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Small Webcasters Offered a Rate Break, Reject It
Pontifex minimus writes "Music royalty collection group SoundExchange has offered an olive branch to small webcasters. They are willing to delay the exorbitant new rates set by the Copyright Royalty Board until 2010 for small webcasters in hopes that they can keep Congress from passing the Internet Radio Equality Act. Larger outfits, like Live365 and Pandora would not be affected and would have to pay the new rates. '"Although the rates revised by the CRB are fair and based on the value of music in the marketplace, there's a sense in the music community and in Congress that small webcasters need more time to develop their businesses," said John Simson, executive director of SoundExchange.' SaveNetRadio rejected SoundExchange's offer, saying that it 'throws large webcasters under the bus.'"
they know it is really bad for internet radio and this is nothing more than a smoke screen- to convince some people that they are actually trying to be fair which is absolute nonsense. if they wanted to be fair they wouldnt have done this to internet radio or started this garbage against "radio" radio either. now lets hope that they actually destroy themselves in the attempt.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
So, if band X is played on an internet radio station, will the royalties from that performance actually GO to that band? Or vanish into the black hole of "soundexchange", with a pittance going to the actual creator of the song?
they shouldn't be paying a penny more than the terrestrial stations, which has always been a simple composition mechanical.
soundexchange's first round of performance royalties in june '02 killed some 40,000 bedroom broadcasters overnight.
2010's next round will simply finish off the rest.
- js.
I was thinking of modding you Insightful, but I think +5 Funny is appropriate enough.
Insightful, because you hit the nail right on the head. The small Internet broadcasters aren't going to take a deal that would make it uneconomical for them to grow bigger later on. The prospect of just scraping by with no hope of future growth is not a good deal for them.
This sounds very much like the mafia letting someone get into the business on the condition that they don't move into bigger territory later on.
Sound Exchange will also forbid free and lower cost competition, regardless of artist and publisher intention. They will collect their little fees from everyone, in violation of Creative Commons terms. Those who want their royalties will have to join them, which makes it look like they have the artist's endorsement. Then they will have to trust Sound Exchange to give them what was really collected, less fees. In other words, the RIAA monopoly on music distribution will be extended into the future against the will of artists and the public. There is no technical justification for this, it's pure corruption.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
This is a case of scorpion and frog. You know, the scorpion needed to cross the river. He asks the frog to carry him. Frog says no, 'cause you'll kill me. Scorpion says 'why would I do that? I'd drown. Let's be friends. Frog gets halfway across, scorpion stings him. As they both die, frog asks why. Scorpion says 'because I'm a scorpion, this is what I do'.
The global music media corporations know that all the fighting new technology and RIAA extortion is not in their best interest. But they can't help it. It's what they do. They're on auto-pilot self-destruct. They're smart guys, they know this. They just can't do anything about it.
Their entire perspective is based on the not-unrealistic assumption that they are the focal point of the best music in the world. The best groups, the most talented artists have and will continue to come to them in order to distribute the recordings. They don't believe that anyone interested in a musical career would not come to them, on their terms. That's the key to their entire 'take it or leave it' approach. Because they honestly believe that no one will leave it.
What may happen is a transformation of media from a centralized distribution to a scattered and disorganized collection of xenophobic subcultures who aren't interested in sharing their music or media works. Should this happen, the media corporations most likely won't notice it. They sell primarily to young people and the percentage of people who are young is rapidly growing. So their market is growing. The fact that their sales of CDs are stagnant is truly amazing. Most likely, it's not true.
I encourage people to gradually disassociate themselves from the products of the global media corporations. Yes, it is true that you will miss great music. You will suffer the occasional social embarrassment of not knowing (actually not knowing, not pretending to not know) who the latest stars are. I'm not going to claim that it's worth it or a self-righteous thing to do. I'm just suggesting, all the celebrity media, let it slide away. There are other things more important. Concentrate on them instead.
Seriously - they want to charge Radio stations for royalties? great, let them. They want to price Internet radio into oblivion? Great, let them. Radio, whatever the transmission medium, is advertisement. Both for the ads in between the music, as well as for the music itself. The knock-on effect effect of these moves will be disastrous for the music industry in the longer term. They will get what they deserve - music sales will be further down, and the RIAA crpwd will be looking for a new job. Like, how to charge people for the air they breathe
People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
Perhaps this is all common sense to everyone else, but I am just now seeing the business angle of this issue. I am a layman on this subject, so please regard all of the following as purely conjecture:
Free/donation based internet stations play the same music advertising driven stations play, but without the annoyance of commercial interruption.
Free/Donation based stations usually have the goal of generating just enough revenue to cover their expenses, while advertising driven stations hope to generate a profit for their investors.
Since the rates paid by stations currently is a percentage of their annual income, it is more advantageous to the artists and music companies if the existing internet radio stations have the goal of generating more revenue. It is not advantageous for free/donation based stations to exist, because their profit structure ultimately means less revenue for the record labels.
I think this is why the rates have been restructured. A popular free station doesn't generate a lot of revenue, but it has a lot of listeners. These are listeners who aren't listening to advertiser driven radio, radio that ultimately generates more revenue for the record companies.
I believe the goal of the rate-restructure is to put free/donation based radio out of business. By charging per-person they take the low revenue advantage from free/donation radio, and penalize them for being popular. This forces internet radio to be profitable to survive, which means free/donation profit structures cannot exist.
I am sad to say this, but I am not sure this could ever resolve in a way to be in favor of the listener. Eclectic, commercial free radio that listeners enjoy is just not profitable to the music industry. It also sucks away potential profits from commercial driven radio which ultimately means less revenue for the industry.
There is probably no tangible way to show that independent internet radio helps to generate more industry profit just by existing. I think we have to solve the underlying economic problem before we can ultimately win.
- Yes, I am posting at a -1, and no I will not use a proxy to bypass my circumstances.
The problem is they stuck in the eighties. Back then The music industry caused suck a stink over "pirate" radio stations that the feds would just round up any unlicensed broadcasters and toss them in the clink.
That was successful and in the music industry's mind all these internet radio stations are just a new version of pirate radio.
The only flaw in their thinking is that while before they were hijacking the airwaves and breaking the FCC's laws, Now they are not breaking any laws and aren't hijacking anything.
They are so stuck in the mentality that anything they haven't sanctioned is illegal that this internet stuff MUST be against the law.
IOU one (1) signature
You can't go to the "source" anyway, because artists, once they sign up with the record labels, do not have control over their own songs.
That's how screwed up the system is.