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60-Day Reprieve For Internet Royalty Rate Hike
Chickan writes "The Copyright Royalty Board has officially posted its ruling on Internet royalty rates in the Federal Register. However, the organization has pushed back the due date for royalty payments to kick in from May 15 to July 15. The publication of this information also begins the official 30-day period for appeals. NPR is slated to file an appeal in this timeframe."
If the appeal doesn't take hold, all the little guys will be forced out and the majority of stations will play NOT ONLY tons of advertisements, but also only popular music that brings mainstream listeners.
If they base it on PROFIT gained by advertisements, rather than per song, per user... it will GREATLY improve the chances of smaller bands to be recognized. The only people benefitting are those grabbing the cash, and the already popular musicians and stations... the little guy will get pushed out.
The majority of stations online aren't even making a lot of money, rather than entertaining a specific genre of music.
Please, write your senators.
"Please, shut up. Just when I think you can't say anything more stupid, you speak again." -Archie Bunker.
How about instead of rejecting the eventual return of royalties, we "support it", but keep extending the future date when they are supposed to start applying?
You know, like Disney always seems to manage with copyright expiration.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
Damnit. I'm forfeiting mod points to respond, but you hit a major pet peeve of mine there.
You do not get to define the terms of a debate. You do not get to say "If you do not take a particular action that I like you to take, you have lost the ability to debate this without being a flaming hypocrite." You can also lay off the self-aggrandizing holier-than-thou soapboxing, but I don't really care about that.
I'm probably not going to contact my representative on this issue. I may, because I think this is as much bullshit as everyone else, but frankly I have so much shit going on in my life right now that I just have absolutely no desire to do so. On the other hand, I decided years ago that I wouldn't give the RIAA or the MPAA a single cent, nor would I give them mindshare by pirating. I'm not going to say I've never broken that, but only twice. (It helps that I prefer books and videogames to music and movies.) And you're saying that if I don't take a single action you think I should take I lose the right to bitch about the RIAA? Um. No.
Personally, I'm also not convinced that patents and copywrites are entirely vital to creativity, but that's another debate entirely.