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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?
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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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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.
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 would have been redundant. :p
:3 rawr.