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.
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...
I loathe the RIAA etc. as much as the next geek, but what hellhole do you people live in that CD's cost 18 dollars? Ok, Canada aside.
Prices from local media play (shitty pop stuff, I know):
Avril Lavigne - Let Go - 14 dollars
Linkin Park - Reanimation - 14 dollars
James Taylor - October Road - 14 dollars
Santana - Shaman - 15 dollars
Less popular, though better, stuff:
Angel's Egg - Gong - 13 dollars
Erpland - Ozric Tentacles - 13 dollars
Close To The Edge - Yes - 13 dollars
Leftoverture - Kansas - 11 dollars
And so on and so forth. If you want to make a case against the RIAA, by all means, do so. But please stop artificially inflating CD prices. It just hurts ones credibility, in the end.
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?
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.
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
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.
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
He is not interested in fighting Napster or Kazaa, as most of the songs you find there are MP3s in the 128 bitrate area - real fans aren't satisfied with them. To win the piracy, he simply sets the price of his records to a half or a third of other companies. As people see this as a fair price, they are willing to pay for it and support the artist.
Now his label is promoting new artists, who wouldn't have a chance in the big, payola driven, record companies.
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?
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.
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.
Good for Lobao! Wish I could read Portugese...
This is what needs to happen elsewhere! This is where artists need to go - direct to thier listeners.
If I had the business smarts/time/money, I think I'd start a company that did one thing only - helped artists go direct to the public like this guy did. Help them set up a web site that provided thier listeners with such services as:
- buy pre-made CD
- burn tracks direct
- special recordings (my wife would flip if I got Creed to sing a song just for her - worth mucho $ to me)
- lots of other cool stuff
(Sorry - I have to...
- ????
- Profit!!!!)
I'd also provide the promotion needed to get people to the site. You would then be certain that your money is going to the artist in question, not some (In My Humble Opinion)looney executive's pocket.
There are other hurdles to clear - radio play being a major obstacle - but I bet it would work.
Soko
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
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;)
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
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
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.
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
Having helped developed the world's premiere publishing and mechanical royalties accounting system (tm), I can tell you that even now - without the 'hundreds of thousands' of extra publishers - it's a nightmare. Royalty statements for even small publishers or labels run into thousands and tens of thousands of lines sometimes. The whole system of royalty collection is very very complicated, messy and time-consuming. There's no way that the systems - both computer and the societal, legal systems - could cope with such an expansion. It's just not feasible.
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!
Actually it's in the bills themselves. If you read the text, there's no mention at all of an exemption from the royalties when you broadcast songs on which you hold the copyrights. The bills are written with the unstated assumption that the RIAA holds the copyrights on all songs and doesn't leave any outs for when they don't. So, any artist broadcasting their own music has to pay the royalties on every song, then go begging to the RIAA for a small slice of the money back. And if they aren't an RIAA member, they aren't entitled to the money.
A Couple Problems with that Idea, 1. Teens would still "Have to have" the latest copy of the latest "Cookie Cutter Band of the year", and 2, the RIAA would just blame it on Piracy and pass new laws to elimin^h^h^h^h^h^h curb Piracy, as the old saying goes, "He Who Pays The Piper Calls The Tune".
If CON is the opposite of PRO, Shoudn't that
make CONgress the opposite of PROgress?
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.
"Is home taping killing the recording industry? Yes Yes Yes. Instead of making billions and billions of dollars, the music industry is only making billions of dollars." Check out the cartoon I am quoting from at dontbuycds.org. Force the recording industry to change by boycotting their products until they do.
How ya like dat?
The parents parent was refering to "artists' royalties" which can be nothing (or less in some cases). A famouse example, the "Dixie Chicks" getting less than $1M on over $200M sales. That's less than a half-penny on the dollar.
Great, but that won't prevent the RIAA of harassing small webcasters playing your music unless you explicitly waive in written the CARP fees and the publisher royalties (aka "mechanical" fees) in a way which is easy to administer for the webcasters. Call that an anti-RIAA license. If they can point to these licenses, that will help the webcasters to defend themselves when the jackbooted RIAA lawyers come crashing at the door.
The webcasters will in any case be burdened by the obligation of keeping an exact log of anything they broadcast. Not easy as it sounds. Think about a live webcast from a club when the DJ himself has no idea where the f**k half the tunes in his mix are coming from. There is an urgent need for a system to track and propagate anti-RIAA licenses embedded in the music files.
But more important, the legal system on copyright is now based on a presumption of guilt. And that, my friend, is wrong, plain wrong.
SNS Not Sig
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!"
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.
In Finland, about the same prices. But coincidentally, DVDs cost around 25 euros and computer games 40-50 euros. With this prices, what do you think is more likely for me to buy? Some people commented that music industry is not losing money because of the net piracy but rather because people are rather buying DVDs and games instead - and with pricing like this, it's not a wonder...
Yeah, the audiophiles like to say how owning and going to buy CDs is an experience in itself, but it's an expensive experience these days and just not worth it.
With prices like this... Thank you, I think I'll concentrate my music "purchases" around remix.overclocked.org and remix.kwed.org, at least they have music that interests me most. Seriously.