a great deal more money buying music online in the last 4 years than buying it in stores, because stores simply can't afford to stock a lot of the stuff I like to listen to (or, if it's Wal-Mart, Sam Goody, and the like, they will refuse to stock or sell many of the albums I buy, or only sell censored versions of those albums). After all, how many record stores want to stock a CD that they might only sell 1 copy of each year it's on their shelves? It's especially helpful that many of the record labels (or sub-labels in some cases) that carry a few of the bands I listen to sell direct from their website at prices that are near or lower than what you've quoted the major labels are selling albums to record stores for, and are very up-front about whether or not the version you're buying is censored (something that's sometimes not as obvious in a store).

Outrageous!

[Ratface]

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!

Re:Outrageous!

[CrazyDuke]

"The RIAA are quickly making their way to the top of the hate list for any free thinking individual."

Well, I guess its a good thing for them there aren't too many of those left. Seriously, ask any ordinary Joe what he thinks about it. You'll be lucky if they have even half a clue.

Not a troll. Not a flaimbait. Just an observation on the sad state of affairs.

Re:Outrageous!

[PainKilleR-CE]

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.


Diversity is exactly what they don't want, and any broadcaster that isn't owned by them doesn't matter to them, anyway. Even if 90% of the music that was available on Napster came straight out of the top 40, the remaining 10% was large enough to create some diversity, moving listeners to buy independant CDs or CDs from artists that barely register on the RIAA's scope. Diversity is part of what the internet has created in music, and is one of the biggest reasons that a #1 album today sells about half as many copies as a #1 album 10 years ago.

Before the internet was in most people's homes, the music industry could easily guide people's listening habits, and react when an artist managed to slip past them and sell CDs without their help. When Nirvana started selling copies of their first major-label album, the industry reacted by pushing them into heavy radio and MTV rotations and signing any band that sounded remotely like Nirvana, and then pushed all of that onto the airwaves. The same thing can be seen through most of the recording industry's modern history, ultimately speeding up the normal cycle of music being rejected by society in favour of something different, so the life-span of 'grunge rock' was about 2-3 years instead of the 10 years it might've been had it hit in an atmosphere where the industry wasn't pushing two-bit clones to try to squeeze out every penny. This is also why some artists will see one album or single bring in outrageous sales, and then the next will fall horribly, because people are no longer interested in hearing something from them when they heard the previous single everywhere they went.

Once the internet hit, people could find new music for themselves, or get recommendations (and samples) from other people all over the world, either through chat programs (including instant messaging) or through bulletin boards on websites either for artists they like or general music interest sites. Most of the larger online music stores will recommend things based on whatever metrics they use to determine what you might like from what you've bought (or what you're looking at), and will let you listen to short samples of the music. All of this means that people are spending more of their CD-buying money on back catalogues and lesser-known artists, so the recording industry isn't making as much of a profit as they could if everyone was buying what they told them to (though, of course, they're still making money off of most of those CDs, and they write off any money they lose from supporting a particular artist anyway).

Personally, the majority of my music comes from recommendations of people I trust (in terms of their tastes in music anyway), or from particular artists that I've found reliably release music I enjoy, even if their music changes in style quite a bit from one release to the next. In many cases I'm not aware that a new album has been released until it's been around long enough to get some reviews (or for someone else I know to have bought it), so I'll get a chance to find out whether or not I should worry about that particular album, and go find some way to really listen to at least a few songs from it before I buy it.

People are becoming more discerning buyers and are growing a more diverse taste in music. This makes the consumers less predictable for the RIAA's member corporations, and they, understandably, don't like that. What they should be doing to capitalize on this is open themselves up to cater to the internet consumers, but instead they're trying to push it away, because they don't understand, yet, how to handle this whole thing. Chances are that whatever they come up with will be lacking in some ways, but once they find something that's just good enough (rather than as good as can be), it'll most likely gain enough acceptance that the majority of people will forget what they've been doing here until the next new medium comes along, just as they'd forgotten about the fit the industry threw over tapes and just about anything else that came along.

Re:Outrageous!

[curunir]

Does anyone know whether their appeal opens up the possibility for other groups to argue that the rates are too high??

Dunno about the RIAA appeal, but this would. I submitted a story about it last week and it has yet to be rejected or accepted (grrr).

It would basically start the CARP process anew, creating a special classification for businesses who gross less than $6M / year. Those businesses would be allowed to participate in the CARP process for free (the original CARP process required a fee to have your opinions heard.) It would also allow those businesses to have a CARP rate different from the giant webcasters. One of the sponsors of the bill is the tech-savvy Rick Boucher (D-VA).

If you support the bill, go here and fill in your information and it will send a fax to your legislators. The process only takes a minute and if everyone does it, maybe it'll pass.

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.

Re:MonkeyRadio RULED :'(

[13Echo]

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.

We need offshore servers.

[MADCOWbeserk]

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.

Time to initiate the /. effect

[Apocalypse111]

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...

Click Here to help the /.ing of the RIAA website or alternatly click here

why are riaa artists still publishing their songs

[bunaminenu]

they don't want anybody to listen to their music, so, why are they publishing?

The obvious solution.

[yeoua]

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.

Re:The obvious solution.

[jafuser]

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

Very simple. The RIAA does not want diversity. They do not want small bands to be heard and potentially change people's tastes. They want to keep corporate POP music popular and they want the Top 40 to be WHAT YOU WILL LISTEN TO AND BUY(TM)©®$¥£.

Re:The obvious solution.

[dirk]

So if you don't make any money you should have absolute rights to do anything you want with other people's property without paying them anything? So if I don't make money I can make photocopies of a new book and hand them out? Redistribute GPL software without following the GPL rules?

I think the rates are too high, but the RIAA owns the rights to the songs. Just as we shouldn't safeguard the RIAA because their business model is outdated and being killed, we shouldn't safeguard radio stations whose business models don't allow them to make enough money to pay for what they are using. Should I be able to pay less for a BMW because I don't make as much as other people? No, I have to pay what they set the price at. Just because internet radio doesn't have a good enough business model doesn't mean they should pay less, it means they should get a better business model. If they don't want to pay the RIAA, they should play non-RIAA music exclusively.

Re:The obvious solution.

[Sloppy]

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?

Whether you profit or not, you're using up someone's ears. If Joe Sixpack is listening to your free netcast channel play my song, then Joe is not listening to the commercial, profitable radio station that pays me when they play my song.

When businesses and non-profit-orgs compete, then selling things to them based upon profit, is discriminatory. Discrimination isn't always necessarily bad. But the case for why the government should institute a compulsory license that discriminates in your favor, hasn't been made well.

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...

This is the kind of argument that illustrates that both sides are [insert friendly/polite euphemism for "full of shit" here]. Recording parts of streams is trivially easy. Or if the tools suck right now, then it's safe to assume the tools will improve. All you need is a buffer with some history, then when you notice that a song you want to record is playing, go back in time and record it from the beginning. (Watch "live TV" on a Tivo some time to see what I mean.)

The reason this arguments reflects badly on RIAA as well as netcasters, is that recording broadcasts has always been pretty easy, even with radio. It's been a non-issue from the point where RIAA allowed songs to be broadcast at all, so bringing it up in the context of the internet, is a dishonest tactic.

Contact info for RIAA

[Ratface]

http://www.riaa.com/contact.cfm

Here's a contact form to make your views known to the RIAA.

Re:MonkeyRadio RULED :'(

[hackus]

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

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:Greed.

[Tranvisor]

If you had a job that you loved to death, but it meant that there was only one boss in the world that would hire you, would you stand up to him?

Would you speak out against him in public? Very likely you would not. Because this boss can get you shut out of your job for good. Sure you can go on doing what you love, but you won't reach nearly as many listeners. Add to that the fact that your boss is now actively pursuing shutting down every distribution method that you would use to do your job without him.

This is why very few artists have spoken out against the RIAA. "Want to continue recording music for the public? Shut the hell up and live with us, because congress sure won't stick up for you." is what the RIAA is basically saying to every artist out there. Except that they don't need to say it, it is in every artist's mind already.

Re:Here's an idea

[sylvester]

I dunno where slashdotters get ideas like this.

The law is not code to find bugs in. The law is not stupid. The law has judges that are (mostly) hired and trained to use their judgement to stop stupid things like this. Your idea demonstrates such an unfathomable naivety about the way Western law works that I think you just might be a troll.

Most of the time when you see people skirting the law, they're using explicitely defined loopholes and tugging them bigger. Sometimes even those people get slammed by judges for pushing things too far. That's the whole point of having judges, is because we aren't good enough to write law (code) that thinks of every case.

Sheesh.

-Rob

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 somehow find this quote appropriate here...

[Chris Johnson]

"The customer is not a moron. She is your wife." -David Ogilvy

The advertising industry used to talk about 'The Great Unwashed' and talk about 'getting on all fours to look at the problem from the customer's point of view'. They were just as wrong as you are, and smarter agencies came along and ate their lunch.

The population contains idiots. That doesn't mean all of the population can't think, nor does it mean that all of the population that can, won't. The real question to ask yourself is- if the population did think, how, exactly, would you know? Quick, name 20 non-RIAA music labels. Name ten places to go and buy music without going through RIAA-controlled channels... even if the population does think, how are they going to know where to go if the information is kept from them?

Re:Do rates apply to streaming on-demand?

[MindStalker]

On demand streaming is not the same as internet radio, and is treated the same as mp3 download sites (even if you protect it, which is impossible) He's why, sure someone could record internet radio, but it doesn't nessesarly give you the songs you want. If someone wants an mp3, they arn't going to turn to internet radio, they are going to search for it on a p2p network or use an on demand stream.

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!".

Re:why are riaa artists still publishing their son

[funky womble]

I think they do want people to listen to their music, that's the whole point. What they don't want is for people to learn about and start to like other types of music which the RIAA members aren't involved in, something which is more likely to happen with a broad base of internet radio stations.

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).

Why is there a fee at all?

[smiff]

With conventional radio, the record companies pay the radio stations (via indies) more than the radio stations pay in royalties. Live streams are simply advertisements for music. The record companies don't want those advertisements shut off, and they don't care about the royalties.

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.

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?

The RIAA is Right!

[teamhasnoi]

Of course, webcasting royalties are too low! How would the cash-strapped RIAA be able to compete with someone who could just 'stream' at will?

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!

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.

Re:RIAA needs a reality check

[Fooknut]

I asked that question of my fav online station.
They told me $0.007 per song per listener.

This adds up to around a dollar per day per listener for an 8 hour day (assuming 15+ songs per hour).

Add the fact that the web allows for so many listeners (hundreds or thousands at any one time), ADD bandwidth/equipment fees and it gets very expensive to do online radio per day. For the big ad driven stations who are supplemented by broadcast it may be no big deal. But smaller stations have little or no income and simply cannot support the system.

If you're still not convinced...

[plaa]

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...

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.

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!

Broadcast royalties are an artist-ripoff sham

[jms]

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.
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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.