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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.
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.
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.
Free Mac Mini
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.
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.
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.