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The SoundExchange Billion Dollar Administrative Fee
palewook writes "On June 7th, Yahoo, RealNetworks, Pandora, and Live365 sent letters to US lawmakers emphasizing they owe SoundExchange 'administrative fees' of more than $1 billion dollars a year. These fees would be paid for the 'privilege' of collecting the increased CRB royalties effective July 15th, unless the Internet Radio Equality Act passes Congress. SoundExchange, the non-profit music industry entity, admits the levied charge of $500 per 'channel' is supposed to only cover their administrative costs. Last year, SoundExchange collected a total of $20 million dollars from the Internet radio industry. Under the new 'administrative fee' RealNetworks, which hosted 400,000 unique subscribed channels in 2006, would owe an annual administrative charge of 200 million dollars in addition to the retroactive 2006 rate hike per song played."
They beat me to it. It's always been my dream to set up a non-profit (for everyone else except me of couse) that rakes in money by charging other companies fee levels that I just make up.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
With advocates like this, it's hard to believe people have difficulty taking Libertarians seriously.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
.. I'd like to see the math and results of income to such organizations and businesses ... but prior to internet.
In other words, who gets what without the internet?
As necessary as it seems, with all the snooping, the phishing, the scams, the logging, the data mining, the patent fights, and all the other crap that's going on these days, it is getting where the Internet is more necessary evil - with emphasis on the evil.
I also agree with net neutrality. That's the problem. I just hate it that anyone thinks they have to resort what is tantamount to extortion. Or that anyone has to resort to extortion.
People predicted long ago that once money got involved with the net, it would radically change. They were right. All of computing has.
The RIAA will kill off internet radio, then another piece of the 'music pie', and then another and another until it has nothing left.
...the sound of someone laughing - all the way to the bank.
All pass beyond reach of medicine. None pass beyond the reach of love.
That's funny. You know that SoundExchange is the one taking the money here, and that they're not a part of the government, right? Right?
Besides, the whole point of the idea of "democracy" is to let people complain about the government. We can complain all we want. Nyaaaah.
Is that the politicians want their share of shakedown. Has anyone noticed that Microsoft had zero lobbyists in Washington before the anti-trust lawsuit, and they now spend $200 million a year on Washington lobbyists? Internet radio will have to pay the piper.
I wonder what Real Networks will do if they can't come up with the $200 million dollars they apparently owe... They'll probably stall for time... Buffering...
Cheer up, the rest of the world will still have freedom on the internet. It's just us Americans who will be regulated out of having any expression.
We'll still be able to listen to Russian stations.
Where's you're "In Soviet Russia..." joke now, bitches?
Government to SoundExchange: What is this?! Where did you learn to charge these outrageous administrative fees? Was it from all those lawyers I see you hanging around with?
SoundExchange to Government: I learned it from YOU OK! I learned it by watching you *sob*
SoundExchange runs out of the room while Government stares into the distance meaningfully.
IOU one (1) signature
While I don't advocate someone blowing their office to flinders with a bomb or some other evil terroristic act, I am surprised that it hasn't happened yet (one would think that with all the loosely bound people in the USA, one of them would have freaked out by now and targeted them...)
What I DO advocate is that the RIAA and the MPAA and their associated organisations be banned and eliminated and the music and film artists and industry re-organise itself along more open and egalitarian lines.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
Real Networks. There are other internet radio services around which are equally affected by this.
...Am I the only one who thinks this thread reads like the Timecube site?
I just read Slashdot for the articles.
Close, the point of democracy is that people can CHANGE the government when they don't like it. Change means more than just complaining about something.
At first I thought SoundExchange was billing the CongressCritters for [pinky-to-mouth]ONE BILLION DOLLARS[/pinky-to-mouth].
Then I reread it, and realized Real, Yahoo! and the others were pointing out the consequences of the CRB decision.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Perhaps you have lost your perspective from too much time on the net. When all is said and done it's just music were talking about. People go nuts for lesser reasons, sure, but I question if the issues surrounding the RIAA has had anywhere NEAR the exposure it would take to have the statistical nutjob appear. Ask 100 people about the RIAA and 95 will have no idea what you're going on about, while the other 5 think it some kind of STD. The strong moral issues that create nutjobs don't exist with net radio. (unlike abortion, joblesness, etc)
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
IANAA (i am not an American), but if SoundExchange is supposed to be a non-profit, doesn't that mean they have to actually spend a significant portion of those funds on whatever issue they're supporting ?
I know here in Canada, charitable organizations have to spend something like 80% of their income on the cause, with the remaining 20% expected to cover administrative expenses and salaries. I could be wrong on the numbers but it's in the ballpark. There is also a limit on how long an org can sit on their money, so for example they couldn't raise 1 million in a year and siphon off the 20% over five years. If that weren't the case, everyone and their mother would have their own non-profit company as a tax-free retirement account.
And don't start telling me they're actually paying the artists. They're paying the publishers, the agents, the producers, the "everything up to 11" pop mix "engineer", and of course the lobbyists. Besides, SoundExchange's information is such a market driver that it's in the industry's best interests to have doped and skimmed numbers depending on who they're pushing that particular week.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
What ever happened to America being the land of freedom and opportunity?
Are they a non-profit organization? Who gets the money? What are their admin costs?
Apparently, the way this works is that each session between a client (that would be me and thee) and a server counts as a "channel".
If this actually becomes law, I think the proper thing to do is to sue on behalf of the "not for profit" SoundExchange (a.k.a. a front man for the RIAA) all the radio stations, counting each listener as an individual channel.
Then sue all the record stores, counting each customer as a unique individual channel. At the end of all this, no industry recorded music would be sold, and the recording industry would collapse.
It's only fair that they get what they asked for.
I think that every company that the CRB says owes them money should simply refuse to pay and force the CRB and Sound Exchange to thereby spend every penny in their coffers litigating against these companies indefinitely. It will not strengthen the resolve of the CRB or SoundExchange to behave in a manner consistent with their decisions, but will force Congress to mediate an action that will be amicable for everyone. Worst case scenario for SoundExchange and CRB: nobody pays them a single penny and they run out of money paying lawyers to sue everyone who eventually files bankruptcy protection to prevent having to pay them. Best hack ever.
Given the choice between total obliteration of our society and the fiscal raping of a few for-profit companies, I think we'll screw Real.
...So much money being thrown around and so little benefit...For most of us, it's like seeing it go straight into the incinerator.
I guess the collateral damage makes it all worth it? That's a little like killing a guy by blowing up the 747 he's riding in with 350 other people. It's much better to eliminate the laws that protect the cartels that are nearing the end of the road. But then, who's going to kill that golden goose?
What?
I was walking over to an ATM machine the other day, when I realized that many other people have the same PIN number as me. I thought "they should have a personalized PIN number." Also, my bank still uses those old CRT tubes and they are hard to read, so they really need to upgrade the whole thing. Anyway I went into the bank to sit and talk to a representative about this, and I was reading a DC comic, and the light next to me was flickering. Damn that AC current! I took out my laptop, since I wanted to learn more about CSS style sheets. (Are they under the GPL license btw ?) After about 5 minutes of reading I had a headache - I felt like an ICBM missile had hit my head! Or maybe it was from my LCD display. What I need is a vacation I thought - so I went home and started to pack my SCUBA gear.
You were doing pretty good until the end there. You should've said you were packing your SCUBA apparatus.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Don't feed the trolls.
To put the $1 billion in perspective, the net revenue for all music sales in 2006 in the U.S. reported by the RIAA was only $11.5 billion. That's revenue, not profit.
Is this a prime example of a GetRich Quick scam?
It really looks that way.
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The dollar sign is used to signify US Dollars. So, it's pronounced 'One Billion US Dollars.'
77 HITS
Really Long Off Topic Combo
Which side am I supposed to choose here? The recording industry, or Real Networks. I hate them both.
Why?
The answer to the recording industry in can guess if you actually mean RIAA. But they are not the whole industry, they only represent the biggest companies.
But why hate Real Networks? They have indulged in some dubious business practices in the past I thought they stopped those when they jumped on the Open Source bandwagon.
I dont read
If nothing else, the revelation of these so called "administrative fees" proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that SoundExchange is not in place to benefit the artists. They are attempting to line their pockets as thick as they can now that they have been given the opportunity. They are trying to get paid for song plays for artists that they do not represent and pay no money out to.
What prevents me from creating my own organization and start billing radio stations and internet sites for song plays, because I represent at least one artist (myself)? And if there is a legal reason for me not to be able to do this, how the heck did these theiving creeps at SE get the gig?
As the USA and RIAA, etc continue to crush the USA, isn't the most direct remedy
for the American media consumer to listen to internet radio from provider outside the USA?
The US GOV and commercial media can certainly herd the mass, though for the computer literate
it is possible that they go outside USA while sitting at home in USA?
Either way, the USA is turning into terrible place with much economic stagnation, not to
mention that general intellect is simply absent there.
Well, let's see here:
The recording industry wants gobs of money, is inherently evil, and hates the internet.
RealNetworks wants gobs of money, is somewhat evil, but loves the internet, puts out a very good mostly OSS Linux media player, and is just as screwed as SomaFM and (insert station here) if this goes through.
Hmmm....
"I think an etch-a-sketch with an ethernet port would beat IE7 in web standards compliance."
Are you guys actually saying the RealPlayer for linux is less crappy than it's window's counterpart? As in - not constantly putting ads in front of you, not constantly trying to sell you something?
(this is an sarcasm free question)
Yes, it is. It's open-source (Helix player), very streamlined, and I'd go as far out as to say it's better than Totem, GNOME's built-in player (which personally doesnt mean much). It is also 100% ad free, and I think the non-Open version even handles DRM'd RealMedia (which is sometimes a necessary evil). If only they'd use the profits from the ads in the Windows version to put a CSS decoder and DVD support in the Linux version so we can finally have legit (in US) DVDs in Linux. I'd even pay for that.
I hear the Mac version's pretty decent too.
"I think an etch-a-sketch with an ethernet port would beat IE7 in web standards compliance."
No. $ is used for "dollars" no matter which dollars it means.
USD 1 Billion is used to signify One Billion United States Dollars $1,000,000,000 or $1 Billion is simply one billion dollars and could just as easily be Canadian Dollars as well as US Dollars.
Signature applied for, Patent Pending
SoundExchange doesn't have to show anyone their books, but estimates of annual royalty payouts run between $20 and $35 million, depending on what number favors SoundExchange on any given day. In other words, it looks as if SoundExchange needs to spend $35 to deliver $1 in benefits. Ain't monopoly a wonderful thing?
And remember that the $20-35 million is split 50/50 between artists and copyright holders (read labels). SoundExchange, however, sets aside a full 40% of the royalty pool for claims by artists they can't find. This is the money they get to keep after three years of not finding artists. The RIAA labels get about 70% of the label share, which works out to something between $7 and $12.5 million split four ways. The A2IM, the indy label RIAA, says it gets the other 30%.
If Pandora has ten thousand listeners like me, that's twenty thousand stations times $500 per station is ten million dollars. That's probably enough to kill Pandora and any other customizable channel internet radio site. But if the internet radio site only had say five channels, that's only $2,500, easily affordable by a commercial site.
My conclusion from this little exercise is that the RIAA is out to kill customizable channels. They don't want you to learn about music on your own. They only want you to listen to whatever the latest pop sensation is. They want to eliminate choice and the extra expense of having so many artists. If they can make it so all you ever hear is the generic artist of the moment, that's all you'll know and all you'll buy.
This is all about control. RIAA wants to make sure they control not just your access to their artists but your ability to discover new artists not under their contracts. Internet radio is a growing force and a growing threat to their ability to pick what music you buy.
I can only hope that they have overreached; that the huge amount of money involved here makes their motives visible to Congress. And that Congress cares. That sure makes it sound like a lost cause, doesn't it?
That's the dumbest argument ever. It's pretty easy to stand back and say "my guy would have been better". He has never been in office, so we can't know how good/bad he'll do.
I can just as easily say "Thank God we didn't vote Libertarian. Things would have been so much worse."
Meh. I hate politics.
There's no place like
That would have been redundant. :p
:3 rawr.
yes.
1. Set up royalties collecting company 2. ???? 3. Profit!
I hear the Mac version's pretty decent too.
Interesting that this comes up when I just finished discusssing this with a friend not ten mins ago. I use the linux and os x real client fairly regularly. Id say the linux version is better... but the os x version is bad. It just seems to have the occasional visit to needing a visit from Mr SIGKILL every now and then. Thats said the real player is about a gazillion times better than the os x version of windows media player. I swear that microsoft write software for the mac just to irritate people.
Fine. SCUB apparatus.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Or are you implying that people will stop listening to music?
I've stopped listening to recorded music entirely, as a matter of principle.
illegitimii non ingravare