Slashdot Mirror
Raising Barriers to Entry into the Music Business
An anonymous reader writes "MP3newswire.net has an interesting commentary, inspired it seems by the woes of the Webcasting community. Basically they are saying that the RIAA is less concerned about piracy and more about the low barrier of entry into the online music business. For example, most slashdotters right now can start their own radio streams or distribute music files for next to nothing, just download the appropriate freeware and go. Through lawsuits and the DMCA the entertainment conglomerates are trying to make such acts much more expensive. So expensive that it is no longer affordable for the "average Joe" to trade or broadcast. The article makes a good argument on how the Internet has empowered individuals and artists to affordably express themselves online, and how a threatened record industry wants to stop that." Update: 10/20 6:55pm EST by C : More news from the webcasting front can be found in the article...
In case you haven't had a chance, here's the latest article from The Register on the state of HR5469 as it was introduced to the Senate, earlier this week. And as a bit of a wrap up to this roller coaster week, this Reuter's article serves to provide a nice summary of the situation so far.
Rusty reports: "Friday afternoon, the RIAA and SoundExchange announced a temporary payment plan and fee reprieve for small webcasters while congress considers legislation.. Basically, by Monday, Oct 21st, small webcasters will need to pay a $500 a year minimum fee ($2500 max). While this rate still may be a problem for hobbyist webcasters, it is lower than the $2500-$6500 minimum that HR5469 called out.
From the RIAA's SoundExchange site:
"Any webcaster that qualifies as an 'eligible small webcaster' under H.R. 5469 will not be required to pay on October 20 the per performance (.0762 cents) royalties otherwise due under the Librarian of Congress' decision of July 8, 2002.This still provides no relief for Live365, although their appeal hasn't been heard yet."
Instead, by October 21st, these eligible small webcasters may instead pay only the $500 annual minimum fee set by the Librarian of Congress for each year or portion thereof they have been in operation since 1998 (a maximum of $2500) until this Congress has had the opportunity to act on the pending legislation."
Ann Gabriel writes the following in response to Rusty's report from our last article on webcasting:
It appears that the message being sent to me in the response by SOMA FM's Rusty is that since HR 5469 does not directly affect me, I should sit quietly by and watch this travesty play itself out without saying anything.Brian Hurley of Detroit Industrial also had his response to Rusty's words from that article.
What happened with HR 5469 directly affects EVERYONE is the webcasting community and to pretend otherwise is a joke.
There is nothing wrong with the fact that a group of people set out to negotiate a private deal for themselves intending to save themselves from the retroactive royalties that will come due on October 20, 2002.
But there is something horribly wrong with the FACT that what began as a private negotiation ended up being turned into a piece of legislation forced as a yolk around the necks of people who had no say in the matter.
I am tired of being asked as a member of the webcasting industry to accept something so horribly wrong just because some people think this deal was "the best they could get."
To sit by and accept the events that led up to the negotiations and the formation of the actual bill language is something I cannot do.
To me it would be like being invited over to lunch and expecting to eat Chicken Salad - and then being served Chicken S**t. There might be a large portion of the webcasting community who can stomach that, but I can't.
The RIAA never had any intention of dealing fairly, honestly and respectfully with the webcasting industry. Those that sat down privately to negotiate a deal for themselves did so in their own best interest and for their own individual reasons. I don't believe there was anything wrong with that.
But when the self-serving agenda of a few becomes something that is foisted upon the community as a whole, then I cannot, must not and will not stand by and accept such an American Injustice.
It is patently clear to me that the IWA and the VOW are separate organizations. To that end if you read my open letter carefully you will see that I point out the deal was NOT negotiated on behalf of the IWA and it's members, of which I was one until last week.
Just because people are claiming right now that HR 5469 in its present form will not really hurt the industry does not mean that is the truth. The only entity that HR 5469 helps is the RIAA and it is a sad truth that they care nothing about the industry they are destroying.
Ann Gabriel
Gabriel Media Inc.
In case you haven't had a chance, here's the latest article from The Register on the state of HR5469 as it was introduced to the Senate, earlier this week. And as a bit of a wrap up to this roller coaster week, this Reuter's article serves to provide a nice summary of the situation so far.
The RIAA only cares about its own music. They don't care about quality or doing anything new and creative. Most new music really isn't good. I don't see how they can claim that piracy costs them "billions of dollars" every year when music sales are still going up. The only thing that cause people not to buy music is $18 a CD and shitty music.
this could be why, no matter how many studies say otherwise, the music industry is still very persistant on saying piracy hurts them...
So where can I download the appropriate software? Anyone...
Thanks
i thought this rather clear from the very beginning... or perhaps i assumed too much.
i really came to understand just how much power we have (and how little they do) when my father suggested the industry was going to develop a new medium and that CDs would be obsolete, i rebutted: "well, the RIAA may make something new, maybe even better - but CDs won't die easily. anyone can publish their own music, now, at a nominal cost..."
they have lost the power because they lost the monopoly. and they're scared as hell. that seems to be typical in many industries now...
RIAA should be concerned about handing out free sandwich!
I'm thinking, despite the RIAA doing everything possible to reinforce their crumbling kingdom, isn't it already too late?
Maybe I'm overestimating the intelligence of the public, but if technology exists today that enables people to trade and distribute information freely (music, in this case), and such technology is in use literally everywhere you look, how can you really stop that? Even if you implement some new technology that enables you to stop the exchange, the old systems are still out there.
I don't see how the RIAA can really stop Joe Musician from burning his own CDs and selling them through his webpage. The best they can hope for is to criminalize it, right? Wouldn't it just go 'underground' like software piracy at that point?
=Smidge=
Anyone who's watched the actions of the RIAA over the past few years can see this. Everything they've done to "squash piracy" has also, incidentally, made it more difficult to distribute music. We've yet to see a single sign that they might be trying to adapt to a changing world; every move has been to stomp, stomp, STOMP out new distribution methods and technologies.
The only good thing to come out of all this is that if they continue their currect practises, they'll render themselves irrelevant...
End of lesson. You may press the button.
Of course they are trying to do this.
Good grief. It's obvious to me, if you have a business model based on total control, and something comes along to challenge that control, you do one of three things:
Adapt
Squelch competition in any manner necessary
Die
Of course, it causes much pain and suffering on the parts of the musicians, the djs, and last but not least, Mr Average Pete. (Joe gets too much credit)
Sent from your iPad.
Most companies want to make it harder to compete with them in their business sphere of influence. It's little surprise that the recording industries want to do the same. What the recording industries will end up facing is the fact that consumers are getting fed up with their tactics and this will eventually turn around and bite them in their ass hard. I personally will no longer go out and buy music. Not because I am pirating their content but because I got very tired very quickly of their assuming I was a thief. When enough people come to this decision then the recording industries influence will lessen and the balance can tip back towards the consumers.
"GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 51230 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Setec Astronomy)"
However, I disagree with the first thesis of the article on face. The RIAA could not give two shits less where their fees come from. I promise you, if Satan himself (the real one, not Hillary Rosen) were to bring them a business plan, they'd jump on it. So, why do they care about the startup costs of traditional, "terrestrial" radio stations? They don't. They just want to receive money whenever "their" music is played. They don't care if it's net stream, radio, or on TV commercials. Say what you want about the RIAA (and you can start by saying they're rat-bastard pieces of shit), but one thing they're not about is caring who it is that gives them money.
This whole article reads like it was written for the back of a cereal box.
If some new means of distributing content would hurt the bottom line of the RIAA and may not be legal, in our adversarial capitalist world it's the RIAA's job to try to squash the new means, the new mean's job to fight back, and for the courts to decide where the line should be drawn given the ultimate goal of the granted-not-natural right of copyright to encourage the creation of useful arts for generations to come.
Ok. So this could be the "small business argument", if it is a decent way to make money, then it should be presented to the NFIB, America's most powerful small business lobbying organization.
Well it's really too bad, because the internet is a great way for bands to find audiences. I can think of quite a few bands whose CDs I've bought who I never would have found if it wasn't for Napster/KaZaA/etc. Bands like Moxy Fruvous (a canadian group) I had never heard of. I think I MIGHT have heard one of their songs once. But really they get no radio play (at least that's what it seems like to me). I found them because of Napster, and now own every CD they've made because of it. A large chunk of my music collection came this way; because as it's been said, I can't afford to drop $20+ on a CD from a band I've never heard of. But if I go online, download a few of their songs, I can find out if it's worth it. If it is, I buy the CDs. If not, I ditch the files. It seems to me that more and more artists will start to hate the RIAA and come out against them. Prince (?) did this a little while ago, but hopefully the next artists to come out won't use "i sp34k no CAPS im srt-hnd for u and r smart at what 'dey speak." I don't know how many good points he made in what he came out with, I couldn't read past the 1st line without a major headache and thinking he was an idiot. I'm sure that's not true, I've seen interviews with him on TV, but anyone who types like that instantly looks like an idiot to me. I guess I'm really ramblin' here. So in summary: RIAA bad, internet good, trading good, l33t im srt-hnd bad.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Well I can see the "hellhold" when it comes to doing something put out by an artist that they "own". But how would the RIAA "squelch" what an independent puts out? They obviously can't say "you must publish through us". No contract, no control.
there a quite a few Internet radio stations that don't broadcast RIAA music.
what i'm interested in is what RIAA could due to make this impossible, because this is something that will weaken RIAA in the long run.
put another way, what can RIAA do to prevent non-RIAA music from becoming more and more popular?
If you are fed up with the RIAA and their backdoor legal manuvers, boycott RIAA artists and the stations that play their music. Find and support local and/or web-based artists and the broadcasters who support them.
Creating your own music or 'net radio station hasn't gotten any harder. This is simply new incentive to dump mass-produced drivel right where it belongs.
(crinkle, crinkle, STUFF)
-- Windows is not simply installed on a computer; it is inflicted.
The ball really is in our court. The barrier to entry IS lower IF you are publishing music that grants the right to play it. The RIAA controls huge amounts of music that will never be legal to stream for free, but that doesn't mean that if I go out and make my own music that I can't make it "free music" as in "free software". This situation is NO different than the battle against proprietary software. Instead of trying to get RIAA music for free, we need to promote all new music.
I really don't see why it would be so hard to set up a net radio station and say "send us your music under a licence that allows it and we'll play it". Frankly, if somebody could post a link of a net station doing that right now, I'd be listening too it.
People out there need to stop whining about how evil the RIAA is, that is old news. Just make, play, and listen to free music. That's all it takes.
They are doing their best to quash competition and to raise the barrier to entry. Stopping piracy is a false mantra and only an afterthought.
Fight Spammers!
i know it's not addressing the issue of legislature in the US, but isn't it possible to just stream whatever audio through a foreign server (assuming such a server would be outside US jurisdiction)? : f64 : piracy - the lazy revolution
Sit back watch it crumble, see the drowning watch the fall
I feel just terrible about it, that's sarcasm, let it burn
I'm gonna make at toast when it falls apart
I'm gonna raise my glass above my heart
Then someone shouts that's what they get!
For all the years of hit and run for all the piss broke bands on VH one
Where did all their money go? Don't we all know?
Parasitic music industry as it destroys itself
We'll show them how it's supposed to be
Music written from devotion not ambition, not for fame
Zero people are exploited there are no tricks up our sleeve
Were gonna fight against the mass appeal
Were gonna kill the seven record deal
Make records that have more then one good song
The dinosaurs will slowly die and I do believe no one will cry
I'm just fucking glad I'm gonna be there to watch the fall
Prehistoric music industry three feet in la brea tar
Extinction never felt so good
If you think anyone will feel badly you are sadly mistaken
The time has come for evolution, fuck collusion, kill the big five
What ever happened to the handshake?
whatever happened to deals no one would break?
whatever happened to integrity?
It's still there, it always was for playing music just because
A million reasons why all dinosaurs must (will) die !!!!
Revolutions are never about freedom or justice. They're about who's going to be top dog. -- Kilgore Trout
...and this sounds like the same behavior Uncled Sam attacked Microsoft over. When the majors smell competition from an indie label (such as Matador), the simply buy and appropriate it. When that fails, they do their best to make it utterly impossible for someone to get started in the business without their "help."
THE GOOD HUMOR MAN CAN ONLY BE PUSHED SO FAR
Bart Simpson on chalkboard in episode 2F18
Sharing = communism
Freedom of Expression = sharing of ideas
Therefore, freedom of expression = evil
Patriotic Americans should oppose evil.
Therefore, go RIAA!
Just glancing at stuff, a very disturbing aspect of the bill is that for an individual webcaster, it defines as "gross revenues" to include any revenue from media, entertainment, Internet or wireless business where the individual owns more than %5. I don't really know, if this is how it works, but if Joe Blow owns a computer consulting company doing wireless installs, (or hell has 5% of it), and he streams mp3s somewhere, does he have to pay licensing and royalty fees on the revenues of his business?!?!?!?
Looks like Gephardt and some other Democrats opposed it.
At least in the UK, it was all about rebellion and doing it yourself, destroying that crappy prog-rock that had taken over the world. Studio production costs were the barrier, and everyone was producing albums with choirs and orchestras. Anyone remember King Arthur & The Holy Grail.... On Ice?
Punk bands were recording tracks onto 2 track tape in their bedrooms and pressing up a few hundred 7"s to sell. The costs were low and there was a huge explosion in musical diversity. Then.... it all kinda went away for a bit, suddenly synth bands were everything and synths cost a load of money, production values went up again and the music business regained some control over what was getting released. But... the computer technology that was so expensive in the early 80's obeyed Moore's law and the gear came down in price quickly. By '86 we start to see the first house records coming out of chicago. Artists would create reel to rell versions of their latest productions to try out live, then they'd tweak it until it was time to press up some vinyl.
Then it crossed the atlantic and the UK rave scene suddenly grew up out of bedroom acts. Orbital talk about producing 'Chime' for the cost of a high quality blank tape. Anyone doing electronic music could sidestept eh expensive recording studios, press up a few hundred 12" records and have an underground hit. As time went on the electronic tools got better and better, and the producers got better too, expanding the range of music coming out of their bedroom studios.
Then we have the advent of the recordable CD and variable pitch CD players, now you didn;t even need to press up 12"s or carry around tapes which had a habit of getting chewed up (the first acid house record famously got destroyed by the tape machine - 'Acid Trax' originally had a vocal, but that version was lost). About the same time the internet really got going and people began sharing mp2's on download sites so people could get hot tracks without waiting for them to be released. Later mp3 came along with better sound quality and smaller file sizes.
The music industry of course ignored all this, except for the occasional crossover electronic track used in commercials.
In november '97 I released mp3serv - the first live microcasting radio system, it was a bitch to setup, but a few people used it to do live radio from PC's. A year later Shoutcast brought the concept to windows PC's. Then web services like myplay made radio possible using nothing more than a web browser.
Barriers to entry are always getting knocked down, technology is really good at solving some types of problem.
I agree that artists need to be paid.
But art needs to be public in my opinion.
If something like the RIAA existed 1000 years ago think of where music would be now.
Art is inspired by art.
I say this with a grain of salt as I like to call myself an artists of several mediums. But the only truely original artist was that caveman who first smeared his shit on the wall, or the first to beat the ground with a bone in a rythm. The rest of us have all been inspired by some form of art whether we admit it or not.
My point is that the more art is stifled the less art evolves.
Just my opinion
*DrugCheese rants*
It is time to start flooding the market with independent record labels and sites like IUMA. The people need to reclaim their music from the coorporations.
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
I was going to do a research paper on something similar, but I couldn't find enough scholarly writings on the topic. My paper was going to go through how the music industry and technology interface, and how the technology and contract laws give them large ownership of music, and how if they moved to a digital distribution model (which they could) it would violate their previous business model based on artificial scarcity and monopolistic competition. (my research paper now deals with drug advertising and what it really costs, as wel as patents etc)
What it all boils down to is that the recording and movie industries are reaping the benefits of digital technologies (ease of duplication, ease of manipulation, ease of distribution, fidelity of media) and then working their hardest to deny those benefits to everyone else (ease of storage, duplication, reproduction, transport esp. networked transport, etc).
I won't even go into their 'right to virus' and 'p2p hax0rama' efforts...
fair.org counterpunch.com truthout.com indymedia.org salon.com
eff.org guerrilla.net debian.org gentoo.org
So expensive that it is no longer affordable for the "average Joe" to trade or broadcast.
No, it makes it more difficult from someone to trade or broadcast material that is controlled by the RIAA. It doesn't hinder "average Joe" from broadcasting material of his own creation, nor material created by other that "average Joe" has been given permission to distribute.
If "average Joe" wants to broadcast my music, he can damn well pay me for it. If he doesn't want to pay the prices, according to the value I put on my music, he should make his own or find cheaper content.
These are companies who have been accustomed for decades to domination of the industry through their control of distribution. They have consistently rejected new technology that would threaten that control, even when it was clear that consumers wanted it.
IIRC, in 1985, I wrote a piece for Rolling Stone about a company, Personics, that had a system that would allow people to make custom audio cassettes at high quality and speed in music stores. People loved it because it was what they were doing ANYWAY -- making tapes of their favorite songs in the order they wanted. But the record companies used their control of music copyrights to deny Personics access to popular music. And this was in spite of the fact that it partially solved the enormous cost of returns from music stores (50 percent) and the lost sales when sudden hits weren't in stock (and most hits are sudden hits).
Here we are 17 years later and they're still abusing copyright to control distribution of music. Personic's founder had a good idea -- create a compulsory license for music distribution, similar to the one that exists for music performance.
Nick
If you want to stream audio, (or video), which consists entirely of your own work, or work for which you have the rights, in a non-proprietary format, (E.G. Ogg Vorbis), are there any licensing fees to be paid? I assume that there now are, although I'm not sure.
I'm in the EU, (the U.K., actually), the European situtation is the most relevant to me, what what is the situation in the U.S.A., and Japan?
I'll bolster the previous assesment of CDs costing around $20. I've never seen (and I look every month or so) Rock CDs less newer than 5 years old sell for less than $16. $18-25 (well, $25 if it's a double-set, like Smashing Pumpkins' last)
Now is the time when we should be paying close scrutiny to the RIAA however, since instead of bowing to market (consumer) pressures, they are hellbent on strongarming everything that comes in between them and their fiefdom.
I look forward to the day when all of the media cartels have fallen, and the sham that is hollywood swirls (counterclockwise) into the shitter.
?-|||-----x<*))))><
The RIAA is not "evil", and neither is Microsoft. However, your zealotry is.
I'll get moderated to hell for this, but.....
There is an glimmer of truth to the article's line of argument but, the low cost and ease of publishing by the internet has long been touted as one of its major advantages. To an extent it certainly is true, the internet does empower the "little man". But, there is much more to it and Slashdotters seem unwilling to acknowledge this.
The fact is that publishers of art, specifically musicians need more than an inexpensive distribution channel. They need two other things, talent and, more so, marketing.
I'm sure that there are numerous extremely talented musicians out there that we will never hear of and it has nothing to do with the RIAA controlling streaming. Their obscurity will be because they lack a powerful marketing arm promoting their work. This marketing power is what the RIAA members or recording labels provide. Without the marketing power of the labels almost all musicians will fade into obscurity regardless of what distribution channels are available to them.
Regardless of anyone's willingness to accept this fact it is clearly born out today. For the past 5 to 10 years musicians have had the ability to publish and distribute their productions at a very low cost. Yet, there has yet to be a single artist who has achieved wide-spread popularity or fame through these channels.
Conversely, there are countless "artists", that are household names today, who haven't even a smidgen of talent. There are dozens of Top 10 performers that would still be growing corn in Kansas or washing cars in London if it weren't for the powerful marketing of the big labels.
Now be honest, could the Spice Girls have sold any significant number of albums had they gone it on their own and distributed through the internet? Would Brittney be flashing her belly button for Pepsi or, would she be doing Country & Western in some sleazy dive in Ohio for $8 an hour?
Physics books typically discuss the molecular nature of sound, but then derive the sound wave equations by modeling air as a continuous elastic medium.
I mean, mathematically this is just fine, but I find it much more satisfying to derive the wave equations directly from the molecular point of view.
I also think this is a more straightforward derivation, since it completely avoids any need to deal with specific heat ratios or adiabatic processes. The effects associated with these terms arise quite naturally directly from the molecular model.
All that one really needs to do is derive basic differential equations of fluid mechanics from the molecular model. If only the RIAA did this, maybe they'd sell some more records with good music on them rather than the same old pop hits time after time.
(I use Netscape v3.04 and the Microsoft browser v4.0. As much as I hate to abet the Microsoft juggernaut, this section looks a lot better with the MS browser.)
Department of Physics and Atmospheric Science, Dalhousie University, Halifax, N.S., Canada, B3H 3J5
Actually I have a question. There's an attached story (hyperlinked) to the one we're reading were it says that even the labels aren't for what the RIAA's doing (down near the bottom of the page). So if the labels aren't for it, and the artist aren't for it, etc, etc. Then doesn't that make the RIAA a rogue organization? Something is seriously broken here.
"We're not against the concept of free speech, but it should be limited to politicians." Seems kinda similar.
where's all that Karma?
Keep in mind that this only applies to music that the RIAA companies own. There's lots of good music on the net from "up and coming" musicians that have not signed contracts yet with greedy record levels. Bands such as these can broadcast over the internet all they want without repercussion, since they are not copyrighted by RIAA member companies. This would be good healthy competition.
There are some contradictions in the arguement being made here. There is no 'barrier to entry' for musicians. You record your music and you find an independent Net Radio program to broadcast it for you.
The 'barrier' seems to be in place when people want to put up Web broadcasting sites and use the mass marketed pabulum music. Which is NOT the music made by the independent musicians.
It always seems to revolve around a 'gimmie gimme' attitude that people seem to think they have the right to broadcast music made by artists whose permission they do not have, nor do they care if they have.
If you're going to build your alternative music industry, stop trying to play Brittney on it. It's really that simple.
There is also another quote by her that went something like 'When am I getting my check from napster?' but I can't find where I read it...
I know nothing about the music industry and such, but in order to get distribution, radio/tv play and advertising etc, aren't musicians almost relegated to going through an RIAA company? Wouldn't they pretty much have to sign a contract with them in order to make any money? Isn't that the whole point of the article? The RIAA is trying to stop artists from having another way of producing income (ie without the help of the RIAA) who in turn don't get their cut.
The death of Napster-style centralized p2p lead to the dominance of Kazaa-style distributed p2p, and the death of traditional streaming will lead to the dominance of distributed p2p streaming.
Please take some time to write the RIAA and thank them for their support in advancing the state of the art in free content distribution.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
I run a indie record label and I've got nothing to do with the RIAA.
If you'd like to broadcast releases to which I own the rights, more power to you.
If you run a broadcaster and the RIAA is all up in your face, I encourage you to just stop playing releases from RIAA member labels.
The cost of entry to the music business is in fact lower then ever. Todays home studio is able to do what 10 years ago was the stuff of wet dreams. Plus CD reproduction costs are lower then ever. You can start an record label for less then $5k these days, I'm living proof.
RantRadio does this- and in fact it's managed to get licenses to play its music from the labels representing artists it plays.
And they are always looking for new things.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
The RIAA is close to extinction and they know it. Think of these measures as the flailing paws of a drowning dog.
And for those of you that like to throw this "artists must be paid" mantra around....DEFINE Artist for us all before you start slinging around ill conceived opinions.
I would argue that PERFORMERS should be paid, the product at issue with the RIAA vs. internet users is information, we're not even talking about a nicely printed album inserta with lyrics and snazzy cover art, which in it's own right deserves a few pennies.
Information control will only become more difficult as technology progresses, the RIAA would be better off adapting rather than resisting, but this is one dog that just isn't learning any new tricks. I'm still AMAZED that they have not yet jumped on the biggest internet bus of all - that of MISinformation. I could digress, but maybe I shouldn't hand them the control they want without a price;)
If a CD was $18 Cdn (which most aren't where I live) that'd still be ~$12 US. In reality, the popular CDs tend to be around $12 - $15 Cdn.
Which is far less than you pay, but is still overpriced as far as I'm concerned.
When will you learn, things are cheaper in Canada!
The solution is the same one that's used to distribute net music. That's right the internet.
Go to the new and improved shoutcast were not only can you hear artist. You can also get more information on both the music and the artist.
But one can say that the person without computer access is left out. Correct on both counts. No net music & no net advertising, although word of mouth seems to be effective. Maybe someone can do for music what internet cafes do for the internet?
Go to StarBucks, get your java, get your Internet & music as well. Independent music stores could have a T1 out the back. Music on demand, or simply the owner could grab what he thinks would sell, and burns and labels it. More profit for him because there's less overhead. Remember were ever there's an unfulfilled demand someone will figure out a way to address it.
I've got a friend of mine that has been an intern at Microsoft for the last two consecutive summers, and will probably be recuruited by them when he graduates from college. I'm no big fan of MS (especially Windows programming, but whatever, he seems to like it), but I am always interested to hear his perspectives on working there.
Anyways, I asked him once what he thought of the whole palladium issue, and he said that the best way to tell anything that Microsoft is going to do is simply to see what could earn them the most money. Just follow the trail, and you can pretty much figure out exactly what business strategy they're going to take.
As obvious as that is, people tend to classify big market forces such as the RIAA and Microsoft as giant evil entities set on destroying all competition, crushing the human spirit of independence, and so forth. All the RIAA really wants is just to net its investors as much money as possible. Making it harder for webcasters to startup is a two edged sword; this will give the RIAA et al the power to control the future of internet radio, and thus, the type of music that people will be able to readily hear on the internet. It's all about market control, and it seems to me that the RIAA just wants to clear out the battlefield before they get involved in this particular arena.
"Quoting famous computer scientists out of context is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming." - K
There are bands that distribute their songs for free either from their website (Wilco being the most famous example and the most successful- after giving away free mp3's that album broke the top 10 its first week. The only advertisement was newspapers saying "hey, this band gave away their music!") or from MP3.com-
:= good; -- yes I can code in ada! := bad;
good example are the Ex-Models and SICK FM. (NJ's own!)
While googling "The Idea of North" (a dope shellac track, I wanted to find out what it was about) I found the Ex-Models "The idea of Peter North"- dl'd all their stuff from mp3.com, and loved it. THrough them I found out about Sick FM.
Oh, RE: prince's last announcement- someone de-133t'd it on slashdot- (they just s/3133t/elite/g for every annoying word) it was a little over blown but held some interesting points that no one can disagree with: Creativity
Big_Corporations
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Why don't they:
:-)
1. Set up a $1/minute 56Kbps BBS
2. Put loads of Ogg Vorbis files of popular songs on it
3. Profit
Seems obvious to me. They could sell overpriced blank CD-Rs at the same time
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Go to the new and improved shoutcast
Mainstream labels market their artists. They don't rely on people digging for research on Shoucast to get the word out about a new band or album. They put the word in everybody's face, whether they like it or not.
The labels advertise with giant posters and billboards, everywhere. They get radio stations to play the songs incessantly, via payola or some other arm twisting or back scratching. The labels advertise on television. They make deals with the movie studios (sometimes the same people) to use and promote the artist in movies. They arrange and further promote concert tours.
When a label decides to promote a new artist, it is an all out media blitz. Everyone is going to see it, regardless of whether they want to or not, regardless of whether they think the music is great or sucks!
When an independent puts up a web site on some obscure corner of the internet, hardly anyone ever sees it and no one notices when it dies shortly there after.
Most business are the same. MS distributes software. IBM and Sun distributes hardware. The channel is the important thing. RIAA doesn't care about the music, as long as it's good enough or enough people are willing to buy.
The court battle with Verizon and the RIAA is about who controls the channel.
And indeed they have reason to fear. The could easlily become irrelevant.
Stupid CEO's. The question for all business' is simply "What value added is there in my existence?" or "Could the customers be satisfied without my value-added?".
Opps. Better call the lawyers.
Derek
Kindly explain to me how broadcasting other people's music is a form of expressing oneself.
I don't remember the precise details, but this is pretty close.
:)
A person's credit card was charged for 0$. Since it's 0$ he didn't "pay" it.
A month later, he recieves a warning "pay or we take measures".
Again, he thought it's BS. A month later they limited his account.
He got pissed and did what they asked. He wrote them a cheque (or was it a bank transfer?) of 0$...
A few days later they called him, furious, and said that sending 0$ made them system crash and caused major problems to their database
So sending 0$ might actually prove useful!
^_^
If the musicians would just bypass the record companies all together, they could sell their CD's for $5 each and still make WAY more profit per CD than they are now (at $15 a CD).
And if you could buy the CD at full quality for $5, why would you bother downloading an mp3 with a much lower quality sound?
The only way the record industry is going to survive is if they realize that they need to provide a BETTER SERVICE at a LOWER PRICE, instead of relying on LAWSUITS for their existence.
Most people trading MP3's can afford the $1500 computer to do so - and they could also afford all the $5 CD's they could possibly want.
How on earth is the RIAA getting away with this? It's not their music that's being broadcasted, how do they have any right at all to charge independant artists for sharing it with other people? Something's EXTREMELY wrong with the system if they can get by with this.
My guru and I were having a chat about the RIAA and new technology about 3 months ago. What it boils down to is that the RIAA is going to have to master the art of cat herding if it wants to survive. Quoth my guru: "And anybody knows you don't herd cats by cracking your whips and releasing the hounds. Any body with a brain knows if you want to herd cats, you fire up the can opener and they come running." Ladies and Germs, the RIAA -- too stupid to fire up the can opener and now they're mewling and puking about the fact that the cats have run off in all directions and climbed a 1000 different trees. EEEDIOTS! They're such incredible EEEDIOTS! ---
OS X:*nix for the real world.
The "hundreds of thousands of dollars" versus "thirteen year old's allowance" comparison is bordering on an outright lie.
I'm no expert, but I'm sure the biggest piece of the radio station cost would be the "staff, management, DJs, and [...] sales personnel". You could theoretically try and run a radio station without all these people. But it would show in the quality of your product.
Similarly, if you ran an internet radio station all by yourself, the quality of your product would suffer in just the same way as for a conventional radio station. But the article implies that you could do it just as well.
Finally, unless he's suggesting that all internet radio stations should borrow equipment from their parents, the cost of a computer alone would probably take it outside the realm of a "thirteen year old's allowance."
Accountability on the heads of the powerful.
Power in the hands of the accountable.
It's not that they want people to pay for songs; it's that they want people to pay them for songs. If legit internet distribution ever took off, people would be making money, sure, but it wouldn't be the record companies; they'd just be some more shmucks in a crowded field. Anyone with five bucks could set up a music distribution company, and the ones that are currently massive, powerful organizations who can dictate contracts to artists and prices to consumers would be reduced to dime-and penny operations struggling to break even. We want that to happen. Eliminating the market power of the record labels would mean more money for artists, lower prices for consumers, and more efficent music distribution. This is the way capitalism is supposed to work. That's just basic Econ 101.
Not a thing the RIAA can do about it. And that's the answer - you don't want them to control it? Easy - don't use music that they control.
Cheers,
Ian
Do you know how many good musicians there are? I personally KNOW three very talented musicians: a punk rocker, a broadway singer, and a folk singer. None of them are famous, and only one of them actually sells his work. Yet all of them are about as talented as those in the industry today. (And as a sound tech myself, I have an educated opinion on the subject).
The truth is that we don't NEED to all be listening to the same people. I really enjoy listening to my friends do their things. And I enjoy singing with them. Can you say that you've sung with your favorite artists?
Perhaps the problem is that you equate fame with musicianship. I don't think we should have famous singers at all - at least not because of marketing. There are a few singers who worked their way to the top by playing and clubs and bars first (Jewel comes to mind).
There is one thing that should remain, I think: famous songwriters - it takes a lot more talent to write a song than it does to sing/play it, and the average minstrel can't pull it off.
There a plenty of songs that have found their way into the mainstream over the centuries without any known channel of distribution. I won't cite incredibly modern examples, because recently we have a lot more advertising, but here are few one hit wonders that have run their course on word of mouth alone: the Kookaburra Song (Austrialian folk song, now popular worldwide), Danny Boy (American song set to Irish tune).
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
Thanks. This is the first really usefull reply to this article. MOD IT UP!!
... something like "Just by listening, you are resisting".
I'm listening to it right now in XMMS. We need **"MORE LIKE THIS"**. (Anybody got other ones?) I love their slogan
Folks, this is the path. Stop trying to coexist with the RIAA and start ignoring them. Build a system that works the way we want.
Would I still have to pay fees for music I created myself? Is this bill saying that I have to pay to stream my own music that I created on my own keyboard to a net audience? If that is the case, that is totall insane!!
I can understand (a little) if these fees are for paying the RIAA when you play THEIR music, but what about my own. Is this not a violation of free speech? Why should I have to pay to play my music? How is it any different then me playing my music to my friends in my living room, except in this case my friends are in another state thru an internet connection?
www.enthea.org
Just like the AFL-CIO doesn't like non-union small business workers stepping on their territory, the RIAA resents non-union independent musicians creating music outside of their control. The collectivist mindset is outdated -- there is more freedom is individualism.
:)
Flame away, kiddos.
Why can't musicians decide NOT to use the services of RIAA, ASCAP, BMI etc? Is there enough non-RIAA-ontrolled content to make web radio, son-of-napster, etc viable again? If so, someone please post links! ZaZa, Inventor of the Amish Kerosene-Powered PC!
If you want to break into the music business, then create something of your own. Want to give that away? Go for it -- it's your right to do so if you choose, and the world will be a slightly better place for it. Share your work via P2P networks; set up your own Net radio stream so people can hear your work. That is legitimately "breaking into the music business", and do you want to know something? The RIAA can't do a thing to stop you.
Hell, what's all the bitching about?
The RIAA charges a broadcaster for the right to distribute their music by RF, IP or whatever -- so when it arrives on my TV, radio or computer then it's already been paid for.
Bearing this in mind, I simply capture and record the music I want onto CDR (MPEG-1 is fine) and also rip the audio tracks to MP3 format.
My library of music is not as large as some -- but it contains all of the chart-music I like and it has only cost me a few $ for CDRs.
If the RIAA or whoever, doesn't want me recording this stuff then don't broadcast it.
Hell, I've got a great collection of stuff in MPEG and MP3 format -- and I've never ever used Napster, Kazza or any of the other P2P networks -- it all just arrives by RF, delivered by broadcasters who have paid the royalties.
If the RIAA demand their right to earn money from broadcasts but still condemn my recording activities then they should sanction those in their own ranks (such as Sony) who aid and abet people like myself by selling us mini-Disk players/media, audio cassette players/media, VCRs/media, CD burners, etc.
Perhaps the bottom line is that the recording industry is trying to make a huge fortune from a product that is really only worth a small one. Of course to do that, you must have a monopoly, charge more than the product is really worth, and preferably -- charge multiple times for the same service/product.
The current situation (regarding broadcast and bitching about piracy) is somewhat akin to handing a child some candy and then slapping them upside the head for eating it.
It seems that the RIAA wants its cake, eat it, and then eat it again -- all at our expense.
Last week before the new netbroadcast rules took effect there were easily >100 netcast choices at icecast. There are now, as I look, 3 streams and 32 listeners.
Sad.
The little guys are knocked off.
"Don't Follow Leaders." Bob Dylan
I listen to bands that are recording their own stuff and SELLING it over the web and using it to attract and communicate to/with their fans.
The RIAA is screwed because the artists have come up with a better business model. One that puts money in THEIR pockets not the RIAAs and the managers and producers and other parasites sucking the life out of the artists.
Many million record seling artists are still perfoming not because they want to but because they HAVE to.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I don't know what books you have read but I urge you to read the following two books. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading them and I plan to re-read them as soon as my friends return my copies back to me:
Around February 2003 you should be able to find Vaidhyanathan's new book The Anarchist in the Library (ISBN 0465089844) in hardcover. Given how approachable and clearly written Copyrights and Copywrongs is, I fully expect Anarchist in the Library to be worth everyone's while.
Lessig's book is the more scholarly of the two, but that takes away nothing from Vaidhyanathan's excellent book. I would not hesitate to cite, quote, and paraphrase from both of them in any research paper.
In case you're not familiar with Vaidhyanathan and Lessig check out Siva Vaidhyanathan's brief interview on Slashdot a while back. Lawrence Lessig's name might be more familiar as the lawyer who argued Eldred v. Ashcroft before the US Supreme Court on the side of Eric Eldred. Lessig has also done a Slashdot interview.
Digital Citizen
In an "ideal world" only the Top20 would exist, there would be no more than a handful of well-controlled artists, all signed to the remaining one big label and the whole world would buy the same 50 CDs per year.
All releases would go mega-platinum, the profit-margin would sky-rocket - and if anyone would think that something was wrong here, it would be a terrorist, anti-american propaganda, which should be legislated illegal. Not only in the US, of course, but all over the world.
That's what we could call world hit.
Considering they have a majority of the market ( i do think they are it in the music industry ) and are using their position to manipulate the market, ( price fixing for starters ) drive out competition, attack customers, ( and musicians ) and questionably related industries ( p2p )...
Their very ( admitted ? ? ) foundation is to have total control, in the disguise as 'for the musicians'.
Would this qualify them as a predatory monopoly and be subect to governmental intervention?
Or am i just dreaming.. considering they are that the point where they are excempt. ( like other larger coporations we know )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
> This situation is NO different than the battle against proprietary software. Instead of trying to get RIAA music for free, we need to promote all new music.
:)
You can take any software product and create your own version of it whether you make it open source or proprietary. With music AFAIK legal you can't take the song you like, restore its score and lyrics, and record your own version of it, at least not for sailing it.
If software were like music it would be illegal to create another WYSIWYG HTML editor, for example.
The RIAA (along with the MPAA) has at least one senator and probably other lawmakers on their payroll. M$ doesn't.
All I want is a kind word, a warm bed and unlimited power.
Mu-mmu!
Mu-mmu!
> The RIAA only cares about its own music
True, so logically the best way to go about getting music on your terms is to disconnect yourself from their artists.
I'm listening to epitonic's webcast right now at 128kbs and will buy a couple albums just from hearing the tracks on this channel and also from the free downloads available at epitonic. InSound.com does the same thing, but their webcast isn't as nice as the hundreds (if not thousands) of tracks available at epitonic.
RIAA alternatives have existed for a long time and will continue to thrive regardless of the games the RIAA keeps playing.
what hellhole do you people live in that CD's cost 18 dollars?
In Sweden and the UK (the only two nations in which I know the price situation) $18 is definately not much for a CD.
Although RIAA is a US organization, their pricing affects the rest of the world too...
May we live long and die out
So, you want to kill the RIAA deep pocket? Don't contribute to it. Only buy CDs from artists directly...do not buy music through the retail channel. Send a clear message to the RIAA that they are an un-wanted organization. Give your money DIRECTLY to the aritsts.
-ted
Hi! This is the Sig, blatantly attached to the end of this comment.
I have original pressing of all those, every now and then I'll break them out at afterhours parties mostly so people can see these choice items from history. They're great in context, they shouldn't be forgotten, but if I tried to play any of them without the contect I'd lose everyone from the dancefloor... It's a shame I'd really love to one up all these lame 70's and 80's nights and do more focussed theme parties - Recreate the sounds of the Warehouse for a night, or the Paradise Garage, The Hacienda Club, Shoom, the love parade, hey even studio 54. I have the records, it's just hard to get a one off party to work.
For me the real turning point for house music is 'Voodoo Ray' by a Guy Called Gerald - suddenly house grew up and became intellectual and danceworthy.
KLF were pretty damn interesting too, moreso in their guise as media terrorists.
what if there were open source music?Bands that put their Mp3s out under some sort of licence that lets their music get airplay free for little guy stations.but still gets paid for commercial use.
maybe an open source music industry would provide the neccessary competition for those mainstream idiots.nyuk,nyuk could be bigger'n punk rock!
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
The responses to Rusty's letter all seem to be shortsighted, bitter and overly idealistic. They entirely miss the reality of the situation. Namely, it is: Come October 20th, the DMCA mandated fees decided by CARP will be due and no one but the largest webcasters (yahoo et al) will be able to afford it.
/. would agree that the RIAA has no interest in lowering the barrier to entry in this arena (or any arena where they are involved).
Killing HR5469 won't mean that both sides go back to the bargaining table to negociate a new deal. The RIAA had little reason to negociate HR5469 in the first place. They only did it because they saw it as a PR win due to the negative publicity stirred up by webcasters like SomaFM. Since webcasters came to the table with very little to offer the RIAA, HR5469 basically represents what the RIAA was willing to give up. If that means the smallest webcasters are SOL, then there was basically no posibility that they wouldn't be. Opposing the bill is basically just sour grapes that those large enough to be helped by HR5469 will be able to continue to operate legally.
Let me respond point by point to the letter posted above:
"What happened with HR 5469 directly affects EVERYONE is the webcasting community and to pretend otherwise is a joke."
This is true. While small webcasters will not be directly affected by HR5469, if the bill isn't passed, the mid-level webcasters without pockets deep enough to pay CARP fees will go away. Then who will be left to oppose the RIAA and fight for the small webcasters? No one. The RIAA will have no one left who is organized enough to lobby against them. Small webcasters like to make it seem like HR5469 is exactly what medium-sized webcasters wanted. This is completely false. There is specific language in HR5469 that says that that the agreement is *not* voluntary and has been forced upon them by the RIAA. HR5469 is a first step, but there might not be any further steps if it doesn't pass.
"But there is something horribly wrong with the FACT that what began as a private negotiation ended up being turned into a piece of legislation forced as a yolk around the necks of people who had no say in the matter."
On the contrary, the yoke you're feeling is the DMCA. You're free to ignore HR5469 completely if you so choose. The only difference HR5469 has is that it gives you the option of paying $500/year instead of the outlandish per listener charges imposed by CARP.
"I am tired of being asked as a member of the webcasting industry to accept something so horribly wrong just because some people think this deal was "the best they could get."
Ok, so you try getting something better from the RIAA. You hire a lawyer/lobbiest to negociate a deal. Saying that this isn't the best deal that could be gotten is disingenuous and assumes that there was good faith on the part of the RIAA to find a solution that would be acceptable to small webcasters. I think most of
"To me it would be like being invited over to lunch and expecting to eat Chicken Salad - and then being served Chicken S**t. There might be a large portion of the webcasting community who can stomach that, but I can't."
On the contrary, you were told that you can eat the leftovers if you so choose. You're getting free food...it's entirely your choice whether to eat it or not. So you're hungry...but that isn't the fault of the people who gave you the leftovers.
"The RIAA never had any intention of dealing fairly, honestly and respectfully with the webcasting industry. Those that sat down privately to negotiate a deal for themselves did so in their own best interest and for their own individual reasons. I don't believe there was anything wrong with that."
Exactly. The RIAA has never intended to make it possible for very small webcasters to operate legally. The fact that the mid-level webcasters sat down and hammered out a deal with the RIAA that would allow them to continue to broadcast can only be seen as a good thing. For the most part, these webcasters are not faceless corporations who only care about their own existance. They are labors of love who will continue to fight for the rights of the smaller webcasters. To silence them will mean that there will be no one left to negociate with the RIAA.
"But when the self-serving agenda of a few becomes something that is foisted upon the community as a whole, then I cannot, must not and will not stand by and accept such an American Injustice."
Again, I challenge you to show that anything has or will be "foisted upon" you by HR 5469. You're free to go by the CARP regulations if you so choose. Please show how the agenda of the webcasters who negotiated this deal has hurt your situation (and you might try using an actual argument instead of just spouting rhetoric.)
"Just because people are claiming right now that HR 5469 in its present form will not really hurt the industry does not mean that is the truth. The only entity that HR 5469 helps is the RIAA and it is a sad truth that they care nothing about the industry they are destroying."
Fact: if HR 5469 does not pass, any webcaster that has any voice in Washington will stop broadcasting (aside from the large corporations unaffected by HR 5469.) You're right that the RIAA doesn't care. But shutting down the only people with a voice loud enough to make the RIAA take notice is misguided, short-sighted and foolish.
This whole "rift" in the webcasting community only helps the RIAA. Webcasters should be happy and support any measure that benefits any member of their community. To do otherwise only ensures the RIAA will get their way.
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"
What gets me is the price of DVDs compared to Audio-CDs. I pay less for DVDs than I do for Audio CDs. New or used.
My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.
...but yet that's all that people want to steal? All this free quality independent stuff, and yet no one wants it?
Even at $14, its too much.
Perhaps if they lowered a CD to under $10, it would then be worth it to try albums that you might like.
But for $14-18, you don't buy it because for that kind of money, every single track better be good. Its no longer an impulse buy.
Very few albums qualify any more under the harsh criteria of actually being *good* for a whole 50 minutes.
What a concept.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Uhh, yes it has. This establishes fees on webradio, regardless of how small, regardless of the fact that they consume no limited public resource. The size of the fee today is much less important than the precident set, though most average joes won't want to spend $500 to broadcast their music. That's right, their music that has nothing to do with the RIAA. Wanna bet any of them will ever see any pay out for this?
So great, they shut everyone else down this way. How am I going to vote with my dollars then? There's only one name on the ticket. Who do my aspiring musician friends get to deal with then?
Don't take my word for it, trust Mack. He seems to have hit it on the head. "What stream?" asked the pig.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I've been saying this for months.
You need to stop giving money to the copyright industry forever.
It isn't about copying or piracy, it's about competition.
The tools you use to steal their content are the same tools you can use to COMPETE with their content.
They are lying when they talk about piracy. Don't talk about piracy, because if you do, then you're being reeled in by their lies. Make sure that you tell people that it's about competition, not stealing.
It's about using copyrights to hinder the progress of the sciences and useful arts by trying to take away the machines that people could use to promote the progress of the sciences and the useful arts. They can't allow these machines to exist or else they'll make less money as people become able to compete with them on an even playing field, but with much less money.
It's about giant corporations using lies to subvert the Constitution to destroy freedom because they think that they'll make more money.
So, please don't give money to the copyright industry ever again. They won't ever stop, and they will wait as long as needed between laws, and they're willing to take steps as small as needed to get toward their goal of preventing the existence of machines that will let people compete with them.
Best. Comment. Ever. Enjoy!
The RIAA numbers must evidently tell them that for the time being they can make more money by throwing armies of lawyers at the problem. Can anyone guess how long it will take them to switch to adapting to the new reality and distributing ALL music for low cost? How does it go? Denial->Anger->Resignation->Acceptance...
I sat here for a few minutes trying to formulate a response. When I realized how painful it was to slow my brain down to the corresponding level of your post, I decided it wasn't really worth it.
I'd call you a troll, but most trolls do a better job of formulating a post that will incite people. You, on the other hand, seem to post things that just don't make sense. Perhaps, the reason that your past posts fail to get moderated up, nor down, is you largely get ignored.
I am so sick of big corporations.
Just because their businesss model is shattered by the internet, they want protection. You know what, to fn bad.
Music is falling to digital
Movies are falling to digital, their now complaining that DVD are to good that no one wants to come to movies.
Microsoft will fall to Opensource.
I love every minute of it. It is called a free market, get over it and get your shit together.
There are a lot of layers of financial interests here, but they do all boil down to *controlling the distribution channels*, which in turn controls where the money flows. (Which I've been saying every time this topic rolls thru Slashdot. And now some news organ picks up the story? Obviously they've infringed my copyright! :)
So, to paraphrase the RIAA, in other words, if the artists don't bow to the RIAA and that "community", depending upon the RIAA to manufacture and distribute their CDs, then the workers are controlling the means of production, and therefore Communists for not bowing to the RIAA and their community...*gets dizzy from all the circles*
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
there was a huge explosion in musical diversity
that punk crap sounds like a huge explosion, not musical at all. diversity? yeah, a huge assortment of lower class white shitheads that couldn't play their instruments! what bullshit.
granted the '70s prog rock was getting over done. but don't forget, at the time, that was the only rain in the desert of disco!
Consider:
An allegation against you, Joe Webcaster, that your site streams copyrighted material. Even though you stream music that is 100% free (or otherwise requested to be mass-distributed by whatever means), the mere allegation and C&D almost requires you to stop streaming until you can be proven innocent (I don't beleive the DMCA actually follows innocent till proven guilty). Meanwhile you are "off-the-air" until it is cleared. An obvious win for the labels, regardless of the outcome in the trial.
It would be nice to know if whether it would be considered libel for an organization to claim copyright infringement when in fact there is none... Of course, this would require that such webcasters be 100% legit, because we do know the lengths to which the RIAA will go to put someone down.
Anyway, thats my 0.02.
-Bob
A free music licence would say that you could copy and distribute the music as long as you didn't charge a fee to the user.
RIAA doesn't have any hold over independent artists. If you get the agreement from an artist who hasn't already signed away rights to their music elsewhere, you can webcast it to your heart's content.
Conversely, if you want to webcast music they have got their mits on, well, there's no reason you should be any different than any other radio station that has to pay royalties on it. The main difference is they advertise or hold beg-a-thons so they can pay the royalties (and for other minor things like salaries and equipment). Granted, the royalties should be scaled to the audience size, but if the rates are unreasonable, I find it really hard to believe that artists that have signed away all rights to their works to RIAA are the only ones making good music.
Webcasters need to tell RIAA to stick it, and come up with a working model that works well for good new independents looking for exposure, and by working, I mean keeps working after they're exposed so they can actually make a living from it (which I think should be easy to do if RIAA/studios are taking so much off the top). When webcasting then takes off with good new unaffiliated talent but won't air the "mainstream" artists because of the restrictive rules/pricing, I think you'll see a lot of major squawking and rewritten contracts and rules.
Is there enough non-RIAA-ontrolled content to make web radio, son-of-napster, etc viable again?
I would suggest that such a point of viability is subjective. Someone who intends to boycott "corporate music" will perceive that viability at a much lower quantity of available work than someone who is still mostly sold on entertainment with the corporate stamp of approval.
If so, someone please post links!
The link in my .sig, to the Open Music Registry, is one starting point for you. There are hundreds of songs listed in it, all licensed with the EFF's Open Audio License. But are "hundreds" of songs "enough" to be viable for the stated purposes? (Luckily there are works licensed with similar licenses, but I don't know how many are actually available.)
No Laughing Allowed!
Are there any groups that can help us out and that are against the RIAA?
Slashdot Team,
Can you add a link to congress website for email letter submission to all of these hot legislation topics, so we can write congress easier?
Thanks in advance to anyone that can help!
-Adam
To be forward, when are they going to get it? This isn't a question about how to stop music piracy, it's a question about how long they can fend it off. We're learning more, using more, and son enough we'll _all_ be writing our own streaming capability. As long as we have a line-in and tcp, we can do anything.
Figure it out.
-P
Here's what you do. Here's what you GOTTA do.
Anyone out there who can play, sing, compose, you need to get cracking and start working your ASS off- produce something. You're the front lines.
Anyone out there who can get the word out about musicians and bands that aren't RIAA but really should be getting work anyway- take some time, do it, get the word out. You're the supply lines.
Anyone out there who can hunt down indie music and spend even half as much as you're used to giving the RIAA, do it! Just because most indie acts put up free downloads doesn't mean you should be doing the download thing only- if they don't have a way for you to buy something tangible (CDs, shirts, what have you), then FIND a way to give them something. They're only doing the free downloads because (a) they're nice to you and/or (b) the RIAA have so poisoned the industry that they have no hope in hell of ever getting paid. By YOU. The RIAA have come between these musicians and YOU by setting up a situation in which the musicians are so locked out of mass media that they've given up completely and are putting up mp3s for nothing.
OK, so who am I to be saying all this? I'm a guy who can't sit on the sidelines any more. Recent events drove me into the studio because I _had_ to start turning out songs, songs with words, words that said what I needed to say.
With tracks like "Take A Number" I'm playing in the major leagues. I have been playing for twenty years and never had the kind of capabilities I have today, and I am using it to put out musical material that is better than a heck of a lot of the major label crap. How?
When I started, you could only get cassette multitracks. Now, I work on a 20 bit ADAT- you can also work on digital audio workstations, that barrier to entry has collapsed. The major label guys running 2" 24-track tape can beat you- but the majors are using DAWs for everything now!
When I started, there was a big gulf between pro and hobbyist gear. Now, I'm using a compressor (the FMR "RNC") that's widely raved about by working sound engineering professionals, and it's just $200. There's a reputable large-diaphragm condenser mic, the Studio Projects C1, also $200. FMR's coming out with a killer mic preamp for $500. You can buy decent guitars from Samick for dirt cheap and stick better pickups etc. in them, replace the electronics. That barrier to entry has collapsed- if you know what you're doing, you can get truly professional sound for damned little.
When I started, the only source of information was trade magazines. Now, the trade rags (except for 'Tape Op') are worthless tools of advertisers, but there's dozens of Internet gathering places for pros in every area of studio and live work. You have to not be a know-it-all but the amount of learning that can be done is shocking. Google Usenet search is your friend. We didn't have that when I started.
I started out dubbing tape cassette releases, buying bulk tapes and boxes, literally pasting up artwork to photocopy tape inserts and labels, with the lettering typed on a typewriter or rubbed on with Letraset. Now- well, do I have to mention Photoshop? Desktop layout and graphic design? Thought not. That barrier is demolished.
So, now that I have ALL THOSE capabilities, now that I am ready and motivated to blow the roof off and make fantastic music (I once took a music business course from a teacher named Peter Knickles. Talked to him after class as he was packing up. His two words of greeting? "Impress me." That's still the challenge, every time), now they want to bar the doors. Worse, they want to shut everyone else down- since by this point, large numbers of musicians realise it's a rigged game and they're hosed before even starting. You've got discouraged or contemptuous musicians refusing to even deal with the majors, knowing what a hose job they'd get.
Musicians make music. Whether there's money in it or not. That's why I kept playing these 20 years (started at around 14- I'm not an old codger, just 34 ;) ). If there's no hope for paying gigs, musicians will continue to make music and try to get it heard through avenues that aren't going to pay in money, they'll just try for some exposure because music is for hearing, and even THAT isn't good enough for the RIAA, they're trying to shut down even THAT!!
Well, fuck that.
I'm going to keep making music, and I'm NOT going to resign myself to a future in which it is worthless and marginalized. There's a lot of you who are ready to copy bootlegs of majorlabel CDs around, there's a lot of you who are ready to stream majorlabel tunes over the Internet. I'm the one who is ready to curse the major labels and never deal with them and function as a serious musician and songwriter completely apart from them. And you know what? I never did like marketing hype and schmoozing people to listen to my stuff and I don't give a damn if you all continue to just wank off with major label crap, persuading yourselves that you're being rebels because you're not paying them in cash, only in attention.
I'm not doing it for YOU.
I'm doing it because of a certain kid I once was, who listened to prog-rock in the middle of the night and wanted to be just like that, who struggled to learn how to play, who eventually learned the truth about the music business some years before it became obvious to everybody else, and whose heart was broken at the loss of that dream, seemingly forever.
The various scars and blisters on my hands, and the tunes I have for downloading, say this: that dream is only as dead as you want it to be. Some of you may be learning this, too.
So. Get out there and FIGHT!
-Chris Johnson
very good points-
we have been brainwashed to think that we all have to listen to the same superstars.....thats how the corps make money. By promoting 10 big stars rather than every bit of talent. Instead of just looking for someone with their own talent, they go out and try to mold something that their latest focus groups would love. There are people who like 'filler' to pass the day and that is fine. I for one like some substance..no soy for me.
sam
seen now it is still very expensive to do radiostations on the internet. once we have IPv6, anyone who will have cable modem will be able to have a gig online, with extremely large amounts of listeners and have O(1) bandwidth consumption. Switch is already on the way, many large carriers are switching to IPv6 , only hope is that multicast is enabled. Multicast is often misunderstood and a source of pain for many it departments, because it was an easy target to cause alot of damage. If I were you, I would have fingers crossed for multicast to come, and if you are sysadmin - learn as much as you can and enable Multicast on your subnet.
after all code is what is governing cyberspace not laws. with multicast it would be very hard to track down and punish those who don't pay respect and dues to governments/corporations.
This isn't about getting money whenever their music is played. It is about ensuring that only their music is played. If webcasting is cheap, you can play whatever music you want. If you have to pay to run an internet radio station, you have to get money from somewhere. The RIAA is all too happy to vicariously provide you with that money, as long as you play their songs. Independent artists don't have the capital to overcome that hurdle, so they have to sign on with a major music label.
Massachusetts, USA isn't much better. I have friends in bands struggling to make money and keep their integrity at the same time - no easy matter.
Thanks for the link - I'll take a look.
-- Windows is not simply installed on a computer; it is inflicted.
>If you want to make a case against the RIAA, by all means, do so. But please stop artificially inflating CD prices.
... http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/10/01/015820 3&mode=thread&tid=98 ...
You are very much right in that, but you have it backwards on this issue
Regarding the examples you cited, yes those are less than 18$US but no-where near fairmarket value.... also for better/lesser circulated stuff:
Avenged Sevenfold
From Ashes to Autum (sic)
Coheed & cambria
-goodtimes
>It just hurts ones credibility, in the end.
Yes your right here also. please keep that in mind.
I want to see a website, lets call it SwellMusic, designed to bridge the gap between independent artists and music fans. The RIAA's great value is picking out good music from the junk. SwellMusic needs to do the same thing.
This is how I see it working: an Artist posts one of their better songs in the new music section, specifying which genres it fits into. Registered hardcore music fans vote on how well they like the song. Bad songs disappear. Good songs get posted for everyone to hear. Kuro5hin.org does this with stories, and it seems to work quite well (get an account and check out the moderation queue).
If the song is really good, the site should play it on the appropriate radio station (one station for each genre). Better songs get played more often. The site would also keep a chart of the most popular songs for the day/week/month/year.
If a fan takes a liking to an artist's music, they could go to SwellMusic to buy the song/CD, and download it in a lossless compression format. Or for an added fee, they could have a CD custom made and delivered through the mail. The non-profit SwellMusic would take a commission on the sale to cover their costs. The artist would determine exactly how much they charge and they would decide how to license their sample songs (public domain, OAL, allow free distribution for a limited time, etc). The artist would also decide if they will post Ogg Vorbis files of all their music, or just some select samples.
SwellMusic could also let the artist donate money to charity. When someone buys their CD, it would list where the money is going:
Great Band CD
- - - - -
SwellMusic would track all the donations to the American Cancer Society, and send them a monthly check.
Each artist should have their own section on the website. They could post comments, lyrics, decide if their fans can write comments, etc.
The site should also let artists post when and where they will play. Fans would go to SwellMusic, punch in a date and zipcode, and get a listing of all SwellMusic artists playing in the area on or around that day.
If the site generates extra money, they could use it to write open source music software, create high-quality sound samples, build up an endowment, etc.
SwellMusic would be a great source for finding independent music, and it has far more potential than I've listed here. My question is, why doesn't SwellMusic seem to exist? Why don't all the artists who complain about the RIAA, get together and form SwellMusic?
I hate suckaz who anon their criticism.
log in and we'll have a battle royale!
Even if I lose a battle of wits I can still spray you with my cats hyper-active anal glands. You'll be showering for a week.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.