New Royalty Rates Could Kill Internet Radio

FlatCatInASlatVat writes "Kurt Hanson's Radio Internet Newsletter has an analysis of the new royalty rates for Internet Radio announced by the US Copyright Office. The decision is likely to put most internet radio stations out of business by making the cost of broadcasting much higher than revenues. From the article: 'The Copyright Royalty Board is rejecting all of the arguments made by Webcasters and instead adopting the "per play" rate proposal put forth by SoundExchange (a digital music fee collection body created by the RIAA)...[The] math suggests that the royalty rate decision — for the performance alone, not even including composers' royalties! — is in the in the ballpark of 100% or more of total revenues.'"

Comments

surprised??? never...

[advocate_one]

they want to kill the little guys off and just have the field to themselves.

Re:surprised??? never...

[Goldberg's Pants]

The problem is that most people aren't going to know about this. What I'd propose is that ALL internet radio stations that will suffer by this stage a day or two of action, synchronized. The busiest hours are probably 9am-5pm EST, so go black for one day, with a message explaining why.

The only reason the RIAA keeps getting away with this shit is because nobody is willing to stand up to them. If the radio stations banded together for one day of action to draw attention to the issue, maybe something will change, but it's gotta be done very soon, as I believe they only have two weeks to appeal.

The only stations I listen to are independent and have no RIAA music, but I really don't want to see the option go away. If it does, what are we left with? Your local Clear Channel owned station, and other "genre of the week" stations that satisfy nobody.

Re:surprised??? never...

[rolfwind]

Don't do it that way. Have a message playing in between the songs about the looming threat. Have several different messages in between songs about what the people can do. (Maybe key person to contact or website to go to.)

A person is more likely to listen more than 30 seconds of the important message if there is some payoff (more music) and a station is more willing to do something like that than lose all or most of their audience to a competitor who isn't doing the blackout thing.

Re:surprised??? never...

[Dred_furst]

theres another solution, switch servers to one that isn't based in an RIAA controlled country.

Re:surprised??? never...

[Znork]

I dont have that much against mandatory royalties on revenue generating activities. If we truly need an 'incentive' for creativity they're more compatible with a free market than monopoly rights. And they're far easier to measure and manage for the least damage/most benefit to the economy.

The first problem with the current setup is that it's put under industry administration (whose interests are vastly divergent with both most musicians and the public, witness the current example), when in fact it's a tax and should be under government administration. That way it'd be subject to the same constraints as other taxation forms; is it reasonably equitably collected, do we get our money's worth from the spending (ie, does it finance as many artists and creators as possible for the money we're willing to spend?), is this a reasonable level of expenditure? What's more, we could actually measure the number of new works and how they change depending on the level of spending so we could finally get real data rather than imaginary numbers made up to support organized con men.

The second problem is that the RIAA corps are excluded. If we need an incentive for creative endeavors, _any_ revenue generating activity using 'copyrighted' material should be subject to the same taxation, wether plays on the radio, sales over the internet or the printing of CD's. Remove the 'copy' aspect of 'copyright' and replace it with a generalized non-transferrable 'incentiveright'. Allow free copying, printing and distribution of materials, let anyone from your local supermarket to online shops freely copy the material, as long as they pay a percentage of any revenue as 'incentive tax'/'royalty', and make sure the incentive actually goes to the creators. And make sure it goes to them in appropriate portions to maximise creativity.

Imagine the possibilities; you could go to the local supermarket and print a CD with whatever tracks you want on it. You could buy an USB disk of the nights music at a club. You could get a complete recording of the show when you exit a concert. Without copyright but with a simple levy on the revenue, whole hosts of new business and value opportunities would open up, while still maintaining a (more measurable) incentive for creativity.

Re:surprised??? never...

[gerrysteele]

The only reason the RIAA keeps getting away with this shit is because nobody is willing to stand up to them.

Screw them. If they are going to do stuff like this, there is only one inevitable consequence, music piracy will go through the roof. In turn this will hurt them. It may take a few years, but i'm guessing we won't need to do anything to bring the RIAA cartel down. The market will do it for them. When they fail their mandate to protect their member's sales (Sony, Warner etc.) and instead hurt them, it will all level out.

Re:surprised??? never...

[jakoz]

What surprises me is how this is assumed to have an effect on internet radio.

I am a shoutcast fiend. I scan the top stations every day or two. Hardly any of the stations (even the popular ones) play RIAA music.

Why would it make any difference what they charge if it doesn't get played? They should be paying people to get their shit out there to get it on the air. If they don't (and they won't) then something else will be.

I would say that I welcome the coming revolution, except that it's so far underway that I'd be missing the boat. Their content is shit, and everyone except the marketing guys recognize it...

Re:surprised??? never...

[digitig]

The first problem with the current setup is that it's put under industry administration (whose interests are vastly divergent with both most musicians and the public, witness the current example), when in fact it's a tax and should be under government administration. That way it'd be subject to the same constraints as other taxation forms; is it reasonably equitably collected, do we get our money's worth from the spending (ie, does it finance as many artists and creators as possible for the money we're willing to spend?), is this a reasonable level of expenditure? What's more, we could actually measure the number of new works and how they change depending on the level of spending so we could finally get real data rather than imaginary numbers made up to support organized con men. So we would only have access to music that the government approves of? Bad luck all the acts who are critical of the government, from Pete Seeger through Steve Earle to The Dixie Chicks, and bad luck any genres that are percieved as "evil", from blues and rock 'n' roll ("the Devil's music") to Gangsta Rap ("promotes violence"). Do you really want your senator choosing what you can listen to? Then you must have more trust in your government in the USA than I have in mine here in the UK. Having these choices in the hands of industry may be bad, but passing it to government looks to me to be even worse.

Re:surprised??? never...

[PopeRatzo]

theres another solution, switch servers to one that isn't based in an RIAA controlled country.

Dred,
you have hit on the ultimate solution to all idiotic intellectual property laws. In some years, it will have been a good thing that the Internet caused the end of IP as we know it. Stories like this one, showing how little the "gatekeepers" of recorded music really understand about how people use their product, are starting to pop up at such an alarming rate that the crash must be near.

Re:surprised??? never...

[KKlaus]

No offense, but this is a terrible idea. Who has the authority to decide what is "valuable"? Britney spears was very popular. Does that make her more valuable? Andy Mckee is a fabulous musician, but relatively obscure. Is he then less valuable, or more because what he does is more difficult and complex?

Whatever you think is the answer is irrelevant, because the point is that a huge number of people will disagree with you. Whatever answer is legislated, a lot of people are going to be upset when, in their opinion, they're spending money incentivising the wrong thing. And what if I don't listen to music? Am I exempt, or is funding the pleasures of others a reasonable thing to be required of me?

I don't know why having some sort of committee deciding what artists should be paid seems appealing, and that is what it would ultimately come down to. The free market _can_ work here, it just doesn't because we have stupid copyright laws, and a cartel that no one seems willing to take on. That doesn't make a nonsensical socialist program the answer.

Re:surprised??? never...

[zotz]

"Do you really want your senator choosing what you can listen to? Then you must have more trust in your government in the USA than I have in mine here in the UK."

I get this point, but one thing to consider is that it is already in the hands of the government as they make the laws which give copyright teeth in the first place. This is not a free market game here.

all the best,

drew

Re:surprised??? never...

[tepples]

theres another solution, switch servers to one that isn't based in an RIAA controlled country. Good luck. Almost all countries with high-speed access to the Internet are members of the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works.

Re:surprised??? never...

[nurb432]

That way my thought exactly. Why are they acting suprised?

We little people are just consumers, 'go out and consume and pay us'.

Re:surprised??? never...

[Anonymous Coward]

So we would only have access to music that the government approves of?

Huh? Are you going for a world record for the least logical non-sequitur here? Since when did placing the government in charge of collecting revenue automatically lead to censorship?

you must have more trust in your government in the USA than I have in mine here in the UK. Having these choices in the hands of industry may be bad, but passing it to government looks to me to be even worse.

Ok, name one single instance in which the current UK government has attempted to have "evil" music genres banned, or one single instance in which the current UK government has attempted to have music critical of it banned. Or, come to that, one single other act on its part that leads you to believe that giving it the authority to collect revenues from compulsorary licensing would inevitably lead to censorship.

Look, even the BBC regularly broadcasts material that many people consider offensive, and material intensely critical of the government. If the government was intent on censorship of "immoral" broadcasting, why the hell did it not stop the BBC from broadcasting that Jerry Springer opera thing? (Answer: because the government is not intent on censorship.) If the government was intent on censorship of criticism, why the hell is John Humphreys not in prison? (Answer: because the government is not intent on censorship.)

You are clearly paranoid, old chap. I suggest you sit back, have a nice relaxing cup of tea, and contemplate the possibility that the government might, just possibly, have bigger things to worry about than persecuting you.

Re:surprised??? never...

[dcollins]

"Hardly any of the stations (even the popular ones) play RIAA music."

Does that make a difference? I'm an indie musician, and to my understanding any time a song gets played, a royalty should be paid to a collection agency like BMI or ASCAP. (Possibly based on a reasonable survey technique.) And that money comes back to the writer, publishing rights holder, etc., regardless of whether it's RIAA or not.

Can someone please correct this information if I'm wrong? (A small number of internet stations that have played my band required signed wavers foregoing any royalties.)

Re:surprised??? never...

[madkowboy]

Excuse me,I dont need incentive to be creative,I am creative by design.I cant turn it on and off like some Hallmark card guy.After the creation comes the very intense and expensive part of making it available to the end user.Thats the part I need to be reimbursed for.Thats my time,my effort,my money.If you dont like it,dont buy it.But dont think just because you dont want it that its not worth anything.The college culture and filesharing destroyed what was left of musicians livelyhood.Sure there are musicians making money still,the undeniable greats...,but more proportionately,the hallmark guys of music.As a Producer i understand what i get for what i put in and trust me the producers and engineers are the ones doing all the work,to make silk purses out of sows ears that some kid signed to a label.We work for small percentages,after recoupment of costs,and if we dont have a system enforced by law how do we get paid...we dont.Are you willing to put monthes of your life into something only to get screwed out of your livelyhood?I dont agree with the riaa completely but if you have been listening my works for free you cant say anything relevant to the discussion.I dont get free dental or free shoes,neither should you get free entertainment.I'll show you my tits but it will cost you a buck,which you are more than willing to pay.how come?you got into the internet radio business to be a business right?profit right?easy money right?No I think i need to be paid before any of you make one single dime off of my works.Because its WORK dammit.

Re:surprised??? never...

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

I like the idea on principle, but not in practise. It shares the same problem as with all flat payment systems, in that it will end up costing us more for music we use less. The RIAA would whine to the government about their bottom line, and how a decent rate would harm the industry. In the end, on average, the cost of music would increase, just to be on the safe side.

The idea certainly makes music more convenient though.

Re:surprised??? never...

[novus ordo]

http://www.soundexchange.com/licensing101.html#a14

I already pay royalties to BMI, ASCAP and SESAC. Why do I have to pay royalties to SoundExchange also?

Every musical recording embodies two distinct copyrighted works. The first is the underlying musical composition, comprised of the written notes and lyrics (for purposes of copyright law, the musical composition is referred to as a "musical work"). The songwriter and/or his or her music publisher usually own the copyright in the musical work. The second copyrighted work is the actual recording itself - the sounds, including the recording artist's interpretation of the musical composition, and the creative efforts of the producer, sound engineers and background musicians. (This is referred to in copyright law as a "sound recording.") The copyrighted recording brings to life the written notes and lyrics of the musical work. A record label typically owns the copyright in the sound recording.

SoundExchange collects and distributes royalties associated with the public performance of sound recordings made by services operating under one of the compulsory licenses. By contrast, ASCAP, BMI and SESAC collect and distribute royalties associated with the public performance of musical works.

You can go to each band whose music you want to play and make a deal with them directly. Obviously unless you are only playing a few artists(who would return your call) it would be quite impractical to be calling 100s of artists and flying over to wherever the hell they are(don't forget your lawyer) and make and sign contracts. This is where SoundExchange comes in and 'frees' you of that burden.

Contrary to what GP states, MANY if not MOST of the internet stations out there operate through this statutory license(if they license at all). I do agree though that they should be paying broadcasters like they do with terrestrial radio. But terrestrial radio stations have stringent requirements who plays when and how many times. Basically they run the show.

Re:surprised??? never...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I work in standard broadcasting (i.e., radio -- FM, AM) -- and this is nothing new.

First, yep, the way the industry looks at it, you have to license against POTENTIAL audience. If you play copyrighted material in an auditorium that holds 1,000 people, you pay the same fixed rate, even if only 20-30 show up. Likewise in broadcasting: we pay the same price whether we're top rated or in the Arbitron basement. They go by market size, not by what you play or how many people might actually be listening. So, yes, from their point of view, it DOESN'T matter whether you're playing Britney Spears and Fergie, or a couple of jazz guys that only a handful of people have heard of.

Welcome to the wonderful world of royalties, where you pay a fee against the POSSIBILITY that someone might listen to a song without paying for it. (Likewise, you pay a small fee for each blank audio CD that you buy, and for the same reason. After all, you MIGHT use it to record audio.)

We stopped our online streams several years ago when the licensing organizations (ASCAP, BMI, SESAC) told us that we'd have to pay tons of money, even though (I watch the counters) we might have 50 listeners at that time(contrasted with, say, 50,000 on regular radios at the same moment). We finally worked a deal with them for rational fees, and we're streaming again. Who knows how long it will last?

The latest trick, though, is that they want us to pay AGAIN for the second channel with HD radio. That's not a surprise, not knowing them, but what's annoying is that they want us to pay the SAME fees as we do for the main channel. Let's be honest: at present, there are very few HD-R receivers out there capable of receiving the additional HD channel, but we have to pay the same.

Oh ... and we have to pay the same EVEN IF the second channel is just rebroadcasting another station that we've already paid for -- in other words, if I have WAAA doing WBBB on the second channel and vice-versa, both of which are licensed and paying fees in good stead, we still pay FULL price. Again. (And in a large market, those fees can easily top SIX FIGURES in a year. Most people don't know that, either.)

Having said that, I don't think they're consciously trying to stop streams. Most people don't realize that they've been doing this to standard broadcasters, nightclubs, et. al., for many decades. They're just greedy, and use a revenue model that is hopelessly out of date.

(Think about it: ignoring privacy issues, we have the technology now to KNOW what song you're listening to, and when. But the record industry doesn't propose that, do they? Because they WOULDN'T MAKE AS MUCH MONEY. It's just that simple.)

Re:surprised??? never...

[schon]

Hardly any of the stations (even the popular ones) play RIAA music. Yes, and this is exactly why the RIAA wants them to die - they're competition for the existing cartel.

Re:surprised??? never...

[knorthern knight]

> Good luck. Almost all countries with high-speed access to the Internet are
> members of the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works.

    None of them implement the American extra royalties for internet radio, and most of them have copyrights expiring after 50 years. E.g. in Canada and the UK, everything Elvis did to the end of 1956 is already public domain. That means *ABSOLUTELY NO ROYALTIES WHATSOEVER* on

- from 1955
That's All Right/Blue Moon of Kentucky
Baby Let's Play House/I'm Left, Your Right, She's Gone
Good Rockin' Tonight/I Don't care If The Sun Don't Shine
Milkcow Blues Boogie / You're A Heartbreaker
Mystery Train/ I Forgot To Remember To Forget

- from 1956
Heartbreak Hotel
I Was the One
Hound Dog
Don't Be Cruel
Love Me Tender
I Want You, I Need You, I Love You
When My Blue Moon Turns to Gold Again
Anyway You Want Me (That's How I Will Be)
Blue Suede Shoes

The RIAA is afraid their current crap^H^H^H^Hcrop can't compete with 50+ year-old music. That is the most stinging put-down of today's (so called) music.

Re:surprised??? never...

[multisync]

Would a U.S.-based company (like my favorite, Radio Paradise) not still be required to pay it, even if their servers were in Canada? Bill & Rebecca would have to leave their country (not that we would'nt welcome them up here).

Re:surprised??? never...

[Technician]

they want to kill the little guys off and just have the field to themselves.

What they want and what will happen is not the same. What will change is the format of the stations. Many will go to talk radio. Many others will go to Creative Commons and other inde content and ban any music with high cost. Not all stations will go home when the owner of the base ball says I'm taking my ball and going home. The game just changes to football or basketball.

Re:surprised??? never...

[multisync]

Huh? Are you going for a world record for the least logical non-sequitur here? Since when did placing the government in charge of collecting revenue automatically lead to censorship?

Did you, as a creative artist who is critical of the current administration, want to be collecting some of that revenue?

Re:surprised??? never...

[AK Marc]

So we would only have access to music that the government approves of?

Yes. And, that is the system that is in effect now. I haven't seen the government give copyright to Disney and deny it for the Dixie Chicks, so you are an insane raver about the evils of the government. Perhaps you should stick with actual wrongs (that list is long enough) rather than imagined ones that are contradictory to what's actually occurring now. The monopoly of copyright is under government control, and they don't abuse it to punish those they don't like. Corporate income taxes aren't higher on corporations that annoy the government. Non-profit status isn't revoked just because the government doesn't like a group. So yes, I would be quite comfortable giving 100% of the approval of music to the government, as long as it was in one of the vast number of equitable schemes enforced by the government. The question is why do you hate and fear the government for things it doesn't do wrong, rather than actually focusing on what it does do wrong?

Re:surprised??? never...

[digitig]

Since when did placing the government in charge of collecting revenue automatically lead to censorship? The issue is not so much who does the collecting as who does the distributing.

Ok, name one single instance in which the current UK government has attempted to have "evil" music genres banned, or one single instance in which the current UK government has attempted to have music critical of it banned. Or, come to that, one single other act on its part that leads you to believe that giving it the authority to collect revenues from compulsorary licensing would inevitably lead to censorship. Individual MPs -- and indeed groups of MPs -- in the UK, in the Netherlands and in France, have called for restrictions on Rap. They have not succeeded yet, but it's enough to make me nervous. And the licensing act of 2003 has, as predicted by the Musicians Union, caused the widespread closure of folk clubs and live music sessions (just follow the sad litany of closures on uk.rec.music.folk). A lot of us on the folk scene suspect that the present Labour Party leadership remembers all too well how the folk clubs of the 1960s were a hotbed of left-wing dissent and fears that they could be again. The present UK government do seem determined to stamp out amateur music making; when the 2003 licensing act was being discussed, ministers consistently refused to acknowledge that there was any music making at all outside "the music industry"

Re:surprised??? never...

[digitig]

So we would only have access to music that the government approves of?

Yes. And, that is the system that is in effect now. I haven't seen the government give copyright to Disney and deny it for the Dixie Chicks, so you are an insane raver about the evils of the government. I thought the administration of copyright rested with the courts, not with the government?

Perhaps you should stick with actual wrongs (that list is long enough) rather than imagined ones that are contradictory to what's actually occurring now. Perhaps you're not aware that the UK government seems to be trying to kill off some forms of music, including my favourite genre of folk music. Not only by introducing licensing regulations that typically make it illegal to sing in a pub (whether the landlord approves or not), but also with a revenue generation scheme that means that if I do find a place where it's legal to sing, and I sing a song that's in the public domain (a Child Ballad such as "The Golden Vanity", perhaps) then the PRS will demand that they pay royalties on the performance and give the money to people who have material that is in copyright. These are actual wrongs, not imagined ones.

Re:surprised??? never...

[NZBeeMan]

And the licensing act of 2003 has, as predicted by the Musicians Union, caused the widespread closure of folk clubs and live music sessions

How has the 2003 licensing act done this?

Re:surprised??? never...

[Professor_UNIX]

The RIAA is afraid their current crap^H^H^H^Hcrop can't compete with 50+ year-old music. That is the most stinging put-down of today's (so called) music.

The RIAA doesn't have much to worry about since I would imagine 90% of the people born after 1956 have never even heard of those songs. Who the hell listens to Elvis other than grandmas?

/jk!

Re:surprised??? never...

[rustman]

Novus ordo said ``You can go to each band whose music you want to play and make a deal with them directly.`` That's only true if the band owns their own copyrights. If the band has been released on CD / (or through online distribution like iTunes), most likely the band has licensed the rights to their track to a label or distributor. That is who you need permission from, not from the artist.

So unless you're talking about bands that are unsigned, or bands that own their own labels, the band/artist is not in a position to license their music for internet radio broadcast!

Re:surprised??? never...

[knorthern knight]

> Would a U.S.-based company (like my favorite, Radio Paradise) not
> still be required to pay it, even if their servers were in Canada?

I'd assume the worst. Witness stuff like...
a) the Lucent-Microsoft patent lawsuit over sales outside the US of stuff covered by an American patent
b) the arrests of foreign internet-gambling executives as they made connecting flights via the USA
c) the lawsuit, in the USA, against Spamhaus, which is based in England

Just to be on the safe side, it would have to be a totally non-American setup, run by non-Americans, who never set foot in the USA.

Re:surprised??? never...

[rsmith-mac]

I am a shoutcast fiend. I scan the top stations every day or two. Hardly any of the stations (even the popular ones) play RIAA music.

It's not about what music is related to the RIAA, it's about who has to pay SoundExchange either way. Looking the top-20 station list on Shoutcast right now, these are the stations that either do or should be paying fees to broadcast in the United States:

• All Sky.Fm & Digitally Imported stations(6)
• .977 The Hitz Channel(RIAA music)
• HOT 108 JAMZ(RIAA music)
• Radio Paradise(RIAA music)
• 181.fm - Kickin' Country(RIAA music)
• .977 The 80s Channel(RIAA music)
• SMOOTHJAZZ.COM(RIAA music)
• HitzRadio.com(RIAA music)

That's 13 out of 20, and I'm fairly sure other stations should be on that list too. The electronic music stations on that list all likely owe royalties(DI.fm did long before they launched Sky), and I can't tell what stations play a mix of indy(which may or may not be approved) and RIAA music, causing me to miss counting them. It's sufficient to say that the vast majority of popular internet radio stations are required to pay the SoundExchange and would be hurt by this pricing change.

Re:surprised??? never...

[xSauronx]

i love RP and saw the notice on their website yesterday. someone pointed me to it weeks ago and i listen to it *alot* id hate to see them shut down over this :/

Re:surprised??? never...

[advocate_one]

because it puts councils in charge of inspecting and regulating premises that play live music. Live music being any performance by more than two persons. As the premises has to be licensed to perform the music, then it becomes subject to ridiculously pettyfogging interpretations and gold-plating of requirements. The venues which used to hold folk nights have not bothered to register their premises. As such, it then becomes illegal to perform live music there. The juke boxes and discos and karaoke nights have taken over. Our nanny state in action... they're knee-jerk response to anything is to require a license for it... and as a result, no one can be bothered with the hassle... In France and other more enlightened european countries, they'd have carried on performing and told the inspectors to bugger off, but in the UK, the inspectors can close the premises down

Re:surprised??? never...

[Tophe]

If Antigua starts ignoring the US's patent and trademark laws due to internet gambling restrictions, maybe they can play our music too.

Re:surprised??? never...

[multisync]

i love RP and saw the notice on their website yesterday. someone pointed me to it weeks ago and i listen to it *alot* id hate to see them shut down over this :/

Please support them, if you haven't already done so. If these rates stand, they are retroactive to back to the beginning of 2006. Radio Paradise will receive a bill for last year that is in the six figures.

Re:surprised??? never...

[digitig]

Just so, but worse. The "two in a bar" rule that allowed up to two people to perform was the situation before the 2003 act (which came into force in 2005). Two people, or even one person, singing or playing an instrument without a licence pretty much anywhere is now illegal. There are exceptions for traditional dance and for impromptu performances, so if you turn to your beloved in the park and burst out singing "I will always love you" they won't get you under the licensing act (but then they can get you for disturbing the peace). The upside to the 2003 licensing act is that it's tough on karaoke too, but I think the price is too high just for that

And in reply to the grandparent posting, of course folk clubs come and go for various reasons, but there has been a flurry of clubs closing down for the specific reason of the owner of the venue deciding that the cost or effort of getting a live music license wasn't worth it. This at a time when folk festivals in the UK are booming and folk has a higher exposure on TV and radio than at any time since the end of what historians call the "long 1960s" (ie, since about 1973)

Re:surprised??? never...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he is assuming your government is sane. Perhaps you are not familiar. Perhaps you are an american.

Re:surprised??? never...

[eMbry00s]

Remember that the reason the Pirate Bay's servers were confiscated originated in pressure from RI/MP-AA. Do not expect them to stop pushing. America has a history of pushing it's beliefs and laws on other nations.

Re:surprised??? never...

[AK Marc]

I thought the administration of copyright rested with the courts, not with the government?

I do not understand the distinction. In the USA, the courts are one of our three branches of government. The government could not function without courts, and the court officials are given paychecks from the same place as the rest of the government employees. We have some separation in our branches of government, but the courts are no less part of the government than the president/prime minister.

I sing a song that's in the public domain then the PRS will demand that they pay royalties on the performance and give the money to people who have material that is in copyright.

I am unsure by your wording, are you saying that "public domain" has essentially been repealed, or are you saying that some specific songs have been removed from public domain? If it is the former, it is not the targeted attack you describe, but that the bribes given to legislators have gotten to the point to have their businesses subsidized by extra taxes (like the blank media taxes in Canada). If it is the latter, then I agree that the government is evilly trying to kill off songs and or genres.

Re:surprised??? never...

[Goeland86]

I agree wholehartedly.
But I think that in the short run, they're going to end up in a position where people are just either going to download illegally more and more, and what are they going to do then? If they go to trial before a jury, most of which are themselves downloaders, the RIAA will lose all cases, and then collapse because their revenue source is disappearing completely, or people will just stop listening to music altogether, and radio, CDs and podcasts then become useless, and the RIAA collapses because of an even faster loss of revenue. Isn't this a lose-lose situation for the RIAA?
If radios start going off the air, and the RIAA starts making their own, which, imo, will most likely be a pay service, then people are going to find ways to live without music. Either way, the current mafia system on music is going down the drain. And soon to follow will be the movie system, if they keep the same attitude.
I'd love to see that happen. Most of what I listen to is classical, and I'm in an orchestra. The RIAA can't claim to own copyrights to my own recordings of old pieces, so no money from me! Haha!

Re:surprised??? never...

[sorcerykid]

That's correct. All musical works and sound recordings are protected under U.S. copyright law. They don't need to be signed to a publisher and a record-label. It's known as an automatic right.

Re:surprised??? never...

[digitig]

I do not understand the distinction. In the USA, the courts are one of our three branches of government. Ok, that's just a question of terminology then.

I am unsure by your wording, are you saying that "public domain" has essentially been repealed, or are you saying that some specific songs have been removed from public domain? It's not that anything has been removed from the public domain. It's that the collection agency that deals with live performances doesn't respect public domain. I could publish the words and music of the songs, I could record them, but if I perform them in public the PRS will sting the venue for fees because they assume that there will always be something copyright about the performance even if it's my personal styling of the song (so I could claim the fees back, less handling charges -- if I paid the substantial membership fees). That doesn't hit particular songs, but it does hit particular genres and types of venue.

Re:surprised??? never...

[TechnicalThug]

You might want to check up on the history of the English Anarcho-punk band CRASS, and their various dabblings with the UK Establishment over issues such as the Falklands War and Christian Religion.

Re:surprised??? never...

[Saint Fnordius]

I think the model of "pay per play" is on the way out, and needs to be seen as advertising. Since the quality of an internet "radio" stream is so low, bands could encourage those broadcasting their work to include contact or purchasing info in the metadata. After all, the only reason for an amateur disc jockey to play your song is because he loves your music, and wants to help you get more attention.

All of the "stations" I listen to are amateur efforts, with no revenues, advertising or anything similar. I also like listening to podcasts, downloading them onto my iPod (something that's not as easy with internet "radio". If a song is presented that I like, then I'll make an effort to buy a higher quality version. I do believe in supporting the performers, but I refuse to support those who treat me with suspicion.

The internet isn't a live music bar as much as a street corner. Stop trying to charge a cover charge to even get in, and don't be ashamed to place your hat in front of you. If you do charge, then justify that charge (like the better acoustics and comfort of the club compared to the street corner).

Re:surprised??? never...

[Znork]

"Who has the authority to decide what is "valuable"?"

Adam Smiths invisible hand? Value is an economic concept, in a free market, most 'valuable' is what, given a choice, consumers choose.

"they're spending money incentivising the wrong thing."

As the incentivicing would be tied to distribution levels, the money would be spent incentivicing exactly what people want (modulo with the extent to which incentives are needed; it's questionable wether X millions makes Britney more creative, so a ceiling on payouts may get us more McKee's/long tail paid for the total spending, ie maximizing the benefit we're getting from what it costs the economy).

"And what if I don't listen to music?"

Um, as the taxes/royalties would be collected directly off revenue generating activities tied to the material in question, if you're not paying for any music, nor listening to any music for which someone else is paying (commercials, etc), then you're not paying anything at all.

Basically, pay $10 for a CD with Britney, Britney gets a point, $5 is collected as incentive, Britney gets a payout for the point, unless she's at the hypothetical max ceiling at which point the payout passes to next most desired creator. (Sums are, of course, arbitrary examples, Britney in this case is a representative for the stakeholders in that CD, including writers, and other artists).

"The free market _can_ work here,"

It would be the closest you can get to a free market in this case; the whole problem is that people keep insisting that we need incentives for creativity (which I personally find dubious, but I'm willing to play along... until we can get solid data).

This is one way we'd get a fairly non-destructive system. Collect taxes off revenue generating activities tied to the material (IMO, most equitable collection form), pay them out according to market demand (most equitable division system, and the closest to a real free market), modulate it by maximizing desired factor (as many most desired artists as possible can get sustained), and dont prevent copying (thus allowing free market rules to apply to maximize efficiency in distribution etc.)

Re:surprised??? never...

[Znork]

"So we would only have access to music that the government approves of?"

Ugh, no. Maybe I was unclear on that, but the money should of course be divided out in a similar way it is now; the works generating the revenues gets the payout. Pete Seeger gets a CD sold, he gets money, Dixie Chicks play on the radio, they get money. John Doe gets downloaded five thousand times, he gets points for that.

It might be useful to modify the payout to a curve, as there probably exists a point where the artists dont actually get more creative the more money they get, and probably a date cutoff as well so you have to keep creating to keep getting paid, and have the overflow finance a larger part of the long tail (according to consumer demand, of course). That would be where the actual measurable statistics get used.

The government doesnt figure in to the 'choice' part at all, it just collects the revenues and pays it to the appropriate recepient according to the rules set up.

Re:surprised??? never...

[stupid_is]

Ok, name one single instance in which the current UK government has attempted to have "evil" music genres banned, or one single instance in which the current UK government has attempted to have music critical of it banned

Hmm - a big of Googling comes up with this link about anti-gay music in Brighton, this link of BBC-banned music, here's an interesting book about it, another BBC-banned list from the past, it's not just the UK too. Lots of stuff here
While a lot of the above describe actions by individual radio stations or "content providers" like the BBC, governments always want to meddle too, and there's enough talk of ppl trying to get legislation to do just that...

Re:surprised??? never...

[Muad'Dave]

What part of "No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed" do they not understand? I understand that this prohibition is on congress, but isn't this change being made under their purview?
Here's the definition of ex post facto from the same site:

Ex post facto ex post facto adj. Formulated, enacted, or operating retroactively. [Med Lat., from what is done afterwards] Source: AHD In U.S. Constitutional Law, the definition of what is ex post facto is more limited. The first definition of what exactly constitutes an ex post facto law is found in Calder v Bull (3 US 386 [1798]), in the opinion of Justice Chase: 1st. Every law that makes an action done before the passing of the law, and which was innocent when done, criminal; and punishes such action. 2d. Every law that aggravates a crime, or makes it greater than it was, when committed. 3d. Every law that changes the punishment, and inflicts a greater punishment, than the law annexed to the crime, when committed. 4th. Every law that alters the legal rules of evidence, and receives less, or different, testimony, than the law required at the time of the commission of the offense, in order to convict the offender.

Re:surprised??? never...

[multisync]

I am not a lawyer (spelled out to emphasize how unqualified I am to comment on your point) but this is not new legislation. The Copyright Royalty Board has simply announce the rates that will be in effect from 2006 through 2010. The old rate structure expired in 2005.

Check out this site for insight, including this:

Another myth is that no royalty is due because the Sound Exchange royalties expired at the end of 2005. While the negotiated royalties set out below did technically expire at the end of the last year, by law, Internet radio services must continue to pay at the old rate until new rates are established. Any payments made are subject to retroactive adjustment when the new rates are established.

The old rates were tied to revenue, as are publishing royalties payable to ASCAP/BMI. The new rates are based on number of songs played multiplied by number of listeners, and represent a dramatic increase over the old ones.

But this is not new legislation, so I don't think ex post facto applies.

Re:surprised??? never...

[Lunarsight]

I agree. We shouldn't be surprised when the RIAA pulls stunts like this. They ruin everything that they touch. If innovation is like a garden, the RIAA is like toxic waste dumped in the garden. The big question we should be asking ourselves is what should music consumers be doing about this? We sit here, and let the RIAA kick us in the proverbial groin over and over again, yet there doesn't seem to be a strong, united response from consumers towards the RIAA, telling them what we really think of them. (It would probably involve a lot of four letter words, so you have to use your imagination.) I think part of the problem is a lot of these issues are so complex, that your average music listener just doesn't understand that they're being screwed over. If one doesn't understand what is going on, it's a lot more difficult to be enraged over it. (Perhaps music consumers need to be better educated over exactly what the RIAA is doing in cases like this?)

Re:surprised??? never...

[Lunarsight]

I agree - I think it's the radio station doing a favor to the musical acts it plays, and not vice-versa like the RIAA wants you to think. If I'm a musical act, the primary gain I get from being played on any kind of radio is exposure. If they hear my song, then they may go out and purchase my album. That's how musicians will be 'compensated' for the airplay or netplay. I always thought the per-play royalty thing was kind of ludicrous for that reason.

Fine by me

[JackMeyhoff]

Why? It is like all issues of abuse, Patents abuse, music / video media abuse, software patents etc Let them do it, then what happens? Nobody uses their product. Then what? They start to backtrack. Let the system just eat and destroy itself from withing then come the meltdown a new dawn of change comes. Let them get their way and see how long it lasts, all it takes is people to stand up and say enough. Do you really need the shit they produce? No you dont NEED it.

Re:Fine by me

[drkfce]

Don't underestimate how much punishment the average American is willing to take when it comes to something that they are addicted to. Just look at gasoline.

Re:Fine by me

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the approach I use at my job (I work for Microsoft :) I got fed up and tired fighting features in our product and stupid bugs and design issues. Now I take the approach of if they want shit, fine lets ship shit :) They want to cut cut cut fine, less work for me. They want this that and the other, fine by me. Eventually sombody will have to come along and fix the mess (some international student - common slave lavour at MSFT these days- most likely) because no FTE wants the headache. We spend most of our time trying to punt some issue to some other team :)

Re:Fine by me

[BarneyL]

Internet radio is a very small part of the market and I suspect the majority of listeners are using the online versions of broadcast stations (the BBC gets good listening figures outside of the UK thanks to its' streaming).

If the record companies double their profit on 90% of their sales they're not going to loose any sleep over the other 10% that have to close down.

Re:Fine by me

[xtracto]

Yes and... no.

See the nice thing (for the RIAA cartel) is that, they dont care about *your* music taste because it is only a tiny statistical anomaly. The "famous" artists you see and hear about everywhere are the artist that the "average American" likes to play. Referring about the other poster who made the letter for the RIAA, he states that the only thing that plays on the radio are songs that he does not buy. But then again, that is because his listening tastes comprise a statistical anomaly in the eyes of the RIAA.

What will happen with internet radio is that, the stations that do not want to pay the RIAA will die. And then, you will start to see lots of stations that play the same shit that is played in every other place, which is what the majority of what your "Average American" likes to listen, which means that, it is what is going to leave the bucks to the RIAA.

So, at the end, the "Average American" is not going to take any kind of punishment because the music she likes to listen is what they will play in the majority of places.

It blows my head to think how can you people let those corporations do that... we (as non-americans) can not really do anything against them if you do not fight but shit, those corporations are yours and the "average american" seems to be so used to be screwed by the ass that they lost the repulsion and is even starting to like it...
WAKE FUCKING UP!

sorry for that last frustration rant.

Re:Fine by me

[johnlcallaway]

Which is less expensive in the US than in most other countries in the world....

Re:Fine by me

[gravesb]

You do realize that most of the large music companies are headquartered outside of the US, right?

Re:Fine by me

[couchslug]

"Do you really need the shit they produce? No you dont NEED it."

The only way for the weak ("us") to beat the strong is to leverage their own responses against them. Their reflex reaction to distribution they do not like is more and more onerous restriction.
I welcome this. The few people who break their DRM will provoke even more obnoxious DRM. DRM does not generally restrict anything I care about, so making it less convenient to obtain things I wouldn't obtain in the first place bothers me not.

Another benefit for geeks is that the more complicated these schemes make it for users, the more demand there is for our labor.

Re:Fine by me

[Markspark]

you do realize that that acronym RIAA stands for Recording Industry Association of America, right?

Shouldn't the title be....

[Anonymous Coward]

"New Royalty Rates Could Kill (Legal) Internet Radio"?

Re:Shouldn't the title be....

[Anonymous Coward]

And then they get NO money at all.

Actually, that's kind of good.

Re:Shouldn't the title be....

[RealGrouchy]

Meh. They've jumped the shark.

Internet Video has already killed the Internet Radio Star.

- RG>

Video killed the radio star

[GroeFaZ]

then Internet killed the video star. Then Greed killed the Internet radio star and pissed on all of their graves.

Re:Video killed the radio star

[Aqua_boy17]

I always thought it was MTV Cribs that killed the video star.

XM/Sirius hookwink Congress with "internet radio"

[Anonymous Coward]

XM/Sirius gave "intenet radio" as one reason why the two firms should be allowed to merge, in Congress, yesterday. "We will keep prices in check and allow other concessions if allowed to merge...", Riiight. People using internet radio are NOT going to pay for satellite radio - for one, internet radio is low quality, transcoded nearly always, gain-ridden garbage, and here today and probably not on the air tomorrow. Hood-winking Congress. What's new?

Pandora's marketing data alone is worth millions

[Com2Kid]

Pandora knows what I am listening to every second of the day that I am listening to music. They have , literally, a perfect listener profile of me, created by myself!

If they cannot find a way to monitize the living daylights out of that, then they need to hire some better mathematicians...

Well,

[Threni]

I guess the stations can always pay the going rate for the broadcasting of copyright material. Or just broadcast out-of-copyright music.

Re:Well,

[Garrett Fox]

Note that at this rate of repeated extensions (>1 year/yr), there will never be any new out-of-copyright music except for works released to the public domain by their creators' consent.

Re:Well,

[Threni]

> Note that at this rate of repeated extensions (>1 year/yr), there will never be any new
> out-of-copyright music except for works released to the public domain by their creators' consent.

Depends where you are, I guess. Outside the US, there's a lot of decent music available from 50 years ago. If you want to use copyright material, then yes, the copyright holder needs to get paid for it. Seems fair to me. If it were your music, and you made a living from it, you'd want your share, wouldn't you?

Re:Well,

[eclectro]

If it were your music, and you made a living from it, you'd want your share, wouldn't you?

With copyrights lasting 50 years after an author's death (in the US) it makes no difference to those who are in the grave. And for those who are still alive, they have no incentive to create new works, which was the original intent of copyright law.

Re:Well,

[Threni]

> With copyrights lasting 50 years after an author's death (in the US) it makes no difference to
> those who are in the grave. And for those who are still alive, they have no incentive to create new
> works, which was the original intent of copyright law.

They'd have no incentive if they weren't going to make any money out of it. That's the purpose of copyright laws. If copyright holders sign over their rights to someone else, then that's up to them, but they are protected by law.

Re:Well,

[jonwil]

The only problem with that is that even if you are only broadcasting public domain works or works where you have permission from the copyright holder to broadcast (either because you negotiated specific permission outside RIAA/ASCAP/BMI/IFPI/etc or because the work is licensed under a license that gives a more general permission to broadcast the work), you have to file mountains of paperwork (with RIAA, ASCAP, BMI and other rights holders) to prove that you didnt play one byte of any audio data without permission and even then they may still demand money if the rights holders aren't satisfied that you followed their ridiculous rules.

Re:Well,

[tepples]

Depends where you are, I guess. Outside the US, there's a lot of decent music available from 50 years ago. The article is about the US. So what should people who cannot afford to move out of a jurisdiction with life plus 70 year copyright terms for sound recordings do?

Re:Well,

[Threni]

> The article is about the US. So what should people who cannot afford to move out of a jurisdiction
> with life plus 70 year copyright terms for sound recordings do?

Base their radio station outside US jurisdiction.

Re:Well,

[cpt kangarooski]

No, there are incentives aside from making money. For example, look at /. -- all of us here are posting creative works, in the form of our posts and responses in these threads, but none of us are making money from it. The incentive of socializing is enough for us. Other natural incentives include fame, art for art's sake, non-copyright-based economic incentives (e.g. commissions, the fine arts market, being first-to-market, etc.), scholarship, etc.

And in any event, the purpose of copyright law is to serve the public interest, where the public interest is tripartite, and consists of 1) wanting more original works created and published; 2) wanting more derivative works created and published, and; 3) wanting no or minimal (in scope and length) copyright laws.

Which brings us to the life+70 term (which is what it actually is in the US, at least for some works). For the vast, vast majority of creative works, they'll never make money at all. For the tiny minority of works that will ever make money at all, the vast, vast majority of them will make virtually all of the money they'll ever make within a year or two of release in a given medium. For example, let's take movies: When a movie comes out the opening weekend is absolutely critical. It'll make a lot of money that weekend, less the following week, even less the week after that. After a few weeks, it'll be gone from first-run theaters. After a couple of months, it'll be gone from pretty much all theaters. Whatever money it made from the box office during that period is basically all it will ever get in the theatrical medium. Then it comes out on pay-per-view. I have no idea who actually uses ppv, but apparently someone does, and again, when it first comes out, that's when it makes most of the money it will make from ppv. As the weeks drag on, it pulls in less and less. Eventually it drops off of ppv. Then come the sales to movie rental shops and the public, in the form of DVDs. The first week that the DVD is out is when most of the people who have been wanting to buy a copy of the movie will get it; people who have wanted to rent it (rather than use ppv) will get it then too, resulting in most of the rental store orders to have been placed early. But again, as the weeks drag on, sales drop off. A little bit more money can be squeezed from licensing the movie to the cable movie channels, and after that, to regular tv channels. And you can go through the same cycle in the foreign markets. But then, that's basically it. You have gotten 99.44% of all the money you will ever make from this movie. Most of that (box office, ppv, dvd sales) took place in the first three months or so. (Newspapers and some tv shows have the shortest periods, while books probably have the longest, but even for books, it's a couple of years)

So the issue is, if all that the remaining years are worth is the paltry 0.56% remaining money to be wrung out of it, which is true for the vast, vast majority of movies that ever make any money at all, since so very few ever have the lasting popularity to keep making a significant amount of money over the long run, is it important that the copyright lasts so much longer?

If Alice will paint Bob's house when Bob offers to pay her a million dollars, then that certainly has an incentivizing effect, but it is rather costly. If Alice will paint Bob's house when Bob offers to pay a thousand dollars, then that has incentivized her just as much, but in a much more cost-effective manner!

Well, for creative works, we need to provide the least amount of incentive we can in order to get the most works we can -- basically we're looking for how to get the most bang for our buck. If a five year copyright would get nearly as many movies made as a 95 year copyright (the term length most commonly applicable in the US for movies), then surely the five year term is a better bargain. Adding more incentives -- by lengthening the term -- might get a handful of extra films made, but are they worth the cost to the public of having to endure such long copyrights? Probably not. So don't just look at the incentivizing effect, look also at whether or not it is worth it, and just how much of an effect there actually is.

Re:Well,

[Threni]

> - all of us here are posting creative works, in the form of our posts and responses in these
> threads, but none of us are making money from it.

It's just typing - people talking shit. It doesn't have any worth in the same way that a symphony, novel or tv comedy does. You don't need money from your last post to keep you in food, shelter etc while you work on your next post.

> And in any event, the purpose of copyright law is to serve the public interest, where the public
> interest is tripartite, and consists of 1) wanting more original works created and published; 2)
> wanting more derivative works created and published, and; 3) wanting no or minimal (in scope and
> length) copyright laws.

Where did you get point 3 from?

If the copyright for a film lasted 5 years, then when the next format comes out, the copyright holders would make £0, whereas now they make a lot more. If the Sonys, Warner brothers etc really only made some fraction of a percent from works greater than 5 years old, then why bother lobbying for laws to extend the copyright? It wouldn't be worth the effort, would it

For bands, the payoff often comes when they get famous and can then sell their early albums. Using your 5 year idea, they'd only be able to make money from the last album or two. This is dumb. It makes more sense to be able to make money from all your work, not just the most recent work. It should last the lifetime of the members of the band at least. I see no compelling moral argument against this - the rights of the creators should always trump the rights of those who wish to leech their works for free.

Re:Well,

[cpt kangarooski]

It's just typing - people talking shit. It doesn't have any worth in the same way that a symphony, novel or tv comedy does. You don't need money from your last post to keep you in food, shelter etc while you work on your next post.

Whether or not the people who make it need to make money from it has nothing to do with its artistic value. A number of artists made money though other means (they had day jobs; they were supported by others; they were already rich; they had become rich enough from their previous work to be able to retire comfortably, yet didn't) but still created artistically valuable works.

And similarly, people talking shit can be valuable too. Copyright does not make artistic judgments. The law and government are absolutely no good at doing that, and shouldn't do that. Right now, these posts (well not mine, see below) are copyrighted, and copyright attempts to serve as an incentive to cause them to be created. I agree that this is bad, but not for the same reason as you. I think that copyright should be an opt-in system. If some /. poster felt that his post was worth being copyrighted, he would fill out a form, send it, and a copy of the post, and a check for a modest sum, to the Copyright Office. Then he would get a copyright on it. The government wouldn't only dole out copyrights for works they felt were meritorious, but they also wouldn't give out copyrights to everyone for everything. Instead, they'd only give them out for people who took the trouble to ask, placing the judgment -- not of artistic merit, of of whether or not copyright was an incentive -- in the hands of the people getting the copyrights. And since they'd have to make a token investment in order to get the copyright, no one would just get copyrights for the hell of it (since that would cost them money) but they would instead judge whether or not the money they could get from exploiting the copyright would at least pay for the cost of getting the copyright in the first place (the copyright cost should be token, really -- e.g. the current $45 fee), plus a bit. Then, I suspect, virtually no one on /. would ever bother to get a copyright on their posts, and the level of posting would probably not decrease, indicating that copyright is not our incentive here. But people who make works for which copyrights are important to them would still get them.

Formalities are a good way of trimming back copyright so that it serves as an incentive, yet isn't granted more than it ought to be.

Where did you get point 3 from?

Partly from all post-Anne copyright law, which always expires after a particular time. Partly from human nature, which is greedy (that's not a bad thing; artists seek out copyrights because they're greedy, and the public gives out copyrights, yet limits them, also because they're greedy). Partly because the obvious (yet sadly unrealistic) ideal world would be one in which everyone who could create, did, yet there were no copyrights, and everyone was free to enjoy works as they saw fit, amass huge collections for free, etc. And partly because there really is a self-evident public interest in having unrestricted works, just as there is an interest in having more works.

If the copyright for a film lasted 5 years, then when the next format comes out, the copyright holders would make £0, whereas now they make a lot more.

This has yet to be determined, actually. DVD was a lot more popular than VHS, but HDDVD and Bluray have yet to be. And with backward compatibility in place, there's less pressure to replace one's DVDs with a newer format. Eventually there will be a shift, but it'll be caused more by changes at the supply level. And we've seen a lot of replacements come out that have challenged CDs (e.g. DVDA, DAT, Minidisc, SACD) and none have gotten anywhere. Downloadable music is doing okay, but more on the piracy side of things. Free MP3s are popular against costly CDs; costly MP3s (or whatever), significantly less so.

P

Re:Well,

[Anonymous Coward]

This is pretty good, but I think that dropping to 5 years on copyright is a bit excessive. Something like 10-20 years is more appropriate. Also, I think we should split the right to copy from the right to produce derivative works. Direct copies, with minimal changes to the content should be preserved for 20+ years. However, we could allow derivative works sooner than that. That would still allow for substantial incentives to producers, but would also allow for mash-ups and the like within a few years of the creation. Combine that with a registration system for the copyright after a few years (to solve the orphaned works problem), and I think we'd be doing pretty well.

Re:Well,

[cpt kangarooski]

The five years was just an example. I actually support shorter terms (maybe 1 to 2 years), but with frequent renewals that provide an overall maximum of something like 20. With an exception for software, and maybe some other classes of works that 'age' so rapidly that an overall maximum of 5 would actually be best.

Also, I think we should split the right to copy from the right to produce derivative works. Direct copies, with minimal changes to the content should be preserved for 20+ years. However, we could allow derivative works sooner than that. That would still allow for substantial incentives to producers, but would also allow for mash-ups and the like within a few years of the creation.

That's an interesting idea. My take on this has been to have an exception for natural persons engaged in noncommercial activity. So people could make mash-ups right off the bat, but not if they charged for them (or used them as a draw for advertising, etc.) and not if they were a corporate entity or the like. Given that most individuals ignore copyright these days anyway, but do support the idea of copyright applied to commercial endeavors and entities, I think it's in keeping with our social norms.

Combine that with a registration system for the copyright after a few years (to solve the orphaned works problem),

Registration should be required no more than a year after publication (which would be broader than what it consists of now). If an author can't be bothered to register, I don't see why we should be bothered to give him a copyright. This is more generous than the old system (which required them by publication), less generous than the present, insipid, system (which doesn't really require registration at all), and is kin to the patent system (which gives people a year to decide, and works pretty well in that regard).

Remember, most orphaned works are orphaned at birth!

and I think we'd be doing pretty well.

Yes, but a few more things are wanting. For example, repeal of chapters 9-13. Having measures in place that make copyright and DRM mutually exclusive, so as to discourage the use of DRM (I don't think it can be banned, due to free speech, but we surely don't have to give people copyrights for DRMed works). Having measures in place to fully federalize copyright. Limiting the use of adhesive contracts and terms of sales, so as to reduce the dangers and use of EULAs. Exceptions that take into account the reproduction that is unavoidable in our computer technology, but which is not really material in an infringement sense. Better safe harbors for ISPs. Statutory secondary liability (the courts have screwed up on this, otherwise I'd leave it to them). No copyrights for classes of works that don't need it, e.g. architectural works. Some other formalities, such as deposit. Pulling out of Berne and other treaties, but providing for unilateral national treatment. Better treatment of sampling (it's basically just audio collage, and is transformative enough that it would generally be fair). There's some other things too, but already this list grows large. Dealing with things like DRM, however, are key before we can think we're doing pretty well.

Re:Well,

[Garrett Fox]

Yeah, sorry; I was thinking only of American copyright law. Here in the US, I mean, the copyright term has been repeatedly extended as what's been called "forever, on the installment plan." So it's not a matter of creators being paid for their work, which is fine, but creators' kids and grandkids and great-grandkids milking their 69-years-dead ancestor's work.

Re:XM/Sirius hookwink Congress with "internet radi

[JackMeyhoff]

Isnt price control illegal? Dont they cry that price control by oil cartels is illegal, yet they wish to do this in other industries such as music media, books publishing and game publishing etc? Pot, meet the kettle.

Opportunity

[Xiroth]

Huh. Big opportunity here for independent artists looking to get heard. Wonder if this'll backfire like...well, just about every other money-grabbing scheme from the RIAA and co.

Re:Opportunity

[Anonymous Coward]

Big opportunity here for independent artists

Good thing the RIAA convinced the government to make their "partner" company SoundExchange the collector for mandatory and automatic royalties on all internet music.

Your independent artists will have to be sure to cut their SoundExchange check if they stream their own music online. Theoretically, they'll get the money back, less handling fees, shipping fees, processing fees, breakage fees, promotional fees, break-even fees, interest fees, interesting fees, and so on. Actually, they'll just get a bill for more.

When will they learn....?

[Anonymous Coward]

There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped or turned back, for their private benefit.
-Robert Heinlein "Lifeline"

Re:When will they learn....?

[jimmydevice]

Mod parent up please.

Re:When will they learn....?

[Restil]

Many corporations and industries are hesitant to change their entire revenue model. This is especially the case in such industries such as the music and movie industries which work today much the same as they have since they were originally formed. Whenever a new technology becomes available that they have no control over they are presented with two opportunities. Spend a small amount, which is probably already an allocated expense, to use the government, courts, and other industries to stifle or outlaw the new technology, or spend a much larger amount of money to adapt the revenue model to the new technology. Even if in the long run the new technology will pay off for them, the inability to control the outcome will be an unacceptable risk to endure.

Oppose that to companies that create CPUs, Intel, AMD, etc. Sure, they have their share of patents, copyrights, and lawsuits to go around, but in the end those issues are insignificant. No manufacturer of CPUs would dare to decide to try to slow the growth or change in their industry, since any effort to do so would instantly give their competitors a significant, perhaps crippling advantage. And as far as lawsuits go, by the time any lawsuit has had its final day in court, the technology in question has long since been retired.

The music industry is still all caught up in the concept of CDs. They sign a contract with the artist for the copyright on a recording, market the recording, print the CDs, the coverart and inserts, and feed all the distribution and retail stages of the process. The industry is much more than the artist and the customer. But now it doesn't need to be. Sure, we might have less manufactuered boy bands, but there will still as many tabloid enhanced rock/pop/rapstars as ever even if the industry wasn't around to "help" them along. We don't NEED CDs anymore, but that's all the industry knows, that's all they have, and they risk losing it all if they're forced to dive right into a different method of distribution. Of course, in the long run they'll have very little choice, but they're going to go kicking and screaming about it.

I'm sure the horse and buggy makers didn't get along well with the automobile industry either, but you'd like to hope that the smart ones saw which way the wind was blowing and switched sides before it was too late.

-Restil

Re:When will they learn....?

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

The problem with that quote is that it completely fails to acknowledge the illegal nature of the actions that are driving the profits down. I could apply that argument to any number of crimes (e.g. theft: "There's no reason why we should protect shopkeepers who are having trouble making a profit due to theft. I mean, can't they just learn to lock up their store properly?"). I'm assuming most people here are at peace with physical theft being illegal, right?

Re:When will they learn....?

[Anonymous Coward]

But copyright infringement is not theft, it's not even particularly like theft (despite the strident propaganda from the shills).

Illegal does not mean wrong. And legal does not mean right - there's plenty of theft (in all but the legal sense) going on, by powerful elites currently running the once-great USA.

Re:When will they learn....?

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

That's not the point. The point is that it's illegal. And considering that it is illegal, the government has a responsibility to help the RIAA. Whether or not it's "right" that it's illegal is a completely different matter.

Haven't we heard this before?

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't everyone say it would kill Internet radio the last time they raised the rates? Did it kill them?

Let me see... that's right... "Internet Radio Day of Silence". here's the story:

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/05/01/052325 1

Back in 2002! Did it kill them?

Nope.

Go away and quit crying wolf.

Re:Haven't we heard this before?

[de_valentin]

Well I just have a question, What is the big difference between conventional radio (that i receive in digital quality over satelite (which by the way i can record using my satelite recorder)) and internet radio ??? Isn't internet radio the newest form of radio as it already exists? And wasn't radio the best commercial for ever? so why are they trying to squeeze more and more ??

Re:Haven't we heard this before?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you a fucking idiot? Do you even listen to internet radio? The great blackout of 2002 certainly DID happen, and it certainly DID kill off a large number of streaming stations. Even SomaFM (who, by the way, is having trouble keeping in the black these days thanks to the current royalties) went silent for almost a year before coming back--but many stations simply did not. Others, like Flaresound, moved to Europe simply to get away from stupid American laws.

Re:Haven't we heard this before?

[MobiB]

Actually YES it did kill some radio stations. RadioBoston.com for one, which I was a long time listener of AND was in the final stages of landing a gig hosting a show showcasing local live electronic acts. A gig that wouldn't really have been opened to folks like me (a musician and not a radio professional) if they weren't a net radio station. So before you rush to the defense of the RIAA and Copyright office, you might want to check your facts a bit.

They didn't kill all the radio stations in 2001, so it looks like if you at first don't succeed, try try again. They want to see if they can finish the job this time.

-Mobius

Re:Haven't we heard this before?

[Anonymous Coward]

It didn't kill them then because congress stepped in and created the Small Webcaster Settlement Act which allowed the smaller guys to pay based on 10% of revenue rather than the absurd rates that were set by the CARP board.

Congress stepped in then because of public outcry. You just want everyone to shut up? You are an idiot.

Re:Haven't we heard this before?

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked for a P2P based radio distribution technology business. The 2002 rates imposition was the death of that company. 80% of the employee where let go 2 weeks after the decision to impose rates.
Only the 4 VP and one maintenance guy left a few months later, searching for a new business model.

Internet radio competes directly with "airwaves" radio.
As an example, at the current "online" rates, a big city radio with 1.5 Millions listeners would have to pay 1,650$ for each song. A lot more for nation-wide hit shows (30+ Millions listeners). Yet they are only required to pay 15 cents per song (last time I heard a price).

Take an 18 hours day, 4 minutes per song in a 1.5M market. That's a DAILY expense of 445,000$ for the online market, but 40$ for the airwave market.

Yet online markets have additional expenses as they grow in popularity for bandwidth, while airwaves market have fixed expenses exception to pushing more electricity into the broadcast antenna.

To me it is clear the RIAA is attacking a forming market to kill it. If they could they would ask the same from the airwaves, but they would simply keep playing only "clasics" boycotting all new albums, or even switch to emerging non copyright songs.

It must be said that airwave owners are the same or sleep in the same bed as RIAA members.

Re:Haven't we heard this before?

[Jon_S]

Bill from RP covers that at http://www.saveourinternetradio.com/

He says maybe they can work out some way to get extorted like they did five years ago, but they aren't confident about it, and probably won't be able to afford it.

Why not donate instead?

[JackMeyhoff]

Why dont more and more people use the Donate method of payment just like open source projects? This way you pay what the real value of the product is to YOU and it is on good will, you are not forced to pay more than the real perceived value to you. If you stop paying then, well the project / product may no longer be available. Isnt this natural selection :) Not that I like the concept of money in the first place (Im a Utopian Socalist :) )

Re:Why not donate instead?

[karmatic]

Why dont more and more people use the Donate method of payment just like open source projects?

Because very few people actually donate money to open source projects?

Re:Why not donate instead?

[Anonymous Coward]

grow up kid. Most people are just leeches who take what they can get. especially the twats on here always bitching about DRM, mainly because it stops them acting like thieves.

Re:Why not donate instead?

[Oligonicella]

The answer to that should be self-evident. People are cheapskates. They will sit and whine about the expense of things, but then will refuse to donate money to individuals who actually try to make a living by the cheapskates' suggestions. Just shows the "I want it all free" crowd are hypocrites and don't really want anything more than "free".

You get what you pay for.

By the way "Utopian Socialist", I have an outdoor structure I need built. Come on over and build it and I will give you some writing in exchange.

Re:Why not donate instead?

[neomunk]

See, right there you fail in your logic, and I'll tell you why, though I suspect you already know this.

DRM stops NO ONE from copying music illegally. That's right, pirates don't care about DRM from their pirate point of view because DRM can be removed. Every kind of DRM so far? Yep, every single kind.

So no, it doesn't stop anyone from copying music, what it DOES do is slow down the computer, annoy the piss out of legitimate users and, here's the important one, make criminals out of people who are doing something they are completely within their rights in doing, like backing up a DVD, or even taking a virtual copy of it with you on the road as a file on your laptop.

As far as the "most people are just leeches...blah blah blah, bullshit, trite faux-wisdom" bullshit you and your ilk spout, well I think you immoral fucks are just projecting your own anti-social behaviors onto us decent folk. Stop saying that I'm a menace to society because YOU have the urge to be.

Oh, and when you tell someone to grow up, then sling a "twats" out there like that, it's a hit to your credibility as a critical thinker, just a tip.

Re:Why not donate instead?

[neomunk]

By the way "Utopian Socialist", I have an outdoor structure I need built. Come on over and build it and I will give you some writing in exchange. Well, judging by the contents of your post, any writings you've done are gonna have a pretty fucking low value-to-volume ratio. I'd say a Britannica sized volume should be worth the time I could put into making you a, say, shoe shine box? The market is flooded with shit-mouthed sarcasm at the moment, so you shouldn't expect much demand, economics and all, you know.

Re:Why not donate instead?

[Dunbal]

Most people are just leeches who take what they can get.

      I noticed you haven't subscribed to slashdot...

Re:Why not donate instead?

[Anonymous Coward]

You get what you pay for.

Like what, 12 cent shoes for $80? Actually most of the time you don't really know what you get. The price is just a lure.

Re:Why not donate instead?

[zippthorne]

Why would people expect a company called Nike to get their products from anywhere but Asia?

also, 12c to produce, how much to ship? What is the markup at the retailer?

Although I'll admit, $80 seems a bit excessive. I know I wouldn't pay that much for sneakers.*

*Well maybe if i was a professional runner or tennis player or something, but then I'd probably get some kind of crazy custom shoe for way more than $80 anyway.

Re:Why not donate instead?

[Mr2001]

Why would people expect a company called Nike to get their products from anywhere but Asia? Um... you realize Nike was a Greek goddess, right?

Only here to help the... artists

[280Z28]

The RIAA has a responsibility to bring more money for the music artists. Unfortunately they misread "going above and beyond to help the people you represent" as "going above and beyond anything... hey Bob who is it we say we're representing again? Yes, we are only here to help 'music artists'."

"Hey Bob, you hear my youngest started playing the recorder in Kindergarten today? I filled out another WTF1337 form today and we should start seeing the revenues next month. :woot:"

Re:Only here to help the... artists

[sqlrob]

Right, They're in it for the artists

Re:XM/Sirius hookwink Congress with "internet radi

[j00r0m4nc3r]

If you remember, they were found guilty of price fixing some years ago. Remember the whole RIAA settlement thing where they sent 100's of thousands of worthless CDs to libraries across the country as part of the settlement? The RIAA is a real classy, honorable organization...

Internet radio, RIP 1998?

[jimmydevice]

Didn't internet radio get killed by the advertisers way back in the late 90's? I thought the unions negotiated a 3X increase in royalties and a inflated listener baseline for payments.

OK...That's solved by not playing RIAA music.

[the_REAL_sam]

Right?

Streaming audio isn't a crime.

Re:OK...That's solved by not playing RIAA music.

[Eudial]

Right?

Streaming audio isn't a crime.

But... but... that would be un-american! You're not one of them terrists are you?

Re:OK...That's solved by not playing RIAA music.

[advocate_one]

Streaming audio isn't a crime.

it will be if they have it mandated that it must be wrapped in DRM cruft with crap like broadcast flags set to prevent recording it and you can only receive it using player software that respects the broadcast flags running on tpm certified OS... Microsoft's wet dream, to get Linux made illegal

Re:OK...That's solved by not playing RIAA music.

[jb.hl.com]

...

mandated... DRM cruft... broadcast flags... tpm certified OS... Microsoft's wet dream... Linux made illegal

Just, uh, wow. You got all this from where exactly? Your imagination, perhaps?

Re:OK...That's solved by not playing RIAA music.

[Kavli]

Exactly! --This is maybe the best news that the RIAA-folks could give the independent labels/artists, and probably the listening audience too!

Re:OK...That's solved by not playing RIAA music.

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Streaming audio isn't a crime

...yet.

Re:OK...That's solved by not playing RIAA music.

[neomunk]

If this is all news to you, then I guess the only thing to say is...

Welcome to slashdot. This is a place where we talk about issues of the day that relate (even if only vaguely) to technology. Over the past decade or so the running commentary has included lots and lots of stories about the very topics mentioned by the GP (grandparent-poster, the person you responded to).

I'm not your google, so if you really want to know what the GP was talking about, just search slashdot for the terms you surrounded with ellipses.

A quick look at your user number shows that you've been here longer than I've had this current handle (which is a while now) so you should damn well know better than to feign ignorance to those topics. If you disagree that's one thing, but to act like the GP was making all that up is just being a troll/flamebait.

Re:OK...That's solved by not playing RIAA music.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is actually a fantastic bit of news. Essentially this will force artists that want to have their music heard on internet radio to license with an open license. And small artists that aren't signed (which is where a fair chunk of the actual talent is) will have an open field that won't have to compete with the over promoted music the RIAA pushes radio stations to play.

Re:OK...That's solved by not playing RIAA music.

[jb.hl.com]

If this is all news to you

No, it's not. I've heard it all before. I just find the GPs histrionics to be bizarre and unfounded, which was my point. I'm not stupid.

Re:OK...That's solved by not playing RIAA music.

[TheUser0x58]

Wrong. Legally all internet music broadcasters are required to pay SoundExchange license fees, irrespective of who made the music. The alternative is to get (written) permission from each and every copyright holder whose music the broadcaster plays, which for most radio stations is impossible.

Re:OK...That's solved by not playing RIAA music.

[Jon_S]

Yeah, it's Monday today so It's my turn to be his google.

http://ipaction.org/action/perform/

OK, doesn't actually mandate TPM OS's, but it's a slippery slope from there...

Re:OK...That's solved by not playing RIAA music.

[StoneTempest]

Streaming audio isn't a crime. Yet.

Why can't I comment on what I just read

[BlueCoder]

They are totally screwed when they actually read their accounting sheet.

Divide it up any way you like there are only two or three outcomes.

What would this mean for places like...

[mark-t]

.... itunes radio or yahoo music? I saw references to consequences for radio paradise, live365, and pandora, but not yahoo or itunes.

Re:What would this mean for places like...

[psychokitten]

Since iTunes radio is just an aggregate of links to other external radio stations and nothing more, I doubt they have to pay so much as a penny of royalties in the first place.

Personally, as long as nothing happens to stations like club977 and biodustrial.com, I'm happy.

Retroactive Price Increase?

[CrkHead]

RAIN has learned the rates that the Board has decided on, effective retroactively through the beginning of 2006.

They announce a new pricing scheme late in the first quarter and plan to charge the increased rate from the beginning of the year? How is that possibly legal?

Re:Retroactive Price Increase?

[Renfield Spiffioso]

What increase? We've always paid this price to our Eurasian allies.

Re:Retroactive Price Increase?

[Dunbal]

How is that possibly legal?

      They're just following the example of their president. In Corporate America, everything is legal so long as it screws the little guy. Welcome to the New World Order.

Re:Retroactive Price Increase?

[multisync]

In case you are still wondering, the old rates expired in 2005. The Copyright Royalty Board has been holding hearings to determine what the rates will be for the period 2006 - 2010. Internet broadcasters have been paying the 2005 rate for their use of copyrighted material in 2006, knowing that the difference between that and the new rate would be payable once the new rates were announced.

time for revolt

[Anonymous Coward]

Any recording artists not "represented" by RIAA who don't like this should become noisy about it. Say loudly you do not want to be represented by the RIAA, and you without say in your representation piss in their ear.

Yet another time for revolt. This command and control attitude must stop at all levels of governance; whether governance imposed, usurped or voluntary.

Re:Pandora's marketing data alone is worth million

[chakmol]

If they cannot find a way to monitize the living daylights out of that, then they need to hire some better mathematicians I should already be monitized (of value). I've bought so many CD's because of unusual things I've heard on net radio. Isn't that what was wanted?

What's really wrong with this

[dbcad7]

Unlike conventional radio stations, more listeners costs the station more money. Imagine what would happen if local radio and TV stations were charged extra based upon the numbers of viewers and listners.. I doubt that would fly.

Re:What's really wrong with this

[lixee]

Good point. But all quality radios I know of, are listener supported. (i.e: voluntary contributions from listeners who like the service)

Re:What's really wrong with this

[johnlcallaway]

NPR?? Quality??

Oh .. you mean elitist and obscure radio.

Whatever dude....

Re:What's really wrong with this

[lixee]

Try radioparadise.com

Chances are you'll love it!

Re:What's really wrong with this

[innocent_white_lamb]

Imagine what would happen if local radio and TV stations were charged extra based upon the numbers of viewers and listners.
 
They are.

Re:What's really wrong with this

[rustman]

Actually, terrestrial radio is not charged at all for these royalties. It's a royalty only on internet radio services. That's what is so unfair.

Terrestrial radio pays ASCAP/BMI/SESAC based mostly on their revenues though, not audience size. As there is no way to completely accurately measure audience of over the air stations.

Re:What's really wrong with this

[digitig]

I think that's generally true, but the UK's licensing model does let the BBC make some excellent radio (available online). They make a lot of the other sort, too, but that seems to a matter of their choice rather than the funding model.

Killing internet radio

[iminplaya]

Like, yeah. That's the idea. Were we, like, expecting anything different?? Wake up, people. Creepy, crawly copyright will soon prohibit remembering a song without paying royalities.

Genuine solution is actually really easy

[DigitAl56K]

When faced with the RIAA monopoly, many people propose a boycott that is unrealistic: People won't stop buying CDs, downloading from iTunes, or the like.

What needs to happen is for Internet radio stations to turn to independent labels. Consumers will buy the music they hear. If Internet radio stations commit to changing the majority of their playlist to artists on non-RIAA labels then the majority of profits will be diverted from the RIAA - they don't get per play royalties and they don't get royalties on purchases. It's a double-whammy. If you look at something like eMusic today, which doesn't carry the RIAA labels, you will quickly find that a little digging turns up more great music than you might actually expect. And it's not just Internet stations that should make the change - everyone can benefit from getting out of this monopoly stranglehold. The RIAA might eventually have to propose competitive terms to survive, artists will be better compensated, and labels which are smaller today will be able to grow faster not only because they will see a greater percentage of royalties, but because the best artists will be less drawn to the RIAA labels in the first place.

Perhaps, though, the RIAA is already starting to feel some bite, and this is why their proposed fees are so high. If you're paying 100% of your revenues to the RIAA, you aren't paying anything to the indie's.

Re:Genuine solution is actually really easy

[DigitAl56K]

I'd like to follow up my own submission with some further thought. Unfortunately it's either late at night here, or early in the morning, depending on how you look at it, and further thought takes some time ;)

One of the other arguments that is often offered in the case for independent labels is that the music is more authentic, creative, and less 'manufactured'. However, to truly displace the RIAA we should realize that it is necessary to cater to the mass markets that they currently serve. It is difficult to instantly change the listening habits and genre preference of millions of people, therefor an effective program would rely on enough mainstream pop, rap, hip-hop, etc. music to be produced by independents and marketed in a way which reaches younger generations and begins to draw their attention from traditional RIAA artists.

Never in our history have we been so prepared and capable to tackle this problem. Modern music technology and tools in combination with the Internet helps to level the playing field, at least somewhat, such that professional sound is in reach of the amateur through virtual instruments and production software that can be purchased for only hundreds of dollars, while co-ordinated marketing across popular sites contributing to the cause could compete with major budgeting spends by big labels.

If there were enough contributors to undertake such a concerted movement it might be interesting to set up something akin to sourceforge, e.g. a "musicforge", where independent artists collaborated to produce substitutes for mainstream media and served them to Internet radio stations, at least as a beginning, to help drive the change. If mainstream music is really as formulaic as we often claim it to be, in theory reproducing it to a reasonable standard should not be impossible or even very difficult.

Just some thoughts :)

Re:Genuine solution is actually really easy

[lixee]

You're conveniently overlooking monopoly in your argument. It's like saying we should ditch MS Windows; I support the idea and run exclusively Linux on my machines. Yet, everytime I send a .odt to someone, he replies saying that he couldn't open it with MS Office. Same goes for the IE only websites.

What is needed is a grassroot opposition that takes back power from corporations for the common good.

Re:Genuine solution is actually really easy

[mstrcat]

Actually the boycott isn't all that hard. I haven't bought anything that gives revenue to the RIAA for over 5 years now, yet I listen to more music than ever. My sources of music are: www.magnatune.com -> Indie music, DRM free, full length previews, easy downloads www.cdbaby.com -> Indie music, great 'sounds like' recomendation, good prices www.spun.com (or any other used CD source) -> for when I just have to have an RIAA artist. Buying used doesn't generate any more royalites for the RIAA. Direct from the artist web sites trading mix cds with friends All in all, there is _so_ much music out there, that if you can't find something you like without paying the 'RIAA tax', you aren't trying.

Re:Genuine solution is actually really easy

[Explodicle]

I don't think that's an accurate comparison. Many people stick with Windows and MS Office because they are locked into it, but there is nothing stopping your from buying independent music.

Re:Genuine solution is actually really easy

[zotz]

"What needs to happen is for Internet radio stations to turn to independent labels. Consumers will buy the music they hear."

Fine, but I will go you one further. They should only play Free music on which no royalties are due. Then they should turn around and pay out the same amount in royalties. Say half to the copyright holders of the music they played and half to fund the creation of new Free music.

If they just play traditional ARR music from "indies" the big boys will just buy out the rights and the stations will end up in the same pickle. They need to find a new game to play.

all the best,

drew

Re:Genuine solution is actually really easy

[Lumpy]

First Pay for play is illegal, yet the RIAA figured out how to get that in place. Indies at least sane indie artists never EVER ask to be paid for airplay. Only a complete and total idiot would do that. Airplay = free advertising and the ONLY way to get more people to know you exist. I think the RIAA should increase the ASCAP and BMI charges to 3X what Radio stations charge. That way the indie artists will be incredibly attractive to the net radio stations and get far more play rotation. A couple of community radio stations around here recently started playing far more indie artists to try and reduce their operating expenses, their "experiment" for the past 2 months has had such a high amount of feedback they are looking at dropping ASCAP and BMI completely and only play indie music.

Granted they are not big stations one only has a 40 mile coverage radius with a town of 500,000 and two towns of 100,000 in their listening audience as well as the suburbs between. But I know that most people that did listen are happy about the change and the last call for public support they had at the end of the indie switch experiment was so great they took in more money for operation than they ever had before.

Indie artists want their music played on the radio for free. Stations like this are taking advantage of that.

Re:Genuine solution is actually really easy

[so.dan]

Thanks to your suggestion

What needs to happen is for Internet radio stations to turn to independent labels. Consumers will buy the music they hear. , DigitAl56K, I wrote the following email to Pandora, believed by most people I know to be the best internet radio station they know of.

I sent it to suggest-music@pandora.com . It really could have a fantastic effect if others could write them similar emails.

Hello to the person receiving this email,

I'm sure you get a large number of emails beginning with "I LOVE Pandora". Well, I _LOVE_ Pandora. I just cannot believe how good it is. There is a great deal I could say regarding what makes it so unbelievably great, but I'm fairly sure you've heard it all before. So, I will simply get to the reason I am writing this email:

A. I am wondering whether it would be possible for Pandora to: (1) include more independent artists, (2) if it is possible for Pandora to label songs being played which are not part of the group of companies represented by the RIAA as "independent" when they show up, and (3) whether it is possible for the listener to request music which is _only_ non-RIAA/independent to be played on their radio stations.

B. The reason I ask this is: (1) I like to purchase music that I am somewhat familiar with already, and the main way I do this is after hearing a song several times on the radio: When a song which starts to play on the radio starts to get me excited and happy, then I make a mental note to purchase that song. (2) I hate the regular radio, and hate it even more since I started listening to Pandora, since the contrast between the goodness of the two has reinforced my strong dislike of nearly all regular radio. (3) I, and - as you will see if you ever read sites like slashdot.org or gizmodo.com - many, many other ordinary people _HATE_ the RIAA and have refused to purchase music from them. Seeing them destroy or significantly damage lives with little or no care, to see them do this with flimsy evidence against those who they threaten to take to court, and to see how little they pay but a very small percentage of the musicians who create the music that they "own", is enough to make the stomach of very many people turn. After years of reading the horrible actions of the RIAA many of us can no longer buy their music in good conscience. Proof of the existence of a builiding mass movement against the companies represented by the RIAA may be found from reading the comments posted on these sites by the readers of these sites. (Gizmodo has declared this the month of boycotting the RIAA). (4) I love good music, and love to purchase music so long as a large enough percentage of the profits go to the musicians who produce them, and so long as the distributors (e.g. Pandora) get a reasonable percentage of the profits and so long as the companies involved behave in a socially responsible way (I have never heard anything bad about Pandora). Accordingly, I would very much like to be able to purchase independent music through Pandora.

Due to B1-B4 above, it would make it easier for me to purchase music easily if I could see non-RIAA music clearly labeled as "nonRIAA" or "independent" beside the music that is currently playing on Pandora. The only reason people purchase RIAA music is that they are made familiar with it due to their songs being played on the radio. Since my main inlet of music-listening is Pandora, familiarity is determined completely by what Pandora plays.

C. I read an alarming piece of news on Slashdot today. I am wondering how this affects you. (You do not have to reply if you're busy, but I was horrified that your great product might disappear or the profit on your incredible product would be so greatly reduced as it seems it might soon be). I post it below, complete with links, together with some comments made by early readers of the post. The post is called "New Royalty Rates Could Kill Internet Radio", and is found at: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/04/09 30245 .
.
.

Re:Genuine solution is actually really easy

[Anonymous Coward]

No the real solution is for the RIAA to keep suing 10 year old kids and their grandmothers.

Payola?

[Merkwurdigeliebe]

Doesn't his counter their payola-intuition?

So, in some cases they'll pay a station to play their music, other times they want to be paid to for the priviledge/right(if given) of playing their music. If you go by the logic of payola : exposure=more popularity tranlates to more sales. However, in this case, they want their exposure diminished for what exactly?

Re:Payola?

[makomk]

Doesn't his counter their payola-intuition?

So, in some cases they'll pay a station to play their music, other times they want to be paid to for the priviledge/right(if given) of playing their music. If you go by the logic of payola : exposure=more popularity tranlates to more sales. However, in this case, they want their exposure diminished for what exactly?

On the contrary, the two fit together perfectly. With payola, they get control over the output of most/all of the big commercial radio stations (who probably won't be hit so hard by this), but they have no control over what gets broadcast on all the Internet radio stations out there (hence why it's worthwhile putting the rates up to something that Internet stations - who probably weren't that profitable anyway - can't afford).

Re:Payola?

[Dunbal]

they want their exposure diminished for what exactly?

      So that they can arbitrarily enforce copyright violations when they feel like it. Sheesh don't you get this MAFIAA mentality yet?

      "Tony, haven't I given you everything over the years? Haven't I been like a brother to you, and a Godfather to your children? All I expected was your loyalty to the family. I'm sorry Tony, but I have no choice now... (to the FBI) Take him away, boys..."

Re:Payola?

[Maxo-Texas]

I don't know-- to me this seems like a great push for magnatune and other less expensive music methods.

Re:Payola?

[sorcerykid]

The recording industry argues that Webcasting is not yet an effective promotional medium for their material. Also, SoundExchange DID propose a revenue-based model -- which at least favoured smaller businesses. However, the CRB judges declined to accept that proposal and opted for the "pay per play" rates.

So the negative outcome of this ruling is not entirely the fault of the recording industry.

The simple solution

[mattus]

'US Copyright Office' -> Move your servers to a place that is outside of US jurisdictional where the copyright laws are not controlled by large media companies. Last time I checked US law does not effect the rest of the world.

Re:The simple solution

[tepples]

Even if the server is coloed outside the United States, the DJ is still on U.S. soil and still subject to U.S. law.

Re:The simple solution

[novus ordo]

Don't count on it.

Re:The simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless the DJ ID's himself as being in the US--or the server does(and why would they do that?)--no one will know here the music is coming from

Re:The simple solution

[tepples]

Unless the DJ ID's himself as being in the US--or the server does(and why would they do that?) Because WHOIS requires it. Or the local branch of the IFPI could subpoena the name of the hosting company's customer. Or the new station has the same name, same URL, and same format as a U.S. station that recently went offline.

My email to the RIAA

[EPDowd]

RIAA, I am very puzzled. I used to find out about new recordings that I might want to buy, by hearing them on the radio. For quite some time now it seems that Radio stations, AM and FM, all seem to play the same tiny group of music, over and over. I never hear the music I buy, and play at home, played on the radio. When people started using the Internet to make small "Internet only" stations there were enough of them so that I once again had a way to find out about new stuff. How would I ever buy it if I did not know that it existed? This morning I read: "Kurt Hanson's Radio Internet Newsletter has an analysis of the new royalty rates for Internet Radio announced by the US Copyright Office. The decision is likely to put most Internet radio stations out of business by making the cost of broadcasting much higher than revenues. From the article: 'The Copyright Royalty Board is rejecting all of the arguments made by Webcasters and instead adopting the "per play" rate proposal put forth by SoundExchange (a digital music fee collection body created by the RIAA)...[The] math suggests that the royalty rate decision -- for the performance alone, not even including composers' royalties! -- is in the in the ballpark of 100% or more of total revenues." I am puzzled. It seems to me that you are killing the best, largest, and only way for me, and others, to find out about new music from the artists that you say you are representing. For the life of me I cannot figure out why you are doing this. I can't buy it if I don't know it exists. I like Bluegrass, Swing Band, 1950's oldies, Traditional Country, Traditional Western, Western Swing, some Jazz, and several other types of music. I hear a very small portion of this, once in a great while on the radio. But so rarely that it is not worth sitting through the usual tiny, bland, group of stuff that is normally played. Most of it is just not played anywhere except on the Internet. Please let me know how you think I am going to find out about the music you want me to buy.

Re:My email to the RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear EP Dowd:

Thank you for your interest in RIAA and our collection of artists. We understand your concerns and are glad to offer the following helpful advice:

1. the application of some water soluble lubricant to your backside is recommended. While we can't recommend a specific brand for your needs, many of our listeners consider K-Y lubricant to be an acceptable choice

2. try to avoid tensing your muscles during your RIAA experience. Many RIAA users have indicated that the consumption of 2-3 alcoholic drinks prior to getting RIAA'ed helps them relax and avoid tensing up.

3. for safety reasons, be sure to brace yourself against a large immovable object like a couch or chair prior to tuning in.

Again, thank you for your interest in RIAA and our Internet-based services.

RIAA

Re:My email to the RIAA

[dodongo]

RIAA, I am very puzzled. I used to find out about new recordings that I might want to buy, by hearing them on the radio.

So it's extra delightful when you look into the history of radio broadcasting and learn that record companies wanted to ban radio stations from playing their songs at all when radio was an up-and-coming format, because, after all, if people can just hear the songs they want on the radio, why would they buy the album in the first place??

How slowly we learn.

Re:Pandora's marketing data alone is worth million

[lixee]

Pandora knows what I am listening to every second of the day that I am listening to music. They have , literally, a perfect listener profile of me, created by myself! If they cannot find a way to monitize the living daylights out of that, then they need to hire some better mathematicians...

There are people who prefer old-fashioned DJ-mixed music.

Broadening the spectrum of the music you listen to can definitely benefit your spirit. Pandora doesn't...

Please repeat after me: The US is NOT the Internet

[Anonymous Coward]

The americans can do as they damn well please... ... and so will all the rest of us.

Let's be fair

[Anonymous Coward]

and apply these fees to terrestrial radio also. This would then effectively kill ALL radio. A radio station that claims 10,000 listeners at any given time would owe 1.5 million per year. And retroactively collected should put about 80% of stations out of business. Terrestrial radio would be in big trouble because they have to claim more listeners to get the advertising dollar, but being popular would work against them. So, people, let's be fair and give them what they want and tell them to be careful what you wish for, wishes sometimes do come true!!

Re:Let's be fair

[Phoobarnvaz]

Terrestrial radio would be in big trouble because they have to claim more listeners to get the advertising dollar, but being popular would work against them.

From having been in commercial radio for many years...I can tell you this that standard "free" radio is running terrified of ANY medium which isn't them. That includes satellite...IPod or MP3's. With commericals every 7 minutes running for a minimum of 5 minutes...people (you & I) have told them this isn't the way to run a business...but they refuse to listen. Most station owners think they own the airways & know short of using the "F" bomb over & over...the FCC will NEVER turn down their renewal applications. It was VERY common to be in meetings with owners who would think of ways to best screw their competitors...even stealing programs that other station had & the owners I worked at wanted.

You maybe wondering what I listen to...XM radio/DirecTV...my own collection of music & amateur radio (ham). I refuse to listen to local radio...since I consider it a medium which will not change & broke its leg. We shoot horses for less & having just 2/3 viewpoints on 10+ radio stations is not the what is in the public interest.

You want to fix what is broken...start filing complaints with the FCC & put up as many roadblocks as you can for their station renewals. If station owners actually start losing their licenses...things will change.

once more

[Spliffster]

a nice idea which is probably hard to enforce. the **AA's might have a lot of influence in the western world where such ideas could become enforcable by law. but what will they do against online radio stations streams from countries they cannot control ?

commercial radio stations would probably suffer and that's great, this means less crap "aired" over the tubes :D

On the bright side...

[Amphetam1ne]

...most of the stations I listen to on a regular basis are located in the UK or Europe.

Socialised music?

[poptones]

So we still don't have health care for a huge chunk of the population that doesn't require them to forfeit their solvency, but at least they have easy access to pop music.

Yeah, sounds great. Especially that part where my money is taken by force and funneled into some coffer to be doled out to an industry I despise and religions I disdain.

Appeal, and Sue - Unfair Monopolistic Business !

[Anonymous Coward]

I have purchased both CDs and iTunes songs that I first discovered on http://www.smoothjazz.com/ and http://www.smoothlounge.com/

If they want to STOP Sales of music - this is the way to go - charge fees so high that it is better to go silent.

That is ok, the garage bands and foreign country music will still stay on the air.

Once again, RIAA's actions HURT MUSICIANS, shut down their popularity, end musicians broadcast time, destroy musicians' careers,
and alienate the very customer fan base the musicians need to survive. Brilliant!

American Musicians - Good Bye. Thanks for playing.

Question

[bryan1945]

This looks to be based soley on music, but is there a chance that other types of streaming, such as sports radio, may also be affected? I don't care too much about music (I don't care much for today's offerings), but I like to listen to my hometown sports station (610 WIP out of Philly) when I travel.

Re:Question

[j3p0]

No problem with *original* programming as they own it. If they carry Phillies games, they won't be able to stream that as MLB streams their own and the local stations don't have streaming rights. I assume the NFL, NBA and NHL have similar restrictions. Interestingly, here in Boston the talk and sports radio stations stream, but don't carry all the commercials. I suppose they want extra money from some advertisers to stream their ads.

Do Some Work

[fozzmeister]

It'd be very much better if they started playing music from non RIAA sources. I'd definintaly listen to a station like that if they played quality (as there's a lot of rubbish) stuff that I wanted to listen too.

clueless

[poptones]

If you look at something like eMusic today, which doesn't carry the RIAA labels...

Dude, you're clueless. emusic is laden with RIAA labels. Being an "indie" does NOT mean "not RIAA affiliated." I even signed up for their "25 free" promo to check out just how many RIAA labels there are on emusic - there's thousands listed on emusic, and you can bet thousands of those are RIAA affiliates. They carry cocteau twins and breeders (for example) who are on 4ad. And who owns 4ad? Beggars Banquet - and BB is an RIAA affiliate.

Emusic likes to play up the "indie" part - but dont think for a minute that doesn't mean any purchases made there aren't going to help fund the RIAA, cuz it does.

If Internet radio stations commit to changing the majority of their playlist to artists on non-RIAA labels then the majority of profits will be diverted from the RIAA

It's a great idea. And guess what? There are already plenty of places that do this - I can go to Magnatune, for example, and listen all day for nothing. All the stuff they play is their own label.

Doesn't mean squat, because "most folks" want to hear the shit they've heard ten thousand times and aren't interested in expanding their horizons. There's nothing stopping anyone today from starting up a non-label stream and this law can't stop those unaffiliated artists from allowing such broadcasters to play their works. Doesn't matter, because "internet radio" means "radio" and most people don't hear Jackalopes and Wicked Boy on the radio, they hear Micheal Jackson and P Diddy - and that's what they want to listen to online.

Re:clueless

[spungebob]

...to check out just how many RIAA labels there are on emusic - there's thousands listed on emusic, and you can bet thousands of those are RIAA affiliates

WTF? So the basis of your statement is that you found that there were thousands of labels on eMusic, therefore thousands of them are RIAA affiliates? What a breath-taking leap of logic!

I'd be happy to believe your opinion - because that's all it seems to be at this point - if you can provide some actual proof of what you're saying. And please don't simply cite RIAA's own page of "distributed labels of reporting companies" or the Wikipedia equivalent, because neither of those lists are verifiable of actual paying members

Re:clueless

[FunWithKnives]

What the GP said is actually very true. I do not understand why you asked for proof, because he gave you an example immediately after his allegation:

They carry cocteau twins and breeders (for example) who are on 4ad. And who owns 4ad? Beggars Banquet - and BB is an RIAA affiliate.

It is a little trick that the big five use, and it has been going on for a good little while now. Take Island Records, as another example. It was the largest indie label in history. Who owns it now? Everyone's favorite dickheads, UMG. Check out the Island Records website, though. See any mention of it being a UMG affiliate?

That is how it works. The big five know that they are hated by the majority of the people who listen to real indie, punk, rock n' roll, et cetera. They buy up independents or spin off their own little "divisions", keep it as quiet as possible, and hope that you won't notice.

If you want to be certain that what you are planning to purchase, whether it be a download or a CD in a store, is in fact not affiliated in any way with the RIAA, I suggest bookmarking the RIAA Radar, and using it constantly. That's what I do, anyway.

Re:clueless

[spungebob]

I asked for proof because he didn't give any... one anecdotal example does not equal proof and quoting the RIAA's own list does not equal proof of RIAA membership either. That's why their list is referred to as "Distributed Labels of Reporting Companies" and not "RIAA Members". Do you understand what that means or do you need me to parse it for you?

The RIAA would love to have you believe that their list represents actual members - and obviously you believe - but it's NOT. It's yet another of their misleading representations that makes them look bigger and more powerful than they really are.

As for RIAA Radar, yeah... I should have mentioned that too. I used to go by that as well until I realized that they are simply using the same damn "Distributed Labels" list that the RIAA is publishing. Net result? You're not buying stuff from hundreds of labels who truly are independant simply because you can't see through the RIAA's semantic ruse. Meanwhile, the RIAA is laughing because they've convinced you to boycott many of the very people you want to support.

No... if you want to be certain of who is RIAA and who isn't you're going to have to show me their actual paid membership list. Now THAT I will accept as proof... but you can't show me that because the RIAA won't give you that list. Their actual membership is so secret that members don't even pay their dues directly to the RIAA - you're supposed to pay them "in confidence" by way of their accountants. Why do you suppose they do that?!?

If you want to cite Beggar's Banquet then show me where they paid dues to the RIAA, or where they are owned by a company that paid dues to the RIAA, or where they actually admit to being an RIAA member. But then you'll also have to explain to me how one single example extends to GP's claim of "thousands of labels". Good luck with either of those tasks...

Need?

[nurb432]

No of course you dont *need* it, its entertainment. its optional.

But, that lack of 'need' didnt stop the *AA's from becoming some of the most powerful entities on the planet.

Re:Need?

[JackMeyhoff]

How can one be the most powerful if nobody gives them money?

Lobby for laws to get "equal time" in the end

[gd23ka]

This might well force internet radio to take up more and more independent artists
that would otherwise get turned down by the dispensing recording industry,
never see the light of day - and be a great way for indies to get on the air
to a large audience without having to compete with the established artists for
time.

As soon as they see their "mind-share" eroded by people outside their
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payola payola system the recoding industry will turn around
and offer payola or even demand to be put on and lobby for laws to get "equal time".

Re:Lobby for laws to get "equal time" in the end

[gd23ka]

missing a word here:"by the payola dispensing recording industry"

Greed is going to kill the RIAA

[WindBourne]

The nice thing about this, is that could help kill off the RIAA. What needs to happen now, is that the established streamers need to set up alternative streams where they use NON-RIAA controlled music. To encourage it, their RIAA controlled stream could slowly lengthen the time between songs AND advertise the other stream in the RIAA controlled stream. Finally, to encourage the music development outside of RIAA, they need to start paying money to the artists. If they could get together as a group and agree on a rate (ideally close to the old RIAA rate), then as a group pay them. Perhaps magnatune will consider taking it on. Once the musicians realize that they can make a great deal more money by not signing with labels (RIAA), new ones will have nothing to do with them. In addition, we will probably see new labels who have nothing to do with RIAA. The final nail in this, that the group needs to go to the same place where radio stations pay out at (it is not direct to RIAA) and get paid their lower rate. It will encourage regular radio to look at the riaa musicians music.

Re:Pandora's marketing data alone is worth million

[BruceCage]

I noticed you mentioned Pandora and not Last.fm, for the sake of discussion I'll presume you are referring to the service that both Pandora and Last.fm have in common, which is presenting music based on patterns. Let me start off by mentioning that I haven't actually used Pandora apart from the limited front page functionality myself since it requires a U.S. postal code (i.e. it expects you to be a U.S. citizen) and I am in fact a European. Instead I am a subscriber to Last.fm, which (as mentioned in the article) is based in the United Kingdom and available to non-U.K. residents (which coincidently also means it is not directly affected by this regulation).

I'm wondering why you seem to imply that listening to Pandora doesn't "broaden your spectrum"? Thanks to services like Last.fm and Pandora, I myself and many others have actually come in contact with a more diverse set of music than we would ever have without them. Through Last.fm I have personally discovered not only what I'd call my "true taste in music", but so many individual artists that I would never have heard of if it wasn't for Last.fm.

By using methods such as collaborative filtering, data analysis and pattern mining these services are able to predict and assist in finding out about music that might interest you. These systems however do not limit you solely to this aspect, Last.fm for example offers functionality such as being able to listen to tags (which also represent categories). But the former aspect is what I personally consider the most valuable.

So I in fact believe these services do broaden the spectrum of those listening, unlike (in general) Internet radio stations that still follow the "old model" of having human DJs decide what music to play. Not to mention commercial radio which is heavily influenced by advertisers, deals with record labels and in lesser extent government regulation.

Now I would also like to take this moment to respond to the issue at hand. However the solution I myself envision has already been presented by a fellow Slashdotter further down in the thread.

What needs to happen is for Internet radio stations to turn to independent labels. Consumers will buy the music they hear. If Internet radio stations commit to changing the majority of their playlist to artists on non-RIAA labels then the majority of profits will be diverted from the RIAA - they don't get per play royalties and they don't get royalties on purchases. ("Genuine solution is actually really easy")

Regrettably several artists I rather enjoy are signed to record labels who are affiliated with the RIAA (you can verify this using the RIAA Radar). However, I'd rather have services like Pandora and Last.fm continue to exist without offering these artists than go under because of royalty fees taking up their revenue. I for one refuse to purchase any albums from artists affiliated with an organization such as the RIAA.

And the problem is...?

[PhysicsPhil]

This is really a case of two businesses negotiating a contract. The Internet broadcasters have two choices: play and pay, or stop. The broadcasters, who are businesses trying to maximise their own profits, are whining about costs being too high (duh). The music types, also trying to maximise their profits, will charge whatever rates the market will allow. If the rates are set too high, broadcasters go bankrupt, the music industry loses a cash cow, and rates come down. Eventually, they'll all come to an arrangement.

Re:And the problem is...?

[Cheeze]

right, but what about Joe Blow Schmoe who was running an internet radio site from his basement? He's now gotta find a new gig.

This is just another notch in the ever-tightening belt that the RIAA has around the consumers neck.

Re:And the problem is...?

[Dunbal]

The Internet broadcasters have two choices:

      The US Internet broadcasters...

Re:And the problem is...?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of us non-US broadcasters were broadcasting from the US.

This makes us think twice now...

Re:And the problem is...?

[Live_in_Dayton]

I agree with the premise of your argument that businesses need to negotiate with their suppliers, but the problem is that these rates are being set by the US Copyright Commission, a federal organization. The question is whether the RIAA will negotiate a separate agreement or stay with this one.

I think it will be interesting how ClearChannel is affected. Many of their stations stream their play list/drivel. I bet they do not even know how much this will cost them yet.

God save RadioParadise!

Clear Channel loses big, too

[zeropointburn]

Disclaimer: The company I work for is owned by Clear Channel. These comments are my own views and do not reflect the views of my employers.

  Have you considered who will be paying the most? This year, every Clear Channel station in the top 100 markets will be simulcast streaming. That's on the order of 1,300 stations, +/- 100 or so. Since I've already done the math, I'll clue you in.
  Using an average of one song per four minutes, each station will be playing 131,400 songs per year. That's $144.54 per station per listener. TFA quotes 500 listeners as average; that works out to:

100 listeners: $14,454 --- 500 listeners: $72,270 --- 1,000 listeners: $144,540

At 1,300 stations or so, that means this ruling will cost Clear Channel:

100/station: $18.8m --- 500/station: $94m --- 1,000/station: $188m

I can tell you firsthand they are not making that kind of revenue on their streaming side. Clear Channel stands to lose on the order of $100m this year. Ad revenue might help offset it next year, but we're still looking in the range of $100m or so for 2008 as well. CC most definately did not sign up to lose $150-300m in the next two years; it's really not a good time.

On a side note: If you want to hear something new on a Clear Channel station, call in or email the PD (production director). Tell him or her you want to hear it. Ask them to check CCADS ('seecads'). If it's not available, tell them to request it from Bobby Leach. Offer to lend them your cd, if it's safe for radio play. Call in or email your favorite jock; tell them to bug their PD about getting the track. Get your friends to request it. If you know people in other major cities, ask them to do the same. If you're not asking the impossible, they will listen and your favorite track will get played. As a bonus, if it gets into the system, anyone can request it in any city and they won't have as much hassle.

Re:Clear Channel loses big, too

[zeropointburn]

Addendum: I missed a few things.
There are some talk/news stations, and listener base is much lower during the overnight shift.
Even so, slashing the losses in half (way more than enough to account for the discrepancy) leaves an obligation of at least $50m yearly. That's assuming none of these stations get particularly popular.
--Zero

Re:Clear Channel loses big, too

[ArtStone]

I maintain the database at StreamingRadioGuide.com and watch the "over the air" radio stations rushing to add internet streaming every day. There aren't enough hours in the day to locate and add all of the new streaming stations to the database.

Clear Channel has clearly been taking the lead in internet streaming and is way out in front in adding digital HD to their over-the-air stations.

As of today, there are 5,257 FCC licensed station streams (commerical and non-commerical) that are active... (Several hundred of those are HD2 and HD3 streams), meaning that around 36% of all US/FCC licensed AM/FM radio stations are already streaming on the internet.

Does that sound like impending death to you?

Food for thought - in the next year or so when mobile WiMax begins to roll out commerically and you will be able to have internet access in your car as you drive to work, what will that technology do to the radio business?

[I know I've broken the golden rule of slashdot by injecting facts into a thread]

Re:Clear Channel loses big, too

[ps236]

If the new royalty rates come into play, I'd expect your database to shrink considerably.. If you look at the facts of the new royalty rates, there's no way that a 'pure' Internet radio company could exist for anything other than the very short term (as they're spending any reserves), unless they go for a (quite expensive) subscription model (eg $15-20 per user per month), which doesn't really work that well.

Re:Clear Channel loses big, too

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that Clear Channel and 2 other media monoliths have had their hands slapped for their payola-driven playlists (anyone surprised by this?: http://www.forbes.com/digitalentertainment/2007/03 /06/cx_wt_0306varietymusic.html ), the dynamics of this have become more interesting--and stranger. The unofficial alliance between corporate labels and corporate radio was always one of financial convenience, IMHO. Will CC fight alongside indies for fair rates, or just take the hit, knowing that they will still control a huge share of the broadcast market, and thus might be able to stumble on while other netcasters get crushed (thus eliminating competition, one of their favorite motifs)? Stay tuned.

In the Old Days Radios Had Tubes

[ziny]

This should help Sen. Stevens unclog his tubes.

So much for protecting artists

[randolph]

After all, one doesn't protect artists from income, or exposure. Bah!

That's kinda the point

[Tony]

The more *different* music people buy, the worse it is for the RIAA associates. Consider: if people by about 100M records a year (a number I just made up whole-cloth for illustory purposes), is it better for the RIAA members to sell 10,000 each of 10,000 records, or 5M each of 20 records?

And is it better for them to have new types of music (rap or grunge, for instance) popping up, or to have music that all sounds the same? Considering that it's difficult to select the next hot-selling group or musician if it's a "new" style of music, I suspect they want it all to sound the same.

The entire point of the RIAA controlling radio playlists is to push the music of a few select people, from a narrow style. That's partly why "country" sounds so much like pop these days, I think, because of the homogenizing affect of the RIAA.

But maybe I'm just overestimating their power, and underestimating the lack of musical taste of most of America.

Re:That's kinda the point

[MobiB]

EXACTLY! You hit the nail on the head. Non major label acts (ie. local and indie label acts) are a threat to the big 5 and the RIAA. The largest 2 reasons that CD sales have declined in the last decade is because a. quality and variety have diminished and b. paying $12-$19 for crap is a further deterrent. Wider and alternative channels to get music they don't control (and artists they are not actively screwing out of royalties) has great potential to become a massive competitor were it ever to gain traction. So the obvious plan of course is 'don't let it gain traction'. When the RIAA gives their gripes against digital distribution it usually comes down to two things about the format. 1. Users can just listen to what they want, when they want. Which is akin to playing from a CD. 2. "Perfect" digital copies can be made which obviates the need to purchase CDs or official distributions. Do either of these apply readily to Net Radio? (Pandora maybe 'slightly' to the first point since you have some control over which artist, but still not completely a replacement for owning the CDs). The answer is NO. So why are they against this just as they are against MP3s? Make no mistake about it. When it comes to the net radio stations, this is less about protecting the playing of their big acts than it is keeping uncontrolled competition out. They've had a sweet (corrupt really) deal going on for a long time. The artists largely get screwed BY THE LABELS (that fact doesn't get enough press) and they have a cartel lock over what actually makes it to the consumer. They will actively hunt and kill anything that is a threat to this. This is just the latest hunting trip.

Here's an example where all the big players agree

[Opportunist]

Involved in this are three key players: government, radio stations and the mafiaa. And all of them have good reason to enjoy this regulation.

The mafiaa for obvious reasons. The radio stations simply because this will pretty much kill the freelancing opposition. And the government 'cause it's easier to keep some business oriented and cash dependent radio networks "in line" than a couple thousand renegade stations that broadcast whatever they would like, not so much what is along some arbitrary "rules" or regulations.

Did you expect any other outcome than that?

Didn't they try this back in 2001 as well?

[shoptroll]

I seem to recall a similar event around 2001 when they were looking to start charging royalties for internet radio stations. If I remember right they wanted royalties proportional to the number of listeners * each song played. A book keeping nightmare if I remember correctly.

Again, MAFIAA attempting to roll back Internet

[Anonymous Coward]

The MAFIAA would like to go back to an analog and disconnected time; a time of total control of information ; a time where media expires with age; a time where the radio stations are centralized and easily bought; a time where people don't share information, that rent it.

Kill Internet Radio, or...

[beaverfever]

"New Royalty Rates Could Kill Internet Radio"

- or internet radio can adapt and survive.

It's show-biz, people. Biz=business. Welcome to capitalism, the free-market economy, etc., etc.

We'll go a lot farther spending less time on conspiracy theories suggesting Big Bad Biz wants to run The Innocent Little Guy out of town, and spending more time on adapting and coming up with real-world solutions to real-world problems. Read a book on basic business principles and apply some of the ideas held therein.

Re:Kill Internet Radio, or...

[neomunk]

Right, like the record labels are 'adapting' by begging the government for a law-backed anti-technology campaign.
Seriously, you don't see this draconian extortion scheme being pushed on the tradition over-the-air broadcasters do you? Why? it's the same business model, just different a transport service. Something to do with content control would be MY guess.

And since WHEN does a free-market economy mean lobbying for more regulation? Just because an action favors the big guy doesn't make it free-market, it's just fun to pretend it does while browsing your stock portfolio.

Re:Kill Internet Radio, or...

[beaverfever]

You are right - they are attempting to adapt by doing the things you spell out. They perceive a problem and they are reacting and adapting to resolve the perceived problem. They are not doing nothing. Complaining about Big Bad Business really is the easy way out and holding onto the hope that you can continue to do nothing. Stop projecting your fears onto their actions.

You claim that the broadcast radio business model is the same as internet radio. It's very easy to disprove that, but more importantly, if you are basing all your opinions on that perceived similarity, then therein lies your problem; you can't see the differences, and if you can't see diffferences, you can't differentiate between strengths and weaknesses. If you are involved in internet radio, identify your strengths and apply them. Fix your weaknesses. Adapt and survive.

Re:Kill Internet Radio, or...

[dbcad7]

An album, CD, tape, or mp3 is the product you sell.

A radio station playing music is advertising the product.

Why would you charge the radio station more for more listeners (more advertising) ?
It's not done in conventional radio, why should it be done in internet radio.
If it is truely a free market, then you would create your own station and compete
instead of demanding extra money from the successful.

Re:Kill Internet Radio, or...

[neomunk]

That's not free market adaptation, in fact, it's the antithesis of free market adaptation, but you (should) already know that.

And what, exactly, IS the big difference between the business models we're talking about here? Enlighten me.

Oh, and I'm not in the radio business, online or offline, I was just calling you on your free-market buzzword tossing BS that was completely anti-free-market.

My original point stands as presented: Just because an action favors the big guy doesn't make it free-market, white-collar criminals just like to say it does.

I suspect you make many more dollars than I do, but I think I make more sense. (bad pun, but I thought it was cute)

Re:Kill Internet Radio, or...

[Percy_Blakeney]

Welcome to capitalism, the free-market economy, etc., etc. Capitalism? Perhaps you missed the part about these rates being set by the government, not the "free-market economy".

Re:Kill Internet Radio, or...

[beaverfever]

"An album, CD, tape, or mp3 is the product you sell.
A radio station playing music is advertising the product.

Are the stories published in a newspaper or magazine merely advertising for the writers? What about talk radio Is that content merely advertising for the commentators? What are they selling? Are journalists and writers getting rich by touring the world and performing at stadiums? Are sports broadcasts merely advertising for the sports teams?

Content draws listeners, and the station must pay for content to attract listeners. A regular listening audience allows the sale of advertising time. What is the difference between paying a journalist, a comedian or a composer for content?

Why does this discrimination exist? Where is the outrage against copyright control over the written word, or photography, or works of art? Why can't one radio station merely re-broadcast the news report of their competitor on a thirty second delay (but with their own advertising) and save lots of money on staff and resources? Would it be acceptable in your world for every network to sponge off one network to broadcast pro sports?

Aren't composers and the companies which back them financially worthy of being paid for their time and effort? The people who write software code get a salary, so why not the people who write music? It seems that if it's not popular entertainment (games, movies, music, please stand up), then copyright is not a problem around here.

Please don't start with the "fat-cat music biz scoundrel ripping off innocent musician" argument, because it's so full of cliché that I'll retch if I hear it one more time. Lots of people make bad business choices every day, either because they're naive, stupid, have bad luck or all three. People get ripped off too, often for the same reasons. Rock stars are heroes and have a public outlet, and so they can cry their woes from rooftops and their sob stories are embraced by the masses. Boohoo for them, but their plight should be exceptionally low on the list of priorities for world revolution.

Stating that music content on a radio station (broadcast or online) is merely advertising to encourage the purchase of the same entertainment product is just plain wrong. It is a factor in the equation, not the entire equation.

"If it is truely a free market, then you would create your own station and compete
instead of demanding extra money from the successful."

You're confusing "free to make choices" over "free to do anything I want". The copyright holder can demand more money, but a station doesn't have to accept. They can find different content and not have to pay that copyright holder. Or they can continue paying, but find ways of generating higher revenue. If enough stations reject the copyright holder's costs, then maybe the cost will come down, or maybe the copyright holder will be stubborn and put themselves out of business. If enough stations acquiesce and find ways to make more money, then the business risk has paid off for the holder. This is rather simple stuff.

Re:Kill Internet Radio, or...

[dbcad7]

I never said that royalties should not be paid. The fact that a conventional radio station pays a flat fee to broadcast a song regardless of the number of listeners is my issue. We are not talking about selling concert tickets we are talking about broadcasting.

I could argue some points about how many times you should be paid for the same peice of work.. but I won't. All the more power to someone that creates something that people want to listen to an buy many times over. My point about free market is that the people "in the biz" can create their own stations. They would actually have an advantage as they would have access to the artists for interviews and other exclusive content.

Again my point is that per broadcast fees of a song are ok, but number of listeners should not matter.

Re:Kill Internet Radio, or...

[beaverfever]

"The fact that a conventional radio station pays a flat fee to broadcast a song regardless of the number of listeners is my issue. We are not talking about selling concert tickets we are talking about broadcasting."

Sure, but we are talking about different forms of broadcasting with different types of audience and different advantages and disadvantages. Apples and oranges are not priced equally.

"My point about free market is that the people "in the biz" can create their own stations. They would actually have an advantage as they would have access to the artists for interviews and other exclusive content."

What does that have to do with anything? They're free to do that but choose not to. I would guess they believe the disadvantages of doing that outweigh the advantages, or else they would. So...?

Re:Kill Internet Radio, or...

[beaverfever]

"And what, exactly, IS the big difference between the business models we're talking about here? Enlighten me."
Holy smokes. Well, here's one place where you can pick up a hint.

"Just because an action favors the big guy doesn't make it free-market, white-collar criminals just like to say it does."
Just because an action favours the big guy doesn't make it a crime.

Re:Kill Internet Radio, or...

[dbcad7]

It's broadcasting just the same... regardles of how different you would like to make it. I could reverse the argument and say that it is so different from radio broadcasting that no royalties should be paid at all.. but it IS broadcasting, and the pricing scheme should be the same.

Re:Kill Internet Radio, or...

[beaverfever]

Even within broadcast radio, do you really think that everyone who has ever cut a royalty deal all pays the exact same fee? Which universe do you do business in? I want to buy my groceries and gasoline there. Stop being so naive. Thinking like that will be the death of online radio. Hasn't it ever occurred to you that one pimply kid with an internet radio show run out of her parents' basement has a greater potential audience and market than an entire broadcast radio empire? Accept that internet radio is different, identify where it is stronger than broadcast radio and use those strengths.

Re:Kill Internet Radio, or...

[neomunk]

Okay, really, I'm not trying to be a dick here, but I still don't see what the big difference is. Yes, there are many cosmetic differences, but what you linked to seemed to me to be like an advanced for of auto-surveys. Cool, we know what people are listening to... Radio stations ALREADY know what people are listening to...

Yes, many many differences, but all of them are variations on the same business model. And none of these changes require such draconian methods of capital regulation. Read the original article again, really. This isn't standard business, this is extortion.

And regarding the last bit, just because the action isn't criminal doesn't mean the people pulling it off aren't.

Man, when are you middle class capitalists going to understand how unfavorably the table is being tilted away from you. I'm not a communist, I'm pointing out an example of how people of OUR (middle) class are ever so steadily sliding away from real economic gains.

Local talk shows in Toronto, Canada

[roman_mir]

I almost don't listen to music and I never listen to music on radio, but I do listen to the local talk shows that we have in Toronto (Ontario, Canada.) The CFRB1010 (cfrb.com) and AM640
(640toronto.com) are the two stations that carry really great talk show hosts. Anyone can call onto the stations and express their point of view about the subject at hand.

Most of the time the subjects are local to Toronto or Ontario or Canada, but sometimes we have world wide subjects as well and it is not all politics, it can be anything, from RIAA and DRM to health care to municipal/provincial/federal politicians to climate issues, class sizes, you name it, we have had it discussed on radio.

These are AM radio stations of-course (that's why I will never have an iPod or something like it, because it has no AM radio.)

So for me good radio is about discussions of local/global issues with ability to express a personal point of view. Oh, and we have about equal number of conservative/liberal talk show hosts and though I may not agree with all of their views, they are still interesting to listen to.

These stations provide their own internet streams and since their content is original (talk shows, weather, traffic, news, commercials) RIAA can't force any royalties. Of-course it's different for FM music channels, but I don't care, those are not essential. By the way in Canada AM radio is federally regulated. Is it very different in the US?

Actually it should be:

[novus ordo]

"New Royalty Rates Could Kill (Legal) Internet Radio (in the USA)"

Juris-my-diction?

[tepples]

Base their radio station outside US jurisdiction. Americans who run warez servers can still be arrested inside the United States, even if the warez server isn't on U.S. soil, because the server is being operated from U.S. soil.

Any one know the justification?

[pacalis]

I understand the old rates expired in 2005. I can't seem to find any rationale for the 3x (i.e. vs 1000x) increase in rates?

Has the RIAA become so heavy handed that they don't even need to give a reason anymore?

Re:Pandora's marketing data alone is worth million

[Anonymous Coward]

www.last.fm is better... :)

Good.

[JustNiz]

This will reduce play time and therefore marginalize the big labels crapmercial pop music even more so that we get less of the same old bland diet of whichever talentless model they're currently trying to market.

There are many incredible bands that produce excellent music but don't get offered contracts because some bureaucrat like Simon Cowell with no musical ability and a very one-dimensional taste decides their image isn't right or whatever. Hopefully this will mean that internet radio will now only play indy stuff as its royalty-free. The benefit to us listeners is airplay of better and more original and varied music.

Lets hope this is a small step towards more musicians getting work because of their actual music, not their image or teen-marketability.

Why is this a bad thing?

[Garwulf]

I've read the article, and while the royalty rates are on the ludicrous side, I've got to wonder why everybody is thinking that this is a bad thing. Frankly, this could be the best thing to ever happen to internet radio and the music scene.

I've been thinking about the impact a lot since reading it, and it seems to me that there are two groups of radio stations to consider:

1. Online pirate stations who are broadcasting the music illegally. While I don't think they should be pirating the music, the fact is that if they are pirating it now, making the royalty rates higher are not going to stop them from pirating the music and playing it. To misquote Terry Pratchett, "they're PIRATES - they don't care about the law." So, no real impact there.

2. Online stations that are playing the music legitimately. This will have quite an impact on them, and most likely a positive one all round. Well, I should say, for everybody except the labels represented by the RIAA, who just got themselves priced out of the market.

It seems to me that online radio isn't going to disappear, but will do something else - the broadcasters will vote with their feet. SoundExchange and the RIAA will have a very difficult time proving that retroactive royalties are due in any court of law, and the larger stations should be large enough to defend themselves, so I doubt that the RIAA will press too hard on that one (after all, if the RIAA tried to collect from AOL, you'd have a battle royale that would take years to sort out, and my money would be on AOL). But, with the royalty rates so high, no radio station will be able to play music from an RIAA label, and the broadcasters will be very hungry for new material.

So where do they find this new material? Independent artists. With the online broadcasters desperate for material, it will be a seller's market for independent recording artists, in the process giving that section of the market just the sort of boost it needs. This will raise the profile of the independent music scene, while at the same time allowing the independent artists to negotiate a reasonable royalty situation with the broadcasters. So, the listeners who get exposed to new (and less corporate) material win, the independent artists win, and the broadcasters get out from under the RIAA thumb, so they win.

Come to think of it, the only people who lose are the RIAA, who just got shot in the foot and lost a market...

Re:Why is this a bad thing?

[multisync]

That's great, and I am all for supporting independant artitsts. and encouraging them to explore new avenues for reaching their fans, hopefully without the involvement of the "big five." But are we just supposed to turn our back on the last - I don't know - hundred years of our popular culture and pretend it doesn't exist? All the music, movies and television currently under the stewardship of big media companies suddenly off limits?

Remember, terrestrial stations are not subject to this royalty fee, it is targeted directly at Internet streams, it is charged on a per track/per listener basis and, sorry to correct you but is retroactive to the beginning of 2006. Stations with large listenerships will be receiving a bill in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for last year's royalty fees.

Meanwhile, it is business as usual for the FM staions, who will continue to play RIAA music the independant Internet staion can no longer afford. And people will continue to listen to them, because we like the Beatles, and the Who and lot's of other stuff that is controlled by the big media companies. That's what i don't get about these "boycott the RIAA" type comments. Some people just think everything is crap, so they won't care if stations die. The just want to stick it to someone. Others might be willing to give it up out of idealism, and I respect that. But if you love music you don't want to give any of it up.

These fees will result in the loss of independant Internet stations, and we will all be poorer for it.

Re:Why is this a bad thing?

[Teancum]

What it would take to "break" this logjam is to have some very high quality music group/performer that would simply refuse to get involved with the "big five" RIAA companies, and use royalty-free internet radio stations (and other alternative music outlets, including "legal" Peer-to-Peer networks) to distribute their content. So far the way you get "made" is to sign with one of the big boys, but I don't think that will last forever.

Of course I'm talking somebody on the order of the Beatles, the Who, and other classical groups that would make this sort of impact with network radio. People like that only come around once in a decade and usually they are so good that even otherwise blind and deaf executives at the majors will drip money into these artists like there is no tomorrow that would be very hard for such a group or performer to pass up.

Re:Why is this a bad thing?

[multisync]

I know, and I appreciate what you are saying. The sad thing is the very stations threatened by this - the independent, in some cases commercial-free ones that play an eclectic mix and take chances - are the ones that would encourage that next great independent artist, and give him a conduit to potential fans.

It's very hard to build a listener base. Most people are just not prepared to pretend the music they grew up listening to (and probably still love) didn't happen.

The Clear Channel stations have access to other revenue sources. They can afford to pay the Royalties for their Internet streams, and watch the little guys go down. Once they have the same strangle-hold on Internet radio as they do on terrestrial radio, you won't be able to tell the two apart.

Re:Why is this a bad thing?

[Garwulf]

I'm rather wondering why you think this would require us to turn our back on the last hundred years of culture. It seems to me that Internet radio is more of a grassroots phenomenon, and online broadcasters not being able to play RIAA-controlled music does not mean that people won't be able to listen to it on conventional radio, or CDs, or iPods.

My analysis (for what it is worth) is just that the RIAA has been priced out of the market by this - any new stations won't be able to afford their music, and frankly that's a pity. I have a feeling there are some labels that are doing the math and getting very concerned about this. But, it's good news for the independent artists, and with the way the RIAA labels treat recording artists these days, I'm all for the indy artists being able to distribute their work, have their copyrights respected, and keeping free of the system.

As far as the retroactive royalty fees go, I hate to disagree with you, but while I think it will cause some chaos, I also think that it will be fought tooth and nail, and I don't think the RIAA is going to come out on top of this one. If AOL gets a bill for millions of dollars in retroactive royalties, I can't see them taking it lightly, and they are a giant.

You may very well be right about the loss of some independent stations as this is being sorted out, although I really hope you aren't. Frankly, they don't deserve this, and what's being asked is very unreasonable.

Re:Why is this a bad thing?

[multisync]

As far as the retroactive royalty fees go, I hate to disagree with you, but while I think it will cause some chaos, I also think that it will be fought tooth and nail, and I don't think the RIAA is going to come out on top of this one.

I'm sure a lot of Internet broadcasters are hoping that is the case. Watch for appeals to come from the National Association of Broadcasters, and the Digial Media Association on behalf of the big media companies. They are the only ones with the resources to fight this. Whether their appeals are successful, and whether they will benefit smaller, independent stations, remains to be seen.

I hate to point you back to the link in the summery, but the rates are right at the top, including those for 2006. The Copyright Royalty Board fully intends to collect these royalties, and are well within their mandate to do so. If your station played copyrighted works in 2006, you will pay royalty fees for the use of that material (although the fees may ultimately be reduced, as they were in 2002. Scroll down to the bottom of Kurt's page for coverage of that go-around).

'm rather wondering why you think this would require us to turn our back on the last hundred years of culture.

This was in response to the notion that this will somehow be of benefit to independent artists.

First of all, this royalty is collected on all performances, even those of works by non-RIAA artists. The RIAA lobbied hard for these rates, and are licking their chops at the prospect of collecting them, but don't make the mistake of thinking fees will not be collected for all songs played, even those of "independent artist." The "sound recording copyright owner" is entitled to compensation, and anyone can apply to Sound Exchange for their cut, just like Sony or EMI or whomever. The only problem is the allocation of these royalty payments is based on aggregate totals from the industry as a whole, meaning all those Clear Channel stations that stream their FM broadcasts skew the numbers in favour of established artists. The independent artist is unlikely to see any money, even if they are getting airplay on stations not so beholden to the RIAA marketing machine.

So why don't Internet broadcasters play only "free music," licensed through Creative Commons or something?

Many do, and some even get a few listeners I'm sure. But there are other costs associated with running a radio stations, including the cost of maintaining your music catalog (even if you don't "pay" for the music, you need to acquire it, sift through it to separate the good from the bad, store it etc.), bandwidth costs, on-air talent, the cost of maintaining a website that offers features that will attract listeners, BMI/ASCAP royalties (still gotta pay those, don't forget) and sundry costs incurred by any small business. Attracting a listener base sufficient to offset these costs while exclusively playing independently produced, Creative Commons licensed, music by artists nobody has heard of is a heavy lift. Not saying it can't happen in the long run, but I don't see independently run Internet radio stations with no other source of revenue surviving long enough to make this a reality.

But the 'big media' companies who stream their FM broadcast will be subject to these fees too, so what's the problem?

Frankly, they will probably lose money as well. That doesn't mean they won't use Internet streams as a "loss leader," to get people who listen to them on their commute to tune in while the're at work, all the while bombarding them with on-air commercials, ads on their website and compiling marketing data that can be sold to offset some of these costs.

The small, independent station can

Re:Why is this a bad thing?

[Garwulf]

Well, you've certainly given me a lot to think about - thank you for stating your case so well. You'll forgive me for hoping that you're wrong about the severity of the impact, since I did believe, and I still hope, that this will be a boon for independent artists (and frankly, as an author, I am horrified by the conditions I've heard reported from the music industry).

I do, however, have to wonder if the Copyright Royalty Board will be able to collect from stations outside of the United States. I'm not going to claim to know the answer, and frankly, I've got to admit that I am a bit out of my depth on this one (and how often do you hear THAT on Slashdot?).

But, anyway, thank you for pointing these things out. I hope that your comment gets modded up for it.

Re:Why is this a bad thing?

[multisync]

Thank you for the discussion, Robert. I think there are a lot of us hoping this won't turn out to be the "worst case scenario." A collective of webcasters - including the proprietors of my favorite Internet radio station - are hoping to negotiate a "percentage-of-revenue" style royalty payment structure with the RIAA that would fairly compensate artists for the use of their work, while allowing independent sites to survive. This is how the previous rate was calculated. Broadcasters - including heavy like AOL and yahoo - proposed a system based on revenue to the CRB during last year's hearings, but they were ignored. The Board went with the system proposed by SoundExchange, which bases payments on the number of listeners.

(Imagine the howls of protest if FM stations had to do the same).

Still, the idea has a chance, as the RIAA backed off similarly onerous fees in 2002. We can only hope. There may be alternative solutions, as you proposed in the post I am replying to, but it would be a shame for what are essentially small business people to have to leave their own country simply to pursue their passion.

By the way, I know this isn't really your axe to grind, but any attention you could give this issue on your blog, or in general communications you participate in, could only help. There is a very short window (two weeks) where appeals can be made. A public outcry sparked by some unwanted media attention might be enough to get them to back off these outrageous fees.

Okay, I'll stop bugging you about this now.

Re:Pandora's marketing data alone is worth million

[kpharmer]

I tried Pandora for a week but grew bored with it. It seemed fine for exploring a type of music that you aren't very familiar with, but didn't seem to be very good at presenting music that I was likely to enjoy that was further outside the narrow scope of what I was listening to.

But perhaps this is just due to how their feedback mechanism works: you get three options:
        - no feedback
        - "i like it"
        - "i don't like it"
So, what then what happens when you like a couple of qualities about a given song, but dislike a even more. You're listening to accoustic blues, then hear an electric rendition of a Mississippi John Hurt tune. You like the tune, but you don't like the artists phrasing, voice or tone of his instrument. So, if you disapprove will you see fewer Mississippi John Hurt tunes? That certainly isn't what you want.

What if you're open to electric renditions of these old accoustic tunes, but just don't like that one in particular due to some other aspect? How long before you get enough chances to educate Pandora that you're really ok with electric as well? Just not that particular artist? Or absolutely not if it includes a harmonica?

Anhow, it wasn't clear what the impacts of these choices were and there was no way to be more specific in feedback. So, I kept ending up with very narrowly-scoped "stations" that would just play a single genre of music. Which became boring and hardly provided any broadening of my horizons.

Maybe I should have followed a different strategy in my feedback, but the documention on Pandora doesn't make that clear at all. In the meanwhile, I've got a local public radio station that constantly surprises me with new music that I never would have discovered through Pandora. So, that's what I spend my time listening to.

It's not RIAA music. It's any copyrighted music.

[rustman]

This is the big misnomer: It's not RIAA music. It's any copyrighted music that a station hasn't been granted explicit permission to play.

In many cases, the artist doesn't own the copyrights, the record label (small, medium or large!) has been assigned the copyrights as part of the record deal made with the artist.

Internet station can survive if they go out and get permission from the copyright holders for every track they play. This is tedious and time consuming, but still economically better than paying under the statutory license.

Boycott?

[Xenographic]

> When faced with the RIAA monopoly, many people propose a boycott that is unrealistic: People won't stop buying CDs, downloading from iTunes, or the like.

No, but you can pirate, instead :] I find that more likely than a boycott, too...

the difference between conventional radio and net

[rustman]

The difference is that over the air traditional radio doesn't have to pay these fees at all. They are granted an exemption under federal copyright law. Only digital/internet radio stations have to pay this fee, as set forth by the DRPA and DMCA. Not fair that mega corps like Clear Channel and CBS don't have to pay these fees for their over the air broadcasts which reach way more listeners, and only internet radio stations do, is it?

It will only kill those who try to stay legal.

[rustman]

It will only kill those who try to stay legal. Back in 2002, many webcasters got together, hired a lobbyist, and got the Small Webcasters Amendment passed, which allowed small broadcasters operate on a percentage of revenue model (11% aprox). The new rates start out at effectively 10-40 times what the old rates were, and by 2010 increase by 2.5x. So by 2010, legal net broadcasters will be paying 25-100 times what they paid in the 2000-2005 periods.

Of course, you can just say, screw it, and not pay, and hope you're not noticed. It's actually worked very well for lots of stations out there.

Net radio didn't cry wolf, it sounded the alarm. And only through the listeners and supporters who wrote and called their congress people was the small webcasters act passed.

We are going to have to act again to preserve the state of internet radio as it is. Only this time we should get right to the cause, and act to get the provisions of the DRPA and DMCA that removed the fair use exemptions that over-the-air broadcast radio has from these royalty requirements.

Backdating?

[jobin]

RAIN has learned the rates that the Board has decided on, effective retroactively through the beginning of 2006. So... RIAA gets paid for audio streamed in 2006 -- at 2007 rates? Sounds suspiciously similar to backdating to me. And somehow, I doubt that the SEC will take interest in this.

I buy CD's now, I didn' t used to

[Epiphenomenon]

This year I bought a dozen CD's at Xmas, the same last year. Because I heard things on pandora.com and last.com. Before that, I bought nothing.

Re:What would this mean for stations like club977

[rustman]

From what I've seen in published ratings, Club977 gets well more than twice the number of listeners that SomaFM gets, so based on what we'd have to pay JUST FOR 2006, Club977 would have to pay over $1.5 million dollars just in royalties.

Bob Bellin from mp3player.com posted this to the Pho mailing list, which really nicely sums it up:

(AQH is the average concurrent listeners to a stream)

Here is equation as it really exists: The numbers not only preclude small webcasters from existing, they make it impossible for large ones to exist as anything but a loss leader for a bigger concern. If a webcaster with an AQH of roughly 10,000 will have to pay $2 million just for rights in 2010, that means that one with an AQH of 100,000 (large by current standards but
at may well be medium by 2010) will have to fork over $20 million. In practical terms, after paying these fees there is no possible way to break even in webcasting, much less make a profit.

But don't take my word for it...look at the numbers. The current cost per thousand for national radio (the closest cousin to webcasting) is about $2. That means, the marketplace would price an ad on that station at $20. When I managed radio stations, we would assume that a healthy radio station would sell about 45,000 commercial units/year. Let's look at a best case scenario. A webcaster (AQH of 10,000) sells 45,000 units - and my guess is the best of them hasn't sold 20% of that number. And let's assume that because webcasting listeners are very attractive (for a lot of reasons - income, inclination to shop online and others) that this hypothetical radio station can get $4 per thousand (or $40/spot) for their ads. The odds of any webcaster meeting this threshold on units sold or CPM (much less both) are astronomically low, yet under these circumstances this webcaster would bill $1.8 million and would owe over $2 million in royalty fees to SoundExchange in 2010. And this equation applies to bigger webcasters as well. The bigger webcaster (100,000 AQH) would owe over $20 million in royalties but could never generate that much revenue. Jim's suggestion that only smaller webcasters will be hurt doesn't hold up under the current metric as there is no economy of scale possible under this system.

So where is the marketplace? Where is the business model? Do you (or anyone else) know of a private equity concern or angel that wants to sign on to these projections and invest in webcasting?

Note that a load of 45,000 commercial units/year is about 5 commercials an hour, much more than what many net stations are playing now.

There is no way that anyone, big or small, could make this work without making deals directly with all the copyright holders. I suspect that the big companies like Yahoo and AOL already have agreements in place with all the major labels. Because of this, they'd only be paying royalties under this statutory license for music with rights not owned by someone they have a deal with. Smaller stations without the clout to make a deal with rights holders would be screwed.

Best case scenario: prepare for lots and lots more commercials!

Re:Pandora's marketing data alone is worth million

[Com2Kid]

Too complicated though, In the 30 or seconds I visited the site for, I never could figure out how to listen to more than 10 second clips of songs.

Pandora, I typed in an artist name, and it just started playing stuff I liked. :)

RIAA has over 1000 member labels!

[rustman]

There are over 1000 labels that are members of the RIAA. Closer to 1400. Most RIAA-haters think their favorite music isn't released by RIAA member labels. You'd be surprised at how much "indie" music is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_RIAA_member_l abels

The Big 4 labels drive most of the RIAA's nasty behavior. But they're not the only members.

Re:RIAA has over 1000 member labels!

[TheUser0x58]

Well a lot (if not most) of the labels on there are actually owned by the Big 4, but there were a few that surprised me (Absolutely Kosher, how could you?). In any case, this is a nice site: http://www.riaaradar.com/ as one can type in an artist, album, or label and find out its affiliation with the RIAA.

Compared with airwaves

[Anonymous Coward]

From TFA: According to the comScore Arbitron ratings report for November 2006, the AOL Radio Network had a average audience ("AQH") between 6AM and Midnight of 210,694 listeners. Multiplied by about 16 songs per hour, 18 hours per day, and 31 days per month, plus adding an additional 10% to account for overnight (Mid-6AM) listening, suggests that AOL played about 2.1 billion songs that month. At the CRB's royalty rate ($0.0008 per play), I'm guessing that would create a royalty obligation to SoundExchange for the month of November of about $1.65 million. Annualized, that's about $20 million for 2006.

Now lets do the number on a similar 210K listeners market for what would be an average city radio using airwaves.

They have to pay 15 cents per song, 16 songs per hour, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Note I do not impose the 6 hours at 10%, since airwaves pays a fixed price no matter the listeners. That's 21,024$ for the year.

So radio wave has to pay 21,024$ for broadcasting on radio waves, while AOL has to pay 20 Millions for the exact same songs/listeners simply because it is "online".

That's great news. No, really.

[M0b1u5]

That's great news. No, really.

Think about it: no Internet Radio = more file sharing. Increased file sharing means more music available via P2P, and if its torrented, faster too. It also means, more dark-net p2p applications will be developed specifically to replace Internet Radio.

Great move RIAA! Now you have shot yourself in BOTH feet; how are you going to stand up?

Royalty Killed the Radio Stars

[Doc Ruby]

The decision ignored not only the small webcasters operating under the old (already fairly prohibitive) rules, but also some less expensive options proposed by SoundScan, the RIAA spinoff that collects the royalties (instead of the traditional ASCAP, BMI, SESAC). No surprise that the FCC screws the people who have to pay the rates dictated by the monopoly FCC: the only documents allowed in the "trial" were submitted by incumbent, huge broadcasters and a couple of tax collectors.

The old rules required $500 minimum payment a year, while 4-minute songs would cost about $95 a year per-play at .07 cents per listen. So the minimum audience (by cost) is at least 6 people continuous, which means at least 25-50+ intermittent listeners, even dedicated ones. Which rules out true "small webcasters", people streaming the way most people blog: with a tiny audience of their friends. That keeps little guys out of the business, instead of competing on innovation and quality with the incumbents dictating the rules. Their audiences and operating staffs are large enough that the new, higher royalty rates are a cheap price for maintaining their domination of media, unlike journalism which now faces serious competition (and quality demands) from little bloggers. "Official publishers", a cartel of $BILLION media corps calling the shots.

Think maybe it's just bureaucracy working with business, try finding the dates and ways to comment in the "15 day period" now reportedly underway. Or participate in the process as a consumer in any way at all.

These rules control the future of broadcasting. Including the future of TV, the digital streaming that will be the only TV after the required switchover in 2009. Which means that those 2010 rates will jump along with the new video streaming they figure out, after they see how much abuse these new rules can deal the "emerging market". The system that only telcos, cablecos and broadcasters want for themselves, while they merge like the new satellite monopoly Sirius/XM.

If anyone can find the way to comment, and to insist on rules that respect the consumers, please post them. And get your friends to use them. While it's still cheap to send group emails without being in the spam business.

Re:the difference between conventional radio and n

[de_valentin]

Yes exactly my point!
This is a newly created difference between the 2 and that makes it just wrong and greedy.
there is no real difference and as far as I know most over the air radio stations also broadcast live over the web as well. So they will also end up paying the price.

no music not anymore?

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh the kind of radio I like to hear has nothing to do with RIAA or anything. They just speak intelligent stuff, no music at all. When I want music, I like my ipod with my ripped CD's, I just don't want to be thrown random music. That's the kind of radio I like.

I have never had any problem paying for my music, but I'm just starting to get fed up with those RIAA pricks (SGAE for me).

I think that artists selling on the net by themselves would be a lot more appropriate, each of them would get what they truly deserve. Losers can get office jobs, good musicians would get lots of money. I would pay the artists I like. I have even bought on CD what I used to enjoy on vinyl, although I would feel good just downloading what I had already paid for. That's how I support my favorite artists. I do the same thing with movies I like. I should not pay that much on the cinema for a film that could easily turn out to be crap. I usually rent the movie. Movies I really enjoy, I go and buy the DVD. Only if it is fucking available (Original Blade Runner anyone??). That's a special case. If they don't bother publishing it, the work should automatically become public domain.

That's what I think.

As an aside, some background

[tkiehne]

If anyone wants to get up to speed on where all of this royalty mess came from (through 2003), here's a paper I wrote on the subject:

The Digital Performance Right and its Effects on Diversity in Webcasting

The rates have been successfully challenged and averted in the recent past, and I am confident that they can be again.

An attack on XMRadio, among others.

[acroyear]

One target of this are the radio services that aren't *primarily* internet, but have an internet outlet. AOL, XMRadio, Sirius, many HD-Radio stations, more...

This will KILL them because this would impact their online "free preview" services they use (much less their services they give to subscribers) - if you can't afford to advertise and give samples, you can't afford to get new customers, and you'll go out of business.

Thing is, under current agreements, they aren't paying the RIAA because as over-the-air broadcasters first, they pay only ASCAP/BMI/etc songwriter royalties, not performance royalties to the labels. Watch for most of those services to drop if this should go through, 'cause XM-Radio and friends really can't afford it.

Granted, this is a cartel in action and the feds CAN do something about it if people complain enough.

indie artists DO ask to be paid for airplay

[rustman]

Most indie artists are registered with ASCAP, BMI or SESAC. (Most major label artists as well.) Actually, it's the people who write the songs that register with them, as ASCAP and BMI license the underlying composition of a song, not the recording of that song.

The RIAA is involved with the "sound recording" copyright. This is administered through SoundExchange, which began as an independent division of the RIAA but is now a separate company with its board of directors made up of half RIAA types, and half people representing the artists. Under current US copyright law, over the air broadcasters are exempt from paying any royalties to SoundExchange.

The RIAA has nothing to do with ASCAP and BMI. Don't confuse SoundExchange and ASCAP/BMI/SESAC.

While some indie artists want their music played for free, others don't. I was just talking to one at Brunch today, and he was complaining that his royalties from BMI keep going down from year to year. He's annoyed that his music is being played without any compensation to him. Why shouldn't he be annoyed? He doesn't get his apartment for free, or his music gear for free.

Hobby artists are no the same as indie artists. Professional indie artists need to make money from their works. They do that from getting paid royalties when songs they compose are broadcast.

ASCAP/BMI/SESAC royalties are quite reasonable. The current royalty decision (which was driven by RIAA member companies) in many cases is 80-100 times what an internet radio station pays to ASCAP/BMI/SESAC.

Faulty logic

[rustman]

``And please don't simply cite RIAA's own page of "distributed labels of reporting companies" or the Wikipedia equivalent, because neither of those lists are verifiable of actual paying members``

Yes, as we all know the RIAA falsely claims hundreds of members who are not members.

You are confusing the term "independent label" with the term "non-RIAA member label". An independent label is one that is not owned by one of the Big 4 labels.

I'm no fan of the RIAA, but let's get the facts correct.

Re:Faulty logic

[spungebob]

You are confusing the term "independent label" with the term "non-RIAA member label".

Well, you got me there... I certainly am confused! I don't recall using either of those terms, and I certainly don't recall trying to define them as any one thing or another...

What I was responding to was GP's wild claim that "thousands" of the so-called "indie" labels which are available on eMusic are all RIAA affiliates to extent that they are contributing money to the RIAA's coffers. I simply challenged him to prove his allegation with something other than that ridiculous list which RIAA itself supplies and which everyone seems to believe represents their list of card-carrying financial supporters.

With respect to that discussion, who owns the "indie" label is in itself largely irrelevant as far as my point is concerned - what's important is whether anyone in the ownership chain is an actual RIAA member or financial backer. I think it's loopy to use the RIAA's own list as definitive proof of such a connection and I strongly disagree with GP's incredible claim that buying downloads from eMusic therefore helps to fund the RIAA.

(btw, Rusty... I LOVE SomaFM!!! You are my #1 radio station - Internet or otherwise - and I am happy to support you in the fight against this insane change)

First Amendment...? Freedom of Speech...?

[the_REAL_sam]

Enforcement of the First Amendment guarantees that we have a right to freedom of speech. They cannot charge us money to exercise that right. If I make a band, and I release my music as public domain, it can be played on internet radio stations.

There is plenty of public domain music, and [internet] radio stations have a right to play it, specifically, due to the First Amendment right to freedom of speech.

No contracts would have to be signed, for such a thing, and to block First Amendment rights would be unconstitutional.

Miranda vs. Arizona
Miranda vs. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 p.491. "Where rights secured by the Constitution are involved, there can be no rule making or legislation which would abrogate them."

Guess Iiiitt's Pirate Time

[Anonymous Coward]

Haven't any choice. I've been using the internet as cable radio every day all day for about 9 years now. A couple years of FUN and NRG out of Paris and about seven years of DI.FM. And I understand the (formerly) two satellite services are bleeding money. After years of eurotrance it has become my aesthetic and there literally isn't a God-damned thing on U.S. radio I want to hear.

I can't afford $50 import CDs so I guess it's time to fill up the file server with downloads.

Man, you're a real idiot.

[poptones]

Whether they give cash to the RIAA oe head to Hilary Rosen, they ARE affiliated with the RIAA. They directly contribute to its power base. They enjoy benefits from being a "reporting affiliate" or whater stupid wordgame you'd like to play as you delude yourself that you are not supporting the very people you claim to revile just so you don't have to go without your debbie gibson fix.

I could have listed 100 examples fo you but its oibvious even that wouldn't be enough, because you CHOOSE TO BELIEVE. Ah well, then I guess those old press releases won't make any differnce either... you know, the ones where emusic openly admit they are RIAA affiliated by way of the labels they represent.

Oh yeah... and they're OWNED by fucking Vivendi... er, they were. Until they were bought up by some obscure LLC partnership (an old trick for hiding parent company ties) that also owns "The Orchard" - a company that, itself, has a very bad reputation for screwing artists. So it goes from being owned outright by one of the largest RIAA partners to being owned by a secret partnership with a reputation for being pretty much as bad to artists as the "majors."

Now, repeat after me: Bahhh... Bahhh.

http://www.oreillynet.com/digitalmedia/blog/2003/0 8/emusic_is_a_freedomproof_busin.html
http://macslash.org/article.pl?sid=03/07/29/151021 1&mode=thread

Re:Man, you're a real idiot.

[spungebob]

WTF?!? And you're a real asshole, but that really has no bearing on your logic or subtle powers of persuasion.

All I asked was for you to simply prove to me what you are claiming, but you really haven't. Instead, you attack me personally and then throw some obscure four-year old links at me that aren't even relevant anymore. Jeezus, you even said it yourself that eMusic USED to be owned by Vivendi but instead of reconsidering your own brand of hatred you concoct yet another conjecture that somehow the new owners must also be evil and involved with the RIAA in some way which you haven't proven either.

Now if you've got some sort of problem with the Orchard regards "screwing their artists" then that's fine - you just roll with that and boycott them if you want, but that has absolutely nothing to do with supporting the RIAA and giving them money. You do recall that was the issue you raised in the first place which I replied to, right?? That whole "giving money to eMusic is the same as giving it to the RIAA" screed? I just want to be sure you remembered what the actual topic was, because your seething anger regarding my musical tastes (which you also haven't a clue about) seems to have distracted you from the original argument.

As far as believing is concerned - I'd be happy to believe what you believe. Seriously! I'll be YOUR little sheep and follow you around going baaah baaah baaah, if you can honestly prove what you said without resorting to anger or merely spouting a long list of names taken from the RIAA's own "distributed label of a reporting company" list, which everyone agrees is total misinformation. In case you really have forgotten, what you said is that there were "thousands" of labels on eMusic that "are RIAA affiliates", and the implication was that buying from eMusic was helping to fund the RIAA. Proving your statement should be easy - just SHOW ME THE MONEY! Show me a list of actual paying RIAA members or affiliates or whatever the hell you want to call them and then show me that either eMusic itself is on that list, or that a preponderance of labels on eMusic are on that list. I'll even accept a count of 100 labels instead of your original arm-waving estimate of "thousands".

Alternatively, show me where it says that a "distributed label of a reporting company" has to pay ANY money to the RIAA. Show me where it says that a "distributed label of a reporting company" gets ANY benefits at all from the RIAA or whether the RIAA has ANY influence or power over a label simply because they are a "distributed label of a reporting company". For that matter, tell me what you think a "distributed label of a reporting company" is because I don't think you even know.

btw, Hillary Rosen hasn't run the RIAA for the last four years either. For some reason, your bile seems to be stuck in the year 2003.

Why big biz likes big gov!

[SonicSpike]

This is an exact example of why big business LIKES big government. Big government has the ability to legislate and regulate in favor of big business thus stifling competition from small business.

Government should be limited and allow free markets to run their course. This is why I will be voting Libertarian every chance I get.

Re:It's not RIAA music. It's any copyrighted music

[sorcerykid]

"This is tedious and time consuming, but still economically better than paying under the statutory license."

Keep in mind that route is by no means guaranteed either. The advantage of the compulsory license is that it grants an exemption to a copyright holder's exclusive control over all related rights in the work. The copyright holder can easily say no to any direct negotiations.

Re:It's not RIAA music. It's any copyrighted music

[rustman]

You can still use the compulsory license for copyright holders that do not want direct negotiations. I actually think that this is what the big net radio services (like Yahoo and AOL) do: they direct negotiate for low rates from copyright holders, and those that they can't come to agreement with are the ones they license under the compulsory license. No need to choose one way over the other.

Re:It's not RIAA music. It's any copyrighted music

[sorcerykid]

Intriguing. But isn't that counterproductive? A compulsory license is intended to relieve the users of artistic works (i.e. Webcasters in this case) from the inconvenience of direct negotations. By securing a blanket license under statute, there is no longer any need to negotiate royalties with separate copyright holders. In fact to do so would be quite harmful -- since it would involve paying twice for the exact same public performance.

Re:It's not RIAA music. It's any copyrighted music

[rustman]

The current compulsory license is not a blanket fee. It's a charge per track per listener. If I play 10 tracks an hour that I've negotiated licenses for, and 2 tracks that I haven't, I only need to pay the compulsory license fee for those two tracks (times the number of people listening to that track).

Re:It's not RIAA music. It's any copyrighted music

[sorcerykid]

Thanks. I'm still juggling between this new CRB ruling and the SWSA which wasn't a per-performance fee. It's hard to get used to something which I was so glad to avoid all these years.

The Urgency for Comprehensive DMCA Reform

[sorcerykid]

The DMCA itself is in dire need of reform. Lawmakers need to recognize that the Act has numerous technical deficiencies and contradictions which create unnecessary burdens for Webcasters. And these corrections must occur before "raising the roof" on royalty rates for Webcasters.

The following are just a few examples of activies that are commonplace to Webcasting that finally need to be properly codified.

• Legally you cannot mix, crossfade, or even voiceover the music within a Webcast because doing so violates the adaptation right in the sound-recording.
• Legally you cannot circumvent DRM in the music that you intend to Webcast, even though a compulsory license is supposed to predominate a copyright holder's control in their work.
• Legally you cannot create CDR backups of the music that you intend to Webcast because that violates the reproduction right in the sound-recording.
• Legally you cannot pre-record entire music programs for use in a Webcast because that is a violation of the reproduction right in the sound-recording.
• Legally you cannot syndicate a music program across multiple Webcasts because that is a violation of the reproduction right and the distribution right in the sound-recording.

Of course the greatest shortcoming of the statutory Webcaster license, is that all transmissions are limited to the United States. It is imperative that SoundExchange finally renews its IFPI International Webcaster Agreement. We are one of the few remaining first-world nations that still does not recognize the global scope of Internet radio. Australia, Germany, France, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and numerous other countries are already onboard with the program. Where is the United States?

Furthmore, SoundExchange does not even bother to police Webcasters for compliance. Apparently they feel their only purpose is to be a designated collecting body -- not a performing-rights society. After all, the latter would imply that the intent of SoundExchange is to actually protect the interests of its members a la ASCAP and BMI. Meanwhile, the pirate Webcasting community will survive this latest rate-surge with few (if any) grievances. As for the majority of legitimate online radio stations, they will be forced into oblivion.

For these and other reasons, I can say with great confidence that these higher royalty rates are not justified for our industry.

Randall Krause
SWCast Network, Inc.

The First Nail In the Coffin

[flyneye]

The first nail in the coffin of the music industry and they're driving it themselves.HAHAHAHA!
Radio stations aren't going anywhere.Now instead of "pop" music with carefully groomed artists and acts we will have more obscure artists and a variety of music never dreamt of before.Unsigned,homegrown,DIY,and all those who put their music out there for free.
Where there is a demand(and there is),it will be filled.
We don't need a music industry,music will continue with or without it.Preferably without.

BAM! The future of rock & roll

[AWG]

There goes WOXY... Again.

Artists and lables should be made aware...

[Anonymous Coward]

What it boils down to is the protection of RIAA, BMI and ASCAP members. Any person running or considering running an independent Internet radio station should consider running the station without content from the above organizations. Indy artists and labels should be made aware that it is counter-productive to be part of these organizations because their purpose is to restrict airtime to all but the very well off mainstream artists and labels.

If you want to forgo paying these ridicules royalty rates and other forms of extortion, you should screen every artist and label you play and make sure they are not a part of any "official" recording organization. We should also trying and create awareness that belonging to any of the above "regulatory" organizations will shut you out of all indy Internet broadcasters. In fact, what we need is an organization to circumvent the above and allow any broadcaster to play their material for a small fee if any. If the awareness was out there and a mass migration of artists was to flee RIAA, BMI and ASCAP, you'd see the "regulations" change pretty fast.

BTW, copyright infringement only happens when a copyright holder feels they were infringed upon and lodges a complaint or a lawsuit. Many smaller labels and artists won't sue because they are trying to actually get listeners and exposure. The relationship is mutually beneficial unless the artists or label is a member of any of the above in which time as a third party "protecting" the "rights" of the artist lodges a complaint and or lawsuit for copyright infringement. The only answer is to get rid of the said third party or create a truly beneficial third party that will encourage the broadcasting of material instead of trying to discourage it. That being said, I feel the only benefit of the major regulatory organization is to stifle the exposure smaller labels and artists in favor of the majors.

It won't work

[Plekto]

All it will do is shift the markets overseas/to other countries.

And everyone suffers because internet radio currently does pay ISPs and employs people and pays fees already. But with this change, not one will be able to stay in business. Yet they will still BE in business. Just giving that money to Mexico or the U.K. or wherever our insane laws don't apply.

Good move. (insert killing the golden goose fable for the impared, which seem to be everyone in the recording industry these days)

Re:Here's an example where all the big players agr

[Atomm]

As a somewhat successful Independent Internet Broadcaster, I can tell you this guy has it absolutely correct. It is about controlling the music you hear and keeping the small guy from being heard. I play an average of 1 or more independent artist songs an hour. Big corporate music business doesn't like that. They want to control everything you hear.

I would like to address the people who keep telling us Broadcasters to play non-RIAA music. This is fundamentally flawed. First, most people do not want to hear 100% independent stations. If they did, this wouldn't be an issue. Next, the RIAA will still come after you as a streaming Internet Radio station and put the burden of proving there have been no RIAA songs played on your station. If it comes down to that, you might as well fold up because we can not afford to pay the legal costs to fight them.

Re:the difference between conventional radio and n

[LocalH]

Ok, you're completely and utterly wrong on that, so do you mind just shutting the fuck up right about now?

I hope people put their ears where their mouth is

[WretchAwry]

This whole thing is so upsetting to me. I'm a huge fan of Pandora, for one, and even though Internet radio stations haven't played a lot of artists I really love they've still played a lot of great music and don't deserve this burden.

There's been a lot of talk about how, if this stands, it'll be good for the indie artist, but there are so many indie artists and so few ever get heard. Will this make webcasters more aware of services like the Podcast Music Network and other services that offer podsafe music? Maybe, I don't know. Since audio standards for podcasts tend to be much lower than standards for internet radio streaming, there needs to be a place on the web where non-RIAA artists can upload as many high-quality rips of their music as they want.

I'll give everyone a good example. There's a woman named Happy Rhodes (it's her real name) who has been making great music for over 20 years. She has 10 albums released on indie labels and is unknown specifically because she's never been on a major label. She has 15 songs up at the Podcast Music Network and would have more except that 15 is their limit. She wouldn't appeal to everyone, but for those who like artists such as Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel, maybe Tori Amos and Sarah McLachlan, she might be right up their alley. Her music is as high-quality, though done on a tiny budget with nothing left over for promotion. She's been completely unsigned for years and has been struggling to get an 11th album finished and realeased. With NO backing whatsoever, her career survives by word-of-mouth (and, yeah, a day job). Since she has a phenomenal voice, and is as talented as people you've actually heard of and have been lauded, the only reason she's not famous is that she refused to sign with a major label because they wanted to change her name, her looks, her music, her lyrics, and they wanted to own it all too. She wasn't interested. She doesn't want to be famous, she just wants her music to be heard. She owns the rights to all of her music and can do whatever she damn well pleases with it. Anyone who's interested can check her out on MySpace (she has 2 fan pages) or look for the Song Samples page on my web site. I'm just a fan, I don't work for her, and even though fans are always going to say THEIR person is the one people should be listening to, I don't have to push her too hard, all people have to do is take a listen.

LoL! "Yet"??

[the_REAL_sam]

Yet?! That's silly. We have First Amendment rights.

The real "yet" is: "Yet people haven't been streaming free audio as much as the could have. Not yet."

Webcaster coalition in works

[sorcerykid]

A group of small commercial and noncommercial Webcasters are already banding together to launch a national trade association in response to the latest miscarriage of justice. Hopefully this means the possibility of striking a separate agreement with SoundExchange, like back in 2002. As I always say -- Long live independent online radio!

Take action to support Internet Radio

[takeaction]

Tell your representatives what you think. There are millions of Internet Radio listeners. Have them take action here: http://www.youchoose.net/pledge/keep_internet_radi o_free . Pledge your support to keep Internet Radio free. Then tell your friends to do the same.