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The New Webcasting Compromise
arkham6 writes "According to a story on Yahoo, it appears that the RIAA and negotiators for webcasters have reached a tentative deal for reduced rates for 'small' webcasters. However, it appears now that the artists themselves are going to jump into the fray because the record companies now may be able to weasel out of paying the artists."
Artists and music pirates have long heralded the removal of the middleman from the music business. This paradigm shift will in effect allow the record companies to make more money and the artist the same amount. Until the artists have a method of promotion that does not require a record label they will always receive the short end of the stick. Maybe instead of $2million advances, a loan of $200,000 from a bank and some hardwork promoting your band as a day job, and playing at night for the band. Turn the band into your business and it might be successful. A few ands have taken that route and succeeded.
In Social Democratic Sweden
...record companies now may be able to weasel out of paying the artists
The artists, they think that just because they're the ones that work hard to create that music, they're entitled to some part of the profits. Shame on them! They should make their effort in order to to help the poor guys from Sony/BMG/EMI/... so they can make a living. With all these music terrorists around, it's really hard being a major label.
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
The RIAA agreed to something because they still want "their" money
Although artists rights groups appear to have no problem with a deal that helps small webcasters, a union official expressed concern about language that could allow the record companies to avoid paying artists their share of the royalty directly. The language seems to allow the recording industry to deduct the top expenses that they incur for setting up and maintaining the royalty payment regime.
"Direct payment is crucial, and if the recording industry gets deductibility language, we need direct payment," said one artists rights advocate familiar with the negotiations.
Obviously they have gone back to their old reliable first choice of people to mess with, just to make sure they get their middle man piece of the pie.
I want to make life size voodoo dolls of these folks.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
According to their site, SomaFM will resume broadcoast soon !! yay!
0.70$ per song per thousand listeners seems to be reasonable for small webcasters.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/27474.html
They list some specifics that state if your revenues are less than 250k you have a specific rate' mhile 250k-500k is another tier.
Mhere exactly would non-profit orgs sit?
Quoth Yahoo news: The language seems to allow the recording industry to deduct the top expenses that they incur for setting up and maintaining the royalty payment regime.
They're trying to deduct their expenses for setting up the royalty payment system, not avoid paying artisis altogether.
Yeah, OK, it's still evil.
-These are not the sig your looking for.
I never really did figure out if this affected every single broadcaster. My question is if this affects people webcasting music that has nothing to do with RIAA and its multitude of labels? If I recorded myself playing and webcasted that along with some recordings of friends of mine, would I have to pay them the webcasting fees?
Do all the math you want the REAL stinger is the MINIMUM FEE!
$500 Minimum.
Even if you just play one song a year.
The $500 Minimum is what will kill Most small broadcasters.
They're trying to deduct their expenses for setting up the royalty payment system, not avoid paying artisis altogether.
I'm sure the recording industry uses the same accountants as the MPAA member companies. The same accountants that figured out that Coming to America, Titanic, and hundreds of other movies never made a profit.
Hey, if these guys would get together with Enron's accountants, who declared they always made a profit, perhaps the truth would finally emerge???
The artists will never see a dime of this money.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Did he ever admit that his model relied on abnormal data? I've seen nothing that shows that he re-ran any of his financial models. A good researcher admits when a data source is retroactively found to be inaccurate- the librarian is so far not acting as such. He needs to redo his calculations based on multiple data sources.
This makes me more than a little sick. Whenever they appear before Congress or talk to a journalist, the RIAA only talks about "The Artists" {rights, livelihood, right to compensation, insentive, ...} but the second the royalty pickings get a little too slim for the studio's tastes, the artsists are the first ones to take the pay cut.
We listen to online freeform radio from the USA every day. They have realtime updated playlists. Its simple to find information about the music being played, by a simple right click. We can then check out the t-shirts and CDs.
There should be no charge for streaming online from non commercial entities. Period. Anyone can start a station, and see thier trafic explode if they play good sets. This new tax will dampen down or cap the potential size of audiences, which for independent labels will be a very bad thing.
Anyway, how are they goning to police this?
Streaming is no different to file sharing; its just copying a very long number. There cannot be one law for streaming and no law for P2P filesharing; there should be the same unrestrictive constitutional guarantees for both.
Copyright is Haram. This means that you can put a server in a sharia country, securely tunnel into it and then stream from there. Unfortunately the cost of doing this wont be worth the hassle, much less the threat of having charges to a company in Iran showing up on your credit card bill!
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Over at mediAgora the details of just such a promotion and payment system are under discussion.
Well, I am only speaking for myself but...
If the choice comes down to Britney Spears' music or civil liberties, I'll choose civil liberties.
If the choice comes down to Britney Spears or civil liberties? Which civil liberties exactly would I have to give up?
Retroactive Fuck:Under the regime, small webcasters will be required to pay artists and record companies a percentage of their revenue, sources said. The deal includes language that will make it retroactive until 1998, the year set by Congress as a cutoff for payment, and will allow webcasters to pay the earlier rates in installments. Wow, my friend is on the installment plan for broadcasting over the web, no RIAA music involved either!
Money goes to RIAA for the usual "promotion deductions" Although artists rights groups appear to have no problem with a deal that helps small webcasters, a union official expressed concern about language that could allow the record companies to avoid paying artists their share of the royalty directly. The language seems to allow the recording industry to deduct the top expenses that they incur for setting up and maintaining the royalty payment regime.
All and all the same old shit, but it won't last. As if there were only a need for five recording companies and four broadcasters in the world. Anything the RIAA can agree to is just another screw to all in order to keep their artificial monopoly on selling popular culture alive. 802.11b and similar will eliminate the RIAA racket, bring money back to artists and music to the masses. With government out of future broadcasting, your days are numbered, pig.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I have a friend that works for a radio station near where I live. She is a DJ. She has explained to me on several different occasions that the record companies have liasons which pay the station to put certain songs on the air (this was called payola in back when there was no liason). The idea is that the record companies get advertising for their albums, with the assumption that people will buy them.
Why is on-air broacasting payed to play songs when wired broadcasters are forced to pay to play?
It seems to me that the same advertisement idea works for both.
If it's not one thing, it's Steve's Mother
When the artists question you about their low royalty payments, you complain about having to pay independent promoters (aka "payola workaround") to get the songs on the radio thus getting exposure.
Now, here comes a bunch of people who want to play your songs, giving them as much if not more exposure, and you're trying to charge them for it?
Well, which is it?
People's desire to believe they are right is much stronger than their desire to be right.
The article noted that the rate works out to 70 cents per song per 1000 listeners. Now, I have no idea how many people can actually connect to a given webcaster at the same time, but just to keep the math simple, I'll postulate 1000 listeners (and do a little rounding).
At an average of about 4 minutes per song, that's about 15 songs per hour, so that means (assuming I didn't drop a decimal somewhere):
1000 listeners costs the webcaster around $10/hour in royalties, or about $7500 per month.
100 listeners costs the webcaster around $1/hour in royalties, or about $750 per month.
10 listeners costs the webcaster around $0.10/hour in royalties, or about $75 per month.
That strikes me as being WAAAAY over what that many listeners can bring in revenue, considering that advertisers want to know that their ads are being seen/heard by a certain minimum number of listeners.
So I don't see how this is any great improvement over the previously-stipulated rate. It's kinda like telling someone who earns minimum wage that you'll reduce their fee to $1 million, because the previous $2 million fee wasn't affordable.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
It's still not clear where the webcasters are supposed to get this magical money from. After all, they can't fund new albums unless they have some sort of revenue stream, right?
So: are they planning to charge for their 'casts? Are they planning to sell ads? Are they hoping for industry payola?
Charging for the 'cast probably won't work. Selling ads might work, if advertisers and websurfers weren't both in "once bitten, twice shy" mode about internet advertising. And if you're doing an end-run around the industry, payola is pretty much a non-option.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
I believe that the $0.07/listener/song (70 cents per thousand listners per song) was the original flat rate; the new rate is a percentage of revenues:
"By a voice vote, the House approved a deal that would allow smaller "Webcasters" to pay a percentage of revenues or expenses to the musicians and record labels whose songs they use, rather than a flat per-song rate set by the Library of Congress (news - web sites) in June."
The Future of Music Coalition, The Recording Artists Coalition, AFTRA, NARAS, The American Federation of Musicians, and the International Managers all jumped into the fray on Monday and the text got put back in that pays the artists directly.
The Bill Passed the House on Monday Evening.
Full Text of the Bill as Passed in the House (pdf)
Quoting the bill...
`(I) For eligible nonsubscription transmissions made by an eligible small webcaster during the period beginning on October 28, 1998, and ending on December 31, 1998, the minimum fee for the year shall be $500.
`(II) For eligible nonsubscription transmissions made by an eligible small webcaster in any part of calendar years 1999 through 2002, the minimum fee for each year in which such transmissions are made shall be $2,000.
`(III) For eligible nonsubscription transmissions made by an eligible small webcaster in any part of calendar years 2003 and 2004, the minimum fee for each year in which such transmissions are made shall be $2,000 if the eligible small webcaster had gross revenues during the immediately preceding year of not more than $50,000 and expects to have gross revenues during the applicable year of not more than $50,000.
Isn't that beautiful? To webcast a talk radio station will cost you $2,000 a year. If your station doesn't play a single RIAA-owned song, that will cost you $2,000 a year.
Ain't life grand?
Easy does it!
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