Slashdot Mirror
U.S. Appeals Court Upholds Webcasting Royalties
reiggin writes "According to Cnet News.com, radio stations must pay copyright fees for the songs played over the internet. This upholds a previous decision of a lower court and the U.S. Copyright Office. Cary Sherman, the new RIAA president, is gleeful. Guess how the rest of us feel?"
I bet you feel like your ability to illegally trade music by broadcasting it without paying royalties has not been hampered by this last ruling.
I bet you feel that you will continue doing it from now and into the future because arguments like "you support the artist not the RIAA" and "music trading increases sales" are good enough to salve your mind.
I lewl at you all.
-- The WIPO Avenger
Maybe it's a good thing. I hope this leads to stations broadcasting non-RIAA music, online and off. RIAA artists get enough exposure as it is.
..at least have the decency to use your own name, Cary.
Your ass is about to be raw from the flames forthcoming. You've just dissed the brothers. I say brothers, because this is slashdot, and the sisters are few and far between, but I digress....
I really must salute you for your honesty and courage, and I'll shed a tear for you as you get pounded down to -1 RIAA SHILL. You've violated one of the slashdot commandments.
Thou shalt not get in the way of *insert easily copied data here* Wants To Be Free
So down you go to Davy Jones locker, trusty sailor. Rest assured, most of the posters here will spit on your watery grave...
Salute
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
With all the money labels are paying to get songs on the radio, why would they be complaining about internet radio stations doing it for free?
As someone who was heavily involved in college radio for all of his undergraduate years, I cannot understand why the RIAA is demanding the payment of these silly royalties by radio stations who want to webcast. My alma mater spends tens of thousands of dollars each year toward radio station maintenance to advertise the RIAA's music at no cost to the RIAA. On top of this they pay things like ASCAP public performance fees. The webcast is of lower quality than the air signal (which is pretty crappy itself by the way), so from the RIAA's perspective it is clearly advertising and not a way for people to get bit-perfect copies of the music. And yet they want people to pay them for the right to advertise for them for free.
The same record labels that demand these royalties will also happily send piles of promo CDs, related swag, free concert tickets, and on occasion an actual breathing representative to try and get college stations to play their albums.
Seems strange to me, but maybe it's just because I'm young and idealistic...
i know im gonna get modded as a troll for saying this, but seriously, who cares? ive looked through the riaa members list, and as far as im concerned, none of the "music" they own is worth a damn anyway. all of those labels produce the same recycled garbage. rather than complain that you cant hear the latest backstreet boys or britany spears single for free on the net, do a little research and do YOURSELF a favor by giving some of the indie labels a chance. ill even give you good place to start. support the REAL musicians!
Gyrate Dot Org - "Where high-tech meets low-life"
#1: Radio station plays songs, which gain audience. /. recently, that Life is not all skittles and beer.
#2: Radio station plays ads to recoup overhead, and make profit.
#3: Record label gets some vague promise that it will have increased consumer awareness amongst consumers, thus increasing sales?
No.
#3 is actually: record labels get paid per song for producing the product that is garnering the audience, which is listening to the ads.
I read a fine quote on
"Inattention makes clowns of us all" -Bean
So can I just rip cd-quality audio off of a new cd, and then "broadcast" it to one of my friends so long as I pay a penny to the RIAA?
But there is another kind of evil that we must fear most... and that is the indifference of good men.
"We applaud the court's ruling, affirming our view of the law that artists and record companies should be fairly compensated for the use of their music on the Internet," said Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America.
I thought that the webbroadcasters were appealing paying the RIAA in addition to the artists royalties.
The sad thing is that if you have an internet radio at live365.com, you have to pay a royalty fee, even if your music is not RIAA music...
SCIREV.NET - fanfics,reviews & more
I'm sorry, but I don't get it. The stations are in it for the money; if they want to commercialise the net, why shouldn't they pay?
Hmmm, I predict that a lot of sites will move their sites overseas.
Good thing this doesn't apply to European net stations.
Why do you have a problem with this ? The copyright owners deserve to be rewarded. In fact, this is a good thing. We're talking about the Internet where webcasting can be carried out by mostly anyone (at least, the bar is lowered).
This removes the overhead of a costly broadcasting station and probably makes it more possible for non-mainstream artists to have their content played (and remunerated). Certainly that's my experience with local AM/FM radio station: they play the independent labels rather than involving themselves in marketing pushes of bad music for commercial reasons.
Let's take your proposition, though. The copyright owners get nothing. So this means that the funds collected by the webcaster for advertising and everything else (premium subscription?) go entirely to the webcaster, all because the webcast is using a copyright owners content. Sure, that sounds fair: webcast makes it all, copyright owner gets nothing. Great! That's really going to incentivize people to produce music, only to know that everyone else can rip it off without paying the owner.
Are you paying your own bills or is mamma still doing it for you ? Get a grip.
I feel like not listening to RIAA-feeding ratio stations. There is plenty of royalty-free music out there.
I'm just wondering ... shouldn't that be 'licensing fees', not not 'copyright fees'? How are they going to legally enforce this anyway, or keep track of who is playing what, how much they owe them, etc, etc?
See This ABC News story as an example of the many stories written on this topic.
I'm not certain (I haven't RTA) but I thought that the Internet radio stations were paying different rates for their airplay of songs than were conventional radio stations - the Internet stations were paying for each song almost as if it were being ripped to disc for each song while the conventional radio stations do not. Thus, Internet stations are charged a significant premium for broadcasting music relative to conventional radio. Since most radio stations are comparable quality to Internet radio stations (if the Internet stations aren't of worse sound quality), the ability to rip digital copies from either medium (directly, over the Internet or via the "audio in" from the radio) is not much different, and doesn't justify the difference in cost per song per listener. Internet radio stations should have to pay artists to play their music, but not more than conventional radio stations do.
Ultimately, this decision (and its prosecution) appears to be the RIAA (on behalf of its members) standing up to defend themselves as the sole portal to music sales. By driving (non-RIAA-controlled) Internet radio out of the market, the RIAA can enforce its playlist rules and control what customers hear. This intent, even more than the (questionable) means used to enforce it, is what I (and perhaps others) object to.
Lots've local businesses here do a radio-station in the background for 'on hold' music.
If they're using VoIP (or their phone company is using TCP/IP somewhere between the callers) isn't this technically infringing?
The RIAA's argument was that since an Internet radio station could theoretically broadcast to the entire world, whereas a terrestrial station is confined to a relatively small geographic area, Internet stations should have to pay a fee per listener.
Reprise the theme song and roll the credits!
One thing everyone should understand. This is all about the transfer of wealth. Massive quantities of it. In fact, pretty much the entirety of human endeavor since the advent of dough has been about taking something valuable out of one pocket and stuffing it into another, frequently without the stuffee's permission.
... it still is.
Go back a few centuries, to (for the sake of example) the feudal period in Old England. If someone who had lots of money and property wanted more of the same, why he simply sent some of his heavies around to crack a few skulls and take some. Not to pick on England, since this practice was popular around much of the world at the time. Actually
Then we got "civilized." It is no longer socially acceptable for large organizations (other than, of course, governments) to go around stealing things at will, much as they might feel entitled. We have "laws" intended to prevent such activities, and "punishments" for those that transgress. Thus, the maintaining the continuous flow of wealth from the pockets of the "have nots" into the pockets of the "already have way too much" became substantially more difficult. For many years, the best that could be done was to use a methodology known as "fraudulent advertising" to convince us to voluntarily transfer our hard-earned wealth to those big companies who wanted it. This was a highly effective approach in that a. it worked and b. we felt like we had a choice.
But, as always, things change. The modern pagan warlord, uh, corporate executive can no longer just thump us on the heads with a battle axe and take our money. We've also gotten wise to "fraudulent advertising", which has slashed that avenue of revenue as well. So, what is a frantic tribal council, oops, Board of Directors to do?
This bring us to the current state of affairs regarding "intellectual property." Realizing that their power over the masses was waning, our corporate masters came up with a novel idea, known as "intellectual property". This unique concept (largely unprecedented in human history) was remarkable in its simplicity and sinister purpose. The beauty of this scheme was that "IP" (the modern symbol of the Dark Side) enabled the corporations to land a new, even more powerful ally.
That ally is the United States Federal Government, a massive organization theoretically "Of the People, By the People, and For the People." As it turns out, this popular belief was largely unfounded. This has not proven to be nearly as big a problem as originally expected, however, since the majority of Americans don't seem to care all that much.
In any event, the corporate powers-that-be have successfully conscripted the Federal Government to aid in maintaining their hegemony. With the Feds now backing their play, these feudal chieftains, I mean, Chief Executive Officers have been empowered, once again, to bash in our heads and take our stuff.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
The only sad part of this decision is that it still holds the door open for all those established broadcasters - like the god-whore Clear Channel - to webcast all the RIAA dreck they wish. and, given clear channel's power in the market, they'll have no problem negotiating a cherry deal with the RIAA while all the "little guys" continue to flounder.
On the upside, that's the ideal environment for a dinos-vs-indi@s battle.
You're not going to find many people more anti-media than myself. I don't have pay TV, haven't bought a CD in years, don't rent movies at Blockbuster, rarely go to the theatre, and can barely even tolerate the public airwaves l0ong enough to enjoy Survivor or, on the odd chance it's not a repeat (or just lame) Late Night with David Letterman.
In short, I don't support the old guard. Hell, I don't even get magazines shipped to my house or even click on CNN.com. But I likewise cannot tolerate this nonsensical parroting about how the old school publishers are stealing "our stuff." WIRED harped on this nonsense for years - how "they" were going to deprive "us" of "our culture" - and I disputed it then, just as now. You want culture? Write a goddamned book. Make some music. Take some photographs. Share them with the world.
There's your culture.
Stop listening to the talking heads in hollywood who tell you what to think and feel and desire. Stop letting corporations rule your daily thoughts - contrary to what those "anti-media" talking heads in the mainstream media are telling you, it's NOT impossible to tune them out. You DON'T have to throw up your hands and accept it - but you're not going to make a change by trying to defend your "right" to their cultural icons.
If corporate publishers are able to "lock away your culture" what does that tell you about the values of your culture?
You want culture? You have the power to redefine it. The time has come to put up or shut up.
I think I was a little too subtle for you. I was referring to the RIAA mass-subpoena compaign, and the similar (only much worse) actions being taken by DirectTV towards purchasers of smart-card technology. These people are doing pretty much what I described, and are of much the same mindset as the old feudal lords. Who cares if people get hurt as long as I get what I want. And I might add that they have been able to do so only because they bought new law that allowed them to get away with it (i.e., the DMCA and similar rubbish.) And it's not just those two: the number of American corporations that are using the DMCA to abuse people and suppress competition is growing day-by-day. This has nothing to do with culture, or even enlightened capitalism, in fact it has to do with the utter lack of both.
So you can call me a troll if you want but you might want to ask questions before shooting next time.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
In a thread about "U.S. Appeals court upholds webcasting royalties?"
Uh huh. Apparently that "misguided response" bit was talking, then, about your very own post?
You're welcome.
the ability to rip digital copies from either medium (directly, over the Internet or via the "audio in" from the radio) is not much different, and doesn't justify the difference in cost per song per listener
True, but most people who want to record music from the radio will do so by tape or minidisk, whereas most people who record from internet radio will record straight to disk. Cassette and MD already have a levy applied to compensate the rightsholders, whereas hard disks do not. Charging the broadcasters goes some way to filling this gap.
Of course, it's a little inconsistent in that people who record from internet radio to minidisk pay twice, and those who record from broadcast radio to hard disk don't pay, but it does make it a little more balanced.
The most significant complaint is that they levy a minimum charge. This has the effect of making it cheaper per listener for large stations than smaller stations. However, this is not a copyright issue, but a monopolies issue.