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Latest Salvos in the Ongoing Battle Of Webcasting
detroitindustrial writes "The Register reports on a backroom deal that screws small webcasters. The Voice of Webcasters, working with the RIAA, negotiated a deal that Congress is trying to make into a law. These rates give big discounts to the largest webcasters, while leaving around 96% of the smaller webcasters to suffer and die under the CARP rate. This is being done through the bill H.R. 5469, the Small Webcaster Amendment Act of 2002. It was originally a one paragraph bill to delay the CARP rates for 6 months, and was widely supported in its original form by the webcasting community. After the RIAA rewrote it, it turned into 30-page monstrosity that had no relation to the original bill. It has already passed in the House. Ann Gabriel, who was on the International Webcasting Associaion legislative committee, recently resigned in disgust over this sell out." It appears that the Register article misrepresents a few of the issues. Rusty Hodge, of SomaFM, has more on the actual effects of HR 5469...
This is an email from Rusty Hodge, SomaFM's head honcho, which was sent to the Pho emailing list. Reprinted with permission:
Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2002 01:26:57 -0700
From: Rusty Hodge
The RIAA seems to have managed to really get a rift going in the
webcasting community.
I'll tell you all I know."Somebody shine a light of truth into the nature of these proceedings. You have many friends on pho list. Speak up. This is another dirty deal."This article is based on a lot of incorrect information. What appears
-- [ quote from The Register article ]
to have happened was that someone on the carp@voiceofwebcasters.org
mailing list forwarded a bunch of messages from that list to the
author. (Nevermind that the mailing list messages have a disclaimer
which say that they are confidential and not for publication without
prior consent). I am annoyed that I was quoted out of context in the
article.
Tthe headline is based on one message that someone who opposed HR5469
posted, a message which is not accurate. The 96% number came from a
person who opposed all webcasting royalties and based his
calculations on the Shoutcast.com directory. It did not take into
account the broadcasters who operate via Live365 (which includes
thousands of broadcasters), the Windows Media radio directory,
Real.com, etc. It also assumed that all stations listed in the
Shoutcast.com directory are actually accessible. Because of the way
that the shoutcast automated directory works, even if you setup a
shoutcast server to privately distribute audio in your house or
within an office, by default it will appear in the shoutcast.com
directory. So will stations that do not have the network bandwidth to
reliably stream to a single listener. Anyone can run the Shoutcast
software on a DSL line, yet can't sustain a single listener because
of bandwidth limitations. And the statistic does not take into
account that many of those Shoutcast broadcasters are not based in
the US nor does this take into account where the listeners are.
(Remember, the DMCA/CARP fees only apply to listeners in the US.)
Now the current CARP rates - if you broadcast 12 songs an hour, and 7
average concurrent listeners, you'll be paying $516.50 a year. If you
only look at stations with more than 7 concurrent listeners on
average, or 5040 hours for the 30 day sample period, you get about
320 stations, and those stations represent 98% of the shoutcast
audience (based on listener numbers)!!! The remaining 2700 "stations"
are fighting for about 400 listener.
Of that 3000+ shoutcast stations listed who will be "screwed", more
than half of them do not have any listeners. If you have sampled
some of those near the bottom of the rating stations, you'll find
that many of them are either broadcasting silence, or their stream is
technically unlistenable (more dropouts than audio or you can't
connect to the stream at all).
(http://shoutcast.com/ttsl.html - has a rolling 30 day statistic
snapshot, which these numbers are based off)
HR5469 grants a lot more relief to a larger body of webcasters than
you'd think from reading that one mailing list. To the rest, HR5469
DOESN'T CHANGE ANYTHING. If it passes or fails, nothing changes for
the smallest webcasters.
(By the way, Live365 is neither harmed or hindered by this bill.
Their statement is here:
http://www.live365.com/carp/hr5469statement.html
Live365 is also represented ONLY by DiMA. Additionally, Live365 covers
the royalties for their member broadcasters, their member broadcasters
are not directly affected by this.)
Any webcaster with an average of more than about 25 concurrent
listeners is better off under this deal than the previous CARP
ruling. Beneath that limit, there is no difference.
There is another quote that is very misleading in the article:
``And privately, even members who support HR.5469 agree that it will
"seal the fate of this industry to be dominated by big webcasters,"
according to correspondence seen by The Register. ``
Actually, the quote "seal the fate of this industry to be dominated
by big webcasters" came from Kevin Shively (also fellow pho) of
Beethoven.com, on 9 Oct 2002. Kevin has stated many times that he
does not support the version of 5469 that was passed.
The Register should have attributed this quote because it completely
changes the meaning of it. Beethoven.com, a 14-employee company, is
owned by Marlin Broadcasting, a company that owns several FCC
licensed over the air stations. Kevin does not support HR5469 because
he believes that it sets the definition of small webcaster at too low
of a level. But I'll leave it to him to tell you what he thinks about
the bill. Kevin has been a driving force in lobbying for fairness for
small webcasters, and ironically, HR5469 would probably not have
passed without him, and it is very saddening that he will not benefit
from it. Kevin will hopefully post his concerns with the bill (I
recall it is Section 4 that he has problems with).
For the record, SomaFM feels that 5469 is far from a perfect bill.
However, we think it is a good starting point. Kevin has expressed
concerns in this bill setting precedents that will harm many
mid-sized webcasters. I believe that NAB is not supporting the bill
for the same reason.
``But the compromised Bill has some surprising backers. SomaFM and
KPIG are urging listeners to support the revised, RIAA-negotiated
venture.``
I was quoted somewhat out of context talking about advertising. I was
talking about a variety of options available for small webcasters,
one of which was advertising. However HR5469 extends the definition
of non-commercial webcasters to any non-profit organization, not just
FCC licensed non-commercial broadcast stations. That rate is less
than a third of the rate that commercial webcasters pay under the
current CARP fees ($0.0002 vs $0.0007). This I believe is a big win
for non-commercial internet only webcasters.
I was also pointing out that $500 a year minimum, vs the small
webcasters demand for $250 a year minimum, was negligible. I was also
pointing out that as they grew, and hit the $2000 minimum under the
new plan, that they would have an audience of over 25 average
concurrent listeners and at that point should have not trouble
obtaining advertising. They could bill up to $20k a year and have an
unlimited audience size.
SomaFM is listener supported and commercial free. We are not a
501(c)3 non-profit. Under the CARP rates, we would have to pay $500 a
DAY - over $180,000 a year in royalties. We generate about $20,000 a
year in donations now, which has covered about 85% of our costs
EXCLUDING the CARP FEES, and was on its way to covering all our
costs. (The cost that isn't covered is the cost of all the CDs I have
to buy!) SomaFM operates bare bones, our studios are in my garage.
We believe that we can generate enough additional donations to keep
us on the air with the rate proposed in HR5469. For us, it's
$2000-5000 a year instead of more than 10 times that under the old
CARP rates. So it's a no brainer for us to support this.
Another inaccurate quote:
"Many webcasters have already resigned in protest from the body
that's supposed to represent them: the Internet Webcasters'
Association. "
One person, Ann Gabriel, resigned. And Ann Gabriel was not a
webcaster, she produces live web events. She is not liable for past
CARP fees. In her open letter (which I've included below) she seems
to imply that IWA and VOW are the same.
Voice of Webcasters and the International Webcasting Association are
two separate entities.
The International Webcasting Association or IWA (which SomaFM is a
member), is not a lobby group on behalf of small webcasters. However,
since the IWA dues are far less than the other webcasting-related
trade group, DiMA, it has many more small webcasters than does DiMA.
As I recall, DiMA dues are $20k a year, IWA dues $300 a year. DiMA
represents bigger companies like Microsoft, AOL, Yahoo and smaller
guys like Live365. Jon Potter can tell you more about DiMA's goals.
Here's Ann's letter. I'm only forwarding it because it says it's an
open letter to the streaming community and the press, which i believe
describes many here on pho:
>Date: Wed, 09 Oct 2002 20:24:40 -0400
>From: Annmgabriel@aol.com
>Subject: [carplist] HR 5469
>
>Open Letter to the IWA Board of Directors, The IWA Legislative
>Committee, David Oxenford at Shaw-Pittman, CARP-List Members,
>Members at large of the Streaming Media Community and the Press:
>
>On October 1, 2002, at 12:00 pm Pacific Time, I began a 10-hour per
>day live broadcast with the intent to draw attention to the plight
>of Internet Radio broadcasters and raise money to benefit the IWA
>Legal Defense Fund.
>
>I did this based on the belief I was working to support HR 5469 as
>it was originally introduced into Congress; a bill calling for a
>stay in the rates imposed by the Librarian of Congress and due on
>October 20, 2002; and because I believed that Shaw-Pittman, the law
>firm involved in negotiating the deal with the RIAA was working on
>behalf of the International Webcasting Association (IWA).
>
>I am appalled, outraged and disgusted by the turn of events I have
>witnessed over the last week and will no longer sit and watch the
>blood, sweat and tears of the many be drown out by the disingenuous
>hue and cry of the few.
>
>I will NOT support HR 5469 as it was introduced and passed on the
>floor of Congress on October 6, 2002, nor will I encourage anyone
>who asks me to support it. I will immediately turn my attention to
>contacting every Senator I can, both by telephone and by fax, to let
>them know about the grave injustice that has been carried out in the
>name of the small webcasting community.
>
>Regardless of the stand the IWA takes on this issue, I, today,
>resign my membership in the IWA. I cannot stand by and continue to
>support an organization that allows its members to be bullied into
>accepting legislation that was negotiated one, under duress and two,
>by a team which originally set out to negotiate a private deal for
>themselves with the RIAA.
>
>I call on the members-at-large of the webcasting community to ask
>themselves why the press release about the deal on HR 5469 was done
>in the name of the RIAA and the Voice of Webcasters. I contend that
>the IWA was not represented here and its members are not responsible
>for the legal bills incurred by Shaw-Pittman. It is my belief that
>this was not a deal negotiated on behalf of the IWA or all of its
>members.
>
>I have been asked by many in the webcasting community how this could
>have happened. I think it is time for me to respond, and to let the
>webcasting community know all the facts about how HR 5469 could
>change from one paragraph as it was originally introduced, to a
>30-plus page bill serving only the RIAA and a few on the negotiating
>team.
>
>I believe I have an obligation to tell the truth NOW, as I know it,
>to the many who have banded together to fight for a common cause.
>They have seen their hopes go up in smoke because of a backroom deal
>negotiated under duress by a team that did not set out to represent
>webcasters at large and does not accept that the RIAA has a complete
>lack of respect for the webcasting community and never intended to
>deal fairly, honestly or forthrightly with the issues facing
>webcasters today.
>
>I wish you all the best of luck moving forward in a very difficult time.
>
>Sincerely,
>Ann Gabriel
SomaFM was not involved with negotiating this deal, although we did
sign a letter in support of it.
If you think my support is wrong, I'd like to hear the reasons why.
--Rusty Hodge
SomaFM.com
And the lastest version supports easy relaying of shoutcast streams :) Peercast.Org
Is there not any legal remedy small webcasters can take, regarding the shocking carve up their larger competitors have set up. Surely this must constitute a cartel operation, or at least a breach of some relevant antitrust legislation.
ObDisclaimer: I am not a British lawyer, let alone an American one.
ObJoke: Why is there only one Monopolies And Mergers Commission?
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
I'm not sure how things work in the US, but in Canada this kind of law would be open to quite a bit of challenge on that issue alone.
The players in the recording industry need to be slapped with antitrust investigations or something roughly equivalent to bring the truth out into the open.
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10)'
Webcasting, at least the individual-run stations I see, could care less about CARP or any fees anyone seeks to impose on them. The individuals I see who do care about it don't have any plans to stop broadcasting, but instead intend to take their broadcasts deeper underground. A tactic I have seen is that a broadcaster will firewall his shoutcast or icecast stream and then do allows on individual IP addresses that want to listen based on e-mail requests. Of course this is easily defeatable by someone with half a brain, but not by automated methods.
Another thing I've seen is webcasters who refuse to play music commercially released in the U.S. They play J-, K-, and C-pop, some of which is quite good. They play German techno and metal, and un-US-released Euro-pop. They also play tracks that are freely available downloads from amature-music sites like Acid Planet
This is, of course, the music industry's largest fear... that the U.S. public will realize that they are not the only, nor even the best source of music in the world.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Again , still...
Now how do they expect to police this with providers based in non-USA territories????
I'd love for some of the larger internet sites (yahoo, google, live365, mp3.com) to up and move to (say) Russia, or some other country with a decent amount of connectivity and watch RIAA/MPAA etc try control to them. (I'm sure someone can suggest such a region).
yes there's be issues (cf deCCS and the Norwegian justice system), but it would be interesting non the less.
Anyway back now to normal broadcasting.......
To the rest, HR5469 DOESN'T CHANGE ANYTHING. If it passes or fails, nothing changes for the smallest webcasters.
Others say, CARP is crap. If there is no change, it must still be crap.
Here's the ammount of money I'm willing to give the RIAA to broadcast/host/make available non RIAA music - 0 -. That's zero, zilch, nadda, nothing baby. That's the deal, you can keep your golden stream on the soon to be obsolete fixed frequency radio broadcasts with their $500,000/year fees. I'm not impressed with it and your long rant leaves me less than reassured. Oh yeah, if you would tell your friends over at COX Cable to get their thumb off my upload rates and quit blocking my ports, I might be able to support more than one listener. I'm not going to hold my breath and I'm looking into this neat not so new 802.11B stuff. Please don't get any ideas about charging me money for avoiding RIAA rip offs there. Go away now.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
In their zeal to "free" intellectual property, hackers are destroying the Internet.
First of all, this is a complete non-sequitur. The bill in question is not about "freeing" IP, it's about making the royalty rates for webcast music reasonable. RTFA.
Hackers, with some help from Al Gore, invented the internet as you know and love it today. If it's being destroyed by anybody, it's the large, moneyed corporations who see it as nothig more than a global platform for sending advertisements.
Downloading (or worse, streaming realtime) huge binary files is a classic example of the Tragedy of the Commons.
Oh it is not! Transferring data (binary or otherwise) is the whole point of the internet. That's what it is for. Do you really think that streaming is worse than downloading? That was a joke, right?
A few people have this insatiable need to play music directly from the Internet instead of just buying the CD and the rest of us get enormous ping times.
Shenanigans. The idea that streaming audio is bringing the internet to its knees is too idiotic to be even laughable. I'm streaming right now from Radio Paradise. It's using 8k/s of my bandwidth.
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
I'd love to see this work. But I think the fact of the matter is that there's no way in heck or Utah that the majority of the population is going to care enough to resist the shiny lure of their favorite pop, country, or alt-rock band. Even one of my favorite "Indie" labels ( Razor and Tie records) may be part of the RIAA -- I'm not sure. How does a buyer know what's RIAA music anyway? How do you make an average buyer even care?
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
Well, efficiency I guess.
.dom-bubble ones.
You can't argue that it's much easier to track how many listeners you have and where in the world via internet radio than via real radio.
In fact, there is no way real radio stations can be charged per-listener.
That brings up another point - real radio stations have to spend alot of money on licensing (actualy no idea how much) and equipment upfront.
Internet radio stations on the other hand are much easier to start up and scale.
The bottom line is that internet radio is better radio for both IP holders, broadcasters, me and you (in terms of variety). It's just that pricing has to be based on real world figures, not
Are there any internet stations that currently play all non-RIAA (shark-free) music that we can listen to and support?
"They bind our hearts: 'Let's sell them again and again!'
Our plan understands the sea; we can wait for her coming."
From the song "Infanto no Musume" in the Japanese version of Mothra (1961).
Why should webcasters have to pay more per listener than a major FM radio station?
You have to pay a higher royalty when you are giving someone a copy than when you're just playing a recording.
You see, no one who listens to a radio ever records it, and everyone who listens on the internet is keeping a permanent copy.
That is the reason. I don't know weather to laugh or cry.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
From what I've been able to deduce, basically there was a bill in congress, HR 5469. It was a very short bill which put off CARP for six months. Webcasters were universally calling on their listeners to support the bill. Just before the bill went to the floor for a vote, the RIAA tacked on thirty pages of ammendments. With all the public and industry support, it passed easily, despite the fact that the public support was for the unammended version.
The most significant part of the ammendments is that they create a decreasing royalty system. The more you broadcast, the less you pay per song. This ensures that something like Clearcast will exist in netradio. This makes it much easier for the RIAA to control what's played the same way they do with Clearcast.
The decreasing scale kicks in at a low enough level that all of today's popular webcasting sites will see a reduction in the royalties they are responsible to pay relative to the current law--so they all blindly support it. What they are failing to realize is that there are no really big webcasters yet, and that this law guarantees that those big webcasters will come into existence. All of the current stations will be undercut by the megacasters who will be paying lower royalties. They will either; have to put on more commercials than the megas and lose their listeners, keep their commercial level low enough to keep their listener base and operate in the red, or sell out at fire sale prices.
This bill will eliminate independent webcasting (for better or worse). As for you Rusty, you're an idiot. You're a big fish in a small pond now. Wait till you meet a killer whale--you won't even know what hit you.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
I disagree with the RIAA/DCMA on allmost everything, but you need to think about what your saying.
A Major FM radio station still needs to pay a *lot* of cash for transmitters, FCC fees, power, etc. If a "major" radio station had only 7 listeners, the cost per listener per song would be greatly higher then for a small webcaster paying CARP rates. I know as a fact a small NJ/NY non-profit FM station with a volenteer staff just makes it by with a $600,000.00 budget. Thats a lot of listeners/bandwidth if they were only webcasting.
Of course, radio can scale well without increasing costs whereas webcasting (bandwidth, CARP) can not. One extrea listener on FM costs nothing while it costs a little more on webcasting.
But lets not forget what we're talking about mainly is small webcasters being hurt. The reason many small webcasters are webcasters is becuase they could never afford the costs of actully getting FCC licenced. (Even if the equipment and music was free.)
What we need is some sort of fair flat rate or percentage rate fee for webcasting. The recent bill, while still unfair to many groups, is closer to this then the orginal CARP rates. We should still push for more fairness for small non-profit webcasters, but to imply that FM is cheaper or that webcasters should pay absolutly nothing is just wrong.
I am a local webcaster and I say the bill is worthless unless you happen to fit into the tiny financial segment of webcasters that were in on the top secret meetings. I departed the VOW list about three weeks ago just after it became clear to me that the hobbyists, educational and other non-coms (who make up the majority of webcasters in the world) were being used only as pawns and publicity, and not being considered or represented in any deal making processes. Am I bitter? absolutely. I and every webcaster I know have spent the entire summer writing letters, faxes and making phone calls to every aide in every congressional office and media outlet and begging our listeneres, friends and family to do the same to support every new idea the VOW turkeys came up with, only to have it shoved back in our face as a waste of time when the next big idea came along. At the end of it all, we (hobbyists, edu's and non comms) weren't represented even slightly and it came to light the through all the effort, the back room deal was going on the entire time. These small commercial guys and have will argue that the fees for hobbyists are cheap. "Oh, you can afford a couple thousand dollars in retros and $500 or a $1000 a year" - No we can't. Most hobbyisyts are getting by only on free broadcast sites and help from friends who have spare bandwidth. To sum up, I don't play Britney Spears, and I am certainly not helping foot the bill for her next boob job.
The RIAA didn't split us in two. There was ALWAYS two camps on the VOW list. The Register article, while slightly dramatic in presentation, only scratches the surface of the internal workings. Many of us recieved email and telephone calls threatening us when we didn't just go along with whatever certain members of the group said or did. It was a bad situation from the get go.
Since you asked, I'll bite. In Perpetual Motion http://www.ipmradio.com non commercial. We're all here for the music - and the beer. As for the actual quality of the content - There's some duds, of course, but the vast majority of the stuff submitted to the show is high quality. There's an awful lot of small artist run labels now a days, and theyre putting our some good music as well as keeping themselves up to date and informed on the new methods of getting the music to the masses who would otherwise never hear it. As I've stated elsewhere, the law makes it difficult even if one doesnt play RIAA artists. As a station, I have to prove that any works I broadcast are covered by waivers signed by the copyright owner. It's a major administrative undertaking. So I suppose if you really want to support indie / rogue radio stations, offer to come by and help type. ;)