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Small Webcasters Sue RIAA
killthiskid writes "The Webcaster Alliance, a small group of 198 webcasters has sued the RIAA. CNET has the news, along with a growing number of other sites (google news). As many /.'ers know, in 2002 the Library of Congress decided on .07 cents per song (retroactive to '98). After that another bill was passed to protect smaller webcasters. Aparently, many webcasters are still not happy." Their complaint is online.
According to this article, the group is actually closer to 400 members, but I'm inclined to trust CNet. Regardless, most are apparently one-man operations and the like; their chances of winning--let alone having the courts "block the major record labels from enforcing their otherwise legitimate intellectual property rights in sound recordings until the alleged violations are remedied" (according to the above atnewyork article)--are, I'd say, slim to none.
how do you determine when you are listening to somone's intellectual property and when you are listening to someone's free speech?
Big Brother Bush is doubleplus ungood.
alleging that the trade association tried to push independent music stations offline. The way the law is currently, you have to pay if you are going to make music publically available. Now this law is insanely out of touch with the way people use media right now, and it needs to be changed, but unfortunately, the evil RIAA was just doing what it was supposed to do. It sucks, but its true.
My user number is prime. Is yours?
Correct me if I am wrong. But don't the music labels own the rights to the songs, not the RIAA? The RIAA just represents them.
Internet radio stations make money!?! Seriously though, if you make money off other people's stuff, you should pay them money. A percentage of these tiny station's meagre profits have to be a pittance, to be paid in twenty installments of one-twentyith of a pittance.
but .07 cents doesn't seem that high. thats not 7 cents, its $.0007.
one month is 720 hours, times 60 minutes, divided by 4 minutes/song, is about 10,000 songs a month. multiply this through, and thats about $7 a month to operate an internet radio station.
surely without multicast, the bandwith alone costs much more than this?
I didn't read the articles either, but this had to be cleared up for those who don't know the situation....
The RIAA, as an organization, managed to move themselves into a position where they are the sole entity authorized to collect and distribute the performance fees for music streaming. I am not aware of any group or comitee that oversees the RIAA in this activity, and being well aware of the unethical-when-they-can-get-away-with-it actions of their members, I think that it would not surprise anyone if the RIAA decided that smaller non-member music companies and performers were completely ignored when it comes time to pay out the fees RIAA colected on their behalf.
The way I see it, this issue is simple. There is no reason at all that webcasters should be forced to pay more to play songs than broadcast radio. We all know how much radio pays the RIAA. (hint: less than nothing) But that's because the industry can control the radio biz through payola. Webcasters are distributed and beyond control, and THAT'S why the RIAA's trying to force them to pay massive fines which radio doesn't. The only reason this is even an issue is the insistance of our government that anything Online has to be treated like it's a completely different entity than its offline counterpart. There's otherwise no excuse to make the webcasters pay, while simultaneously paying OUT to radio stations. It IS monopolistic behavior, and very possibly illegal - as hopefully the courts will decide.
Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.
If said web broadcasters really do object, the best way to hurt the RIAA is by not using their music.-There are plenty of bands out their on the web whose music could likely be picked up relatively cheaply, and denying the RIAA future profits.
I am not a lawyer...
That being said, the complaint as written is based on the Sherman anti-trust act, and in my opinion holds some water. The RIAA does control the vast majority of sound recordings in the US. They are acting in a manner to eliminate competition and maintain that monopoly. They are not doing this by producing a better product, or offering it at a cheaper price, but by clubbing smaller entities with "intellictual property" laws and forcing common aggreements on everyone.
In sum:
1. The RIAA is looks a monopoly.
2. The RIAA acts like a monopoly.
3. The RIAA acts against smaller firms to maintain the monopoly. (Prevent compeititors from entering the market.)
That sounds to me like enough of an argument for Sherman Anti-Trust to be applied.
If you RTA you'll see that the webcasters don't want to get the music for free, but just for a price they can afford... Which is a good argument when RIAA acutally pays radio to do exactly what the webcasters do.
Whether this group succeeds or not, it's good to see them standing up and fighting. The general populus might take more notice and the government certainly will. This is a step in the right direction.
"I've got to stop masturbating! It makes me too lazy! Stop it, Albert. Stop it." -- Albert Einstein
Bullshit. Educate yourself before you start spouting nonsense. If that were true, why would stations like SomaFM.com that play independent and non-corporate music still be forced to pay the RIAA? They have permission from every artist that they play. Why should they have to pay the RIAA after they pay the artists? The RIAA doesn't even represent the music they play. They are just supposed to hand over the money and expect the RIAA to give ALL of it to the people that deserve it.
How about Bassdrive.com? They play noting but drum & bass. Not one single true electronic artist is signed to a major label that is represented by a major body, including the RIAA. Every one of their artists happy to get air time on a popular network, and those who get played and ask for money get it. Why should they have to pay the RIAA?
Everyone has to pay the RIAA because their lobbyists got a law passed that assumes ALL music is represented by the RIAA and that they have final say over who gets compensated, not the artist. What happens to the money when the RIAA can't find the rightful artist (most likely an independent)? Who gets it then?
How the fuck is this offtopic then? If Mikey is content to force upon everyone his trivial problems of installing an ADSL line on every post posted on the front page in the past hour, why the hell not comment it?
Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
Actually the DMCA grants a compulsory license to broadcast. The issue is over how much it should cost.
That's very perceptive of you Mr Stapleton and rather unexpected in a G Major
Well this is different. If you have to pay the RIAA regardless of what you play then even a percentage of profits is a stupid idea.
If this is truly the case then people should be [and probably are] contesting the validity of the law. Almost like levies on CD-Rs in canada. Personally I use CD-Rs for two purposes. Backups and pirating software. The levies go to music industry types though... what about software industries?
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
It seems that the current generation raised on Internet don't realize that for hundreds of years there have been laws esatablished to protect people's rights and just because law on the internet has been difficult to enforce doesn't mean that people's rights stopped being important.
There is an alarming trend for the opensource community to appear to outsiders as very cavalier with issues dealing with protecting rights for others to derive profit from their works. Perhaps the mindset is "I gave all my code away for free, why should I care if you make money from your game/music/movie/software/patent/intellectual property/licensed image/registered trademark ?".
Do "opensourcers" belive that if something is not covered by a GPL-like license that it's okay to ignore that license, just because they're not afraid of being caught?
I'm all for patent reform and whatnot, but... until laws are changed, those laws still exist. Do I think that the RIAA and MPAA are locked in a downward spiral and that they're getting ready to pull a 'SCO'? Sure I do. With a world full of indedpendent artists and movie makers and the internet as a distribution method, It's completely conceivable that we could have "GPL" bands and movie studios releasing GOOD STUFF onto P2P network. Hey opensource/free software community: In a band? Have a video camera?
Ever wonder why department stores play MUZAK? It's because they PAY a company for the rights to play that MUZAK in their store, and MUZAK is cheaper than real music. If we really care so much, isn't it our responsibility to provide an alternative?
If you own a bar and play a radio with hip-hop tunes on it, do you know that you should be paying royalties to the artists? Do you know that if you run a restaurant and you show a movie in your restaurant that you are supposed to pay royalties?
Do you know that you're not allowed to have a picture of Bart Simpson on your website? Do you know that your favorite movie sound clips may not be 'fair use'?
Just because the internet has made it easy to share content, doesn't mean it's right or legal. Try to picture it from the viewpoint of Linux vs. Commerical OSes - if you don't want to support MPAA and RIAA, then *WE* need to provide an alternative, otherwise we need to play by their rules or petition to have the rules changed.
What gets me is that subscribers are PAYING for his little comments about Speakeasy. Christ, take it up w/ Speakeasy, Michael. Try acting professional for once. Leave Slashdot out of it.
This guy is way out there
So, wheres the good free (non-riaa) Indie radio stations? With all the talk of "F*CK" the RIAA, wheres the alternative Garage/Indie/etc radio? I listen to Techno, and the best streams are UK Based. Wheres the alternatives?
You just made a very good point...there aren't any "good alternatives". Even the unknown musicians I listen to are signed to big labels like Sony and Atlantic. You know why most "good" artists don't sign with independent labels or get played on independent radio stations? Because indies don't have the huge corporate marketing engine behind them to make their artists world famous and filthy rich! Once an artist wants to make money off their work, the work is no longer about the art, it is about business. Making a record is not about creating a work of art, it is about a bunch of zeros on your paycheck, having five different beach houses, 10 luxury cars in the driveway, and having your mug all over TV and magazines. The most reliable way to get that is to go with a big label and the RIAA. It's sad, but true. If you believe anything else, you're fooling yourself.
The slashdot crowd is more intelligent than most, so I'd like to help everyone understand the portions that aren't even present in the above article and are certainly a part of this story, as I have been talking to Ann Gabriel of the Webcaster Alliance on a regular basis lately.
This is not about the actual rate per song, although it is certainly an issue, as much as it is about the fact that the people who are forced to pay this rate are not given a chance to take part in the negotiations. This is in part to the prohibitive cost to enter into the negotiations, as anyone who wants to participate in the CARP hearings must bear the cost of the hearing itself, which consistently runs into more than a million dollars per hearing. The cost of the hearings is not determined until it is finished, and is calculated at the rate of $200 per hour for each of the lawyers on the panel.
The real issue is that the RIAA pre-negotiates with the major players, leaving them as the sole representative of, oh, everyone in control of the current music cartel. This means that they are colluding their copyright power to exclude others from negotiating.
In the Napster case, the federal judge found that the RIAA was a monopoly and was using collusion in a refusal to negotiate, which was the basis for David Boise's counter-suit and a blatant violation of the antitrust laws. In Napster, the judge decided that since Napster was "bad" first, the RIAA got away with it.
The webcasters consistently get told by the RIAA that they are playing too much independent music, in a manner that legally amounts to threats and bullying. Many webcasters have dropped major label music altogether.
The other issue is that the RIAA, through SoundExchange, which is basically an RIAA subsidiary, collects all the money for royalties. Since the independent artists are not part of the RIAA, we will never get paid our portion of rightfully earned royalties.
Additionally, the FTC has found the RIAA in violation of the antitrust laws several times in the past 12 months alone -- price-fixing seems to be the greatest consistently violated provision but one seldom spoken of violation was using the record clubs to avoid paying royalties to authors. Each time they get caught, they settle out of court, try to kick it under the rug and continue on their merry way.
The RIAA completely controls radio, the media, and is now trying exert its monopoly over the Internet. In the case of the Internet, the real problem is that the indies can use it, too.
Considering that the music industry sends out in excess of $4 billion annually in free physical goods (average over the past five years), you'd think that they would embrace the free promotional tool available. The problem for them is that the independents have access to it, too.
The entire idea behind calling downloaders pirates and making the false assertion that downloading copyrighted material is theft is to intentionally exclude the tens of thousands of us who WANT people to download and listen to our music.
It's not about those fractions of a penny per song. It's about the fact that less than 10 percent of the recorded music controls more than 90 percent of the market. The rest of us aren't allowed in.
We can reach a global audience without the record labels right now. That's why the RIAA is fighting so hard to criminalize P2P. Because then they own the entire market for recorded music and the only way to reach the public will be through a major label contract -- again.
Antitrust is the ONLY way to stop the RIAA.
The thing I don't understand, though, is why the RIAA necessarily feels its a good thing to form the webcasting industry into a more professional, tightly-knit one. Wouldn't they benefit from a stronger bargaining position when dealing with small independent webcasters who have little leverage and are a dime a dozen?
The only thing I can think of immediately is that the RIAA feels those small guys don't bother always to pay royalties anyway, perhaps.
Really? How in the world did they get away with making a law retroactive? I could have sworn that was prohibited in the constitution, something about ex post facto laws...
Copyright. Is. Not. Property. It. Is. Not. Ownership.
Copyright is the control of the license to copy. Period.
It is not, not not NOT ownership of songs. No one owns a song. Songs do not exist in physical space. You cannot own them anymore than you can own a dream.
A song, like a dream, really exists in the mind. Attempts to own patterns in the mind are obscene.
Jefferson and the others were correct. Ideas are the property of all -- with the caveat that the originator may license copies of a idea, for a LIMITED period of time, to encourage creative people. But they never intended products of the mind to be PROPERTY.
And: the law of copyright was a compromise. Limited time, then release it to the public. The IP "owners" now have broken their side of the bargain by effectively eliminating an expiration date, thanks to the idiotically literal Supreme Court justices.
They broke their side of a two hundred+ year old bargain. They want to turn all the works of man after 1920 or so into their private property, to be bought, sold, and hoarded, forever. As far as I am concerned, the contract is void between the public and the record, movie, and book publishers, and they were the ones who voided it with their own greed and memetic manipulation. They sowed the wind. Let them reap the whirlwind.
Okay, as I understand it, the RIAA is making the argument that each listener on a given webcast is copying a song to do so, and the broadcaster is thus liable for that. Bear with me and let's assume for the sake of argument that this is valid reasoning.
Now, where does that leave satellite radio and the digital cable providers like Time Warner who have dedicated music channels in their offerings? By the same line of reasoning, are not both of these distribution methods liable for the same goofy "one listener, one copy" line of reasoning the RIAA has managed to foist onto webcasters? If not, why? The digital reciever in your dashboard or the cable box has to copy the content just like your computer does when listening to a webcast. What about DTV stations that run concerts? If being a digital broadcast is what has the RIAA's panties in a wad re: webcasters, it seems horribly unfair to level ridiculous fees on them, but not the other digital broadcasters.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
A shoutcast stream at 32K (somewhere less than AM quality) with the possibillity of "getting lucky" and having 20 users (from around the world) connected at various times throughout any given month will be a hobby that will cost you around $25 - $100 (about 200 GB of data if the slots stayed filled) to just make available. You will not be making any money. Do it for fun.
So -- I am paying an average of $50 bucks a month to stream less than AM quality music to at the most 20 simultanious users.....Yet at the very least they want me to pay $2500 minimum yearly plus about $7 per listener per month to do this.
That is ludicrus. That is awful. What do I owe if I invite 25 friends to a party at my house put 50 CD's I have purchased in a CD changer, hit shuffle and then play in the background as my party goes on for 4 hours? That is more akin to what a webbrodcast is -- than comparing it to a real life FOR PROFIT radio company that has the advanatge of a small dial that can only fit 15 or so channels in a band between 87+ to 108.0 and lots of bored people driving their cars home from work.
Look at shoutcast -- you have almost 4000 servers competing for 30,000 users. Each server has anywhere between 5 and 500 slots. Their is no commercial radio station that could make payroll for 1 week with those kind of demographics.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
They have to pay these fees to the RIAA whether or not they play music from RIAA labels.
Ok. Try this on for size. Why would anything less than the ability to stream 128 kbits per second to at least a potential 1000 users scare the RIAA. I mean look at the bandwidth that would take:
Calculations Complete For 1000 listeners at 128 kbps Calculations @ 1 Month Kilobits = 364,953,600,000 Kilobytes = 45,619,200,000 Megabits = 348,046,875 Megabytes = 43,505,859 Gigabits = 324,144 Gigabytes = 40,518
Even having the possibility to have 100 users at a time would run you about 4,052 GB per month. I think the price of bandwidth alone should be enough to regulate the threat for the RIAA.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
Going back to my original question. How do I determine if I'm listening to someone's intellectual property or their free speech? I don't see how you've answered the question at all.
I'm asking the question in general, although webcasting presents an interesting variation on my problem. If someone puts out a piece of music (or whatever) how am I supposed to tell if they are expecting some sort of recompense, or if they are doing it in order to speak to me without regard to compensation?
Let's say that I go to a P2P network and download, for example, descramble.mp3. How am I to know whether the person who recorded descramble wanted to retain copyright control or wanted to reach me with a political message? (The descramble.mp3 I am talking about is by Joesph Wecker, and it is him singing DeCSS.) The same question fits in the case of webcasters. Ought a webcaster be expected to pay the RIAA if it plays descramble? How is this to be determined? What if Joesph simply refuses to discuss the matter and won't tell us whether he wants to protect his copyright or wants to express his political opinion?
Big Brother Bush is doubleplus ungood.
You have to pay soundexchange regardless. It's law. Soundexchange is supposed to distribute to the labels. Guess what the chances of your 3 band indie label getting some cash is? The way around it is to get written agreements with the labels to bypass it. I want to see every webcaster get agreements in writing from 2000 indie labels. Of course, the indie labels could start Indy Labels Association of America, but then they wouldn't be very indy.
s /2002-August/003160.html
Feel free to read the DMCA and the webcasting related settlements if you don't believe me. Here's a link with some people who run stations talking about this:
http://lists.microshaft.org/pipermail/dmca_discus
You can say it a thousand fucking times, you can mod this into oblivion - the fact remains this is utterly WRONG. Online broadcasters are supposed to keep logs of all media served so they can account to the "BIG FIVE." Well, guess what? If you're doing your fucking job as is required in the first place (ie keeping those logs) and you really are NOT playing any of their works, then you have all the proof you need to disprove any assertions made by these clowns when they come knocking. And if they press the matter, under that same piece of law you have legal recourse not only in civil court, but the FTC will also likely be interested in hearing from you.
I want to see every webcaster get agreements in writing from 2000 indie labels.
Not terribly hard. A webform with a nicely labeled "submit" button is all it takes. All I hear from you is the same I hear from these "indies:" whining and deception.