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'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)"
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.
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.
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.
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!
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
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*
11 to 14 dollars....wow
Here in holland it used to be 45 guilders and thus now 22 Euros...which in return is about 21,50 Dollars..
And no, that's not because I live in some shitthole, but that's everywhere!
Moderation: +4. Modded 70% Funny and 30% Overrated. 100% Saturated.
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 I were to go to any of the major reatil outlets here and buy a regular CD (not on sale, not part of a specially reduced back catalog series), yes, it would cost me $17.99 or $18.99 pre-tax. Prices get a little better if you visit a more independently minded retailer, but the selection sometimes suffers. (Stocked titles are often more ecletic, and if your idea of "eclectic" doesn't match the owner's idea of "eclectic", yer out of luck.)
I wouldn't presume to say that the Big Apple is an accurate representation of the music market as a whole, but those prices the parent mentioned are indeed a reality for those of us in urban markets.
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?
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
Ah, but they're also trying to prevent one from self-broadcasting their *own* music; effectively saying, 'if you want your music released into the public market, it MUST go through us.'
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
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.
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.