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Internet Radio Will Go Silent on June 26th
Spamicles writes "Thousands of U.S. webcasters plan to turn off the music and go silent this Tuesday, June 26th, to draw attention to an impending royalty rate increase that, if implemented, would lead to the virtual shutdown of this country's Internet radio industry. In March, the Copyright Royalty Board announced that it would raise royalties for Internet broadcasters, moving them from a per-song rate to a per-listener rate. The increase would be made retroactive to the beginning of 2006 and would double over the next five years. Internet radio sites would be charged per performance of a song. A "performance" is defined as the streaming of one song to one listener; thus a station that has an average audience of 500 listeners racks up 500 "performances" for each song it plays."
I'm not even in the music industry, but I'll be shutting down my web site (w/a notice explaining why & a link if someone has one) on that day to bring awareness to this issue.
.... five users wonder what happened to their favorite web site.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
At the bottom of the
But what can the average person do to help stop this onslaught?
I've already contacted my local representatives in the last campaign, should I do it again?
...for the second amendment.
... internet radio stations that weren't running for profit, but simply for the enjoyment of broadcasting? How does soundexchange propose to get blood from a stone? Or would that be disallowed completely, even if the person wasn't broadcasting any music that they might have say over?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Pandora, Yahoo music and many others are participating except for CBS-owned Last.fm
Magnatune and other *truly* indie publishers go on business as usual.
The RIAA doesn't need another 500 "internet stations." This might be the biggest non-event since the breakup of the Smiths.
because, like the radio, it broadcasts a stream, users 'tune in' to the stream. The stream does not reposition for new connections that have 'tuned in' with the exception of an obligatory "THANKS FOR LISTENING TO THIS STATION" or whatever. There is no interactivity, the user can not choose where in the history of the stream to begin listening. This is a bunch of crap. =(
The Copyright Royalty Board has changed its initials to SCO...
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
If you want to find your local congress critter, and ping them on the subject, Go here. This link takes you to a nice little cgi app that takes your zip code, and gives you the phone numbers for your house and senate rep's, along with a short script of talking points. If the Internet Radio Equality Act, (S. 1353 in the senate, and H.R. 2060 in the house) can get some sponsors, and get passed, we're all in much better shape.
But this is slashdot. A slashdoter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber!
So, you know those prices we told you to pay last year? We were totally kidding about that, it definitely should have been higher then. So go ahead and fork over the rest of the money you owe us.
Seriously, though, how in the heck can a price increase be retroactive?
It seems that they got what they want in larger royalties but they're effectively shutting down the businesses that would pay those royalties. Exactly what do they think they've won here? I'm not an internet radio listener but the logic of forcing your revenue stream, however pitiful you think it might be, out of business doesn't seem to be right for anyone involved.
You want a politician to respond to you? Snail mail is *still* the best way. Take ideas from a template if you must, but make most of the stuff, if not all of it up yourself. Be concise, but be sure and make your point. Bitching about a situation is obviously easier, but I got a reply back from Senator Boxer about a week ago (with the original letter sent in late May), which stated the following:
Thank you for writing to me regarding proposed changes to the assessment of royalty fees that Internet radio broadcasters pay to musicians and record labels. I appreciate hearing from you on this issue.
As you probably know, the federal Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) has released its plan for charging online radio broadcasters for royalties. The Internet Radio Equality act of 2007 (S.1353), which was recently introduced in the Senate, would nullify the CRB's proposal and prevent the new royalties assessment plan from taking effect.
S.1353 is currently being considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Please be assured that I will take your comments under advisement, should this legislation come before the full Senate.
Again, thank you for writing to me. Please keep in touch with me about this and any other issue of concern to you.
Just because you get modded "insightful" on Slashdot doesn't mean you actually are in real life.
The fact that this price increase is retroactive absolutely blows my mind, especially when you consider how large of a price increase this will be. Retroactive changes to the law is one of the hallmarks of a failed legal system. How many radio broadcasters will even have the kind of money that is now being demanded of them?
why haven't you?
B 354BD09C1661C048825050542759970026E
http://broadcaster.pandora.com/dm?id=C22D77F98E9E
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Ok well here's talking yourself into the jaws of the lion on Slashdot and IANFRWW (I am no &*@!ing Right Wing Wan&#&!) but I struggle to see why this is inappropriate. The content of these stations is the music. The value of the station to advertisers is the number of people who are going to listen to it AND those stations use those stats to price their ads with the ad providers. Paying pay-per-track rather than pay-per-listener is clearly inequitable when the stations themselves earn money on a per listener basis. Hopefully they could create a carve-out for amateurish for-fun operations but let's not bleat for full blown commercial operations - there's no inequity here. /me puts on my flame-retardant helmet
Born down in a dead man's town
...
The first kick I took was when I hit the ground
You end up like a dog that's been beat too much
'Til you spend half your life just covering up
Born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
(pun very much intended)
This current plan to hike royalty rates would be apocalyptic for internet radio. Its retroactive effect alone (back to January 1, 2006) would bankrupt all but the huge players.
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Here are some useful sites where you can find out what you can do. If nothing else, contact your congressional representatives and tell them to save internet radio by sponsoring the Internet Radio Equality Act.
http://www.savenetradio.org/
http://www.savenetradio.org/act_now/index.html
http://www3.capwiz.com/saveinternetradio/callaler
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
I now know who cares and who doesn't. I got a letter back within about a week from Jim Matheson, our Representative, who seemed very adamant about how wrong this proposed legislation is. He even went on in detail about why he wanted internet radio to stay the way is is (or become free, even). Bob Bennett didn't respond. Orrin Hatch, who is himself a recording artist (in a loose usage of the term), seemed to be sidestepping the issue in the letter he sent back. It was almost as though he agreed with the rate hikes. How someone who gets paid to make music can support the RIAA is beyond me. Though I guess Roarin' Orrin's reply didn't really surprise me, I guess there are things in life you never get used to.
1. Video killed the radio star
2. Internet killed the video star
3. Royalties killed the internet star
4. ???
5. Profit
"To be is to do." --Socrates
"To do is to be." -- Aristotle
"Do-Be-Do-Be-Do..." --Sinatra
This issue is emblematic of a much larger phenomenon that is only going to increase over time. That phenomenon is the increasing gap between modern society and what the bureaucracy perceives it to be. The government had enough trouble when change was slow. Now as the speed of change gets quicker by the week, the out-of-touch nature of government becomes not just an issue to laugh about, but one to be of great concern. Political ideology combined with an insularity from change will stifle those who are the best and the brightest at the expense of those that are the most powerful.
This will piss me off if I've got no music. I *paid* to listen to the music there. Will they cut me off?
I understand the protest, and I sympathize. But I'm not a "free" subscriber. I've paid them for a service. Will they deliver it?
Didn't this all happen five years ago? Somafm went away for some royalty reason. Then a few years later everything was fine again. What's different this time around?
They should really be using Ogg Vorbis, because it's VBR nature means it encodes silence just that much better than MP3 or AAC ;-)
It's June. The kids are out of school. The boat is in the water. The hamburgs are on the grill. There are a million better things to do than listen to the radio - any radio.
The problem with Government is that they forgot they were trying to legislate an international network.
Radio stations like EBM Radio are purely unaffected mostly by this ruling. Of course they don't play much MPAA music as it is (otherwise why would we listen to them?)
Maybe some enterprising foreigner will setup a internet radio proxy service overseas beyond the reach of the MPAA?
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Everyone switch over to pirate radio stations, they're hipper anyway! Now if only the FM spectrum went as low as 66.6 I'd be in. "You're listening to 66.6: The Beast!"
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
The US stations could set up SSH tunnels to servers in Canada - 'internet underground railroad radio stations'...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
....establishing a network of stations, for profit, extracted out of the many and various web broadcasters.
For the only way to deal with the irrationality of what is proposed is to do so with money and teamwork between the broadcaster. And that typically happens through business broadcast networks.
In other words, what many web broadcaster have accomplished in establishing web broadcasting audience is now going to be taken away from them as they go out of business or are merged and either shut down or become part of the network controlled and profited by much fewer, and likely broadcaster already long established in radio (including those which are multimedia - ie, newspaper, tv, print... In a few words: control over the audience, for profit and advertising.
Certainly you can expect deals with the RIAA to be struck by the broadcast networks that will consume the others out of this shakedown, that will pay a great deal less per song broadcast than is being put forth now.
Retroactivity over near a year and a half, is enough to knowlingly force non-profit out and even allow lawsuits against the non-profit in order to steal their registered audience lists.
Already you have radio stations (owned by networks) also broadcasting through the web, and they loose market share to any around the world who do web broadcasts and are not part of the corporation network overloads.
Now that its been said and you have read it, you know its true!
I'll do my share and not use my bandwidth to listen to any but independant stations on the web, if I listen at all.
For what music I listen to on the radio, its very limited to less than two hours week days for wake alarm and drive to/from work. And there are no local stations that play the sort of music I really like. But for sure, the radio I listen to, they can't count me, they can't see me, they can only guess, and I'd imagine that is unlike the internet.
You have the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) mixed up with the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America).
This poo is cold.
*shrug*
Mayhap this is the boost Creative Commons licensed artists have been looking for.
The Internet radio stations should just stop playing RIAA music then.
Here's a letter from the gen manager at WCPE:
h tml
http://theclassicalstation.org/save_our_streams.s
does this royalty regime apply to the streams from XM and Sirius?
You set up a SINGLE SERVER out of the country, say Sweden, Norway, Canada. You feed a SINGLE STREAM to that server. So you pay royalties on that single stream.
Now, that server just happens to mirror out to a few thousand listeners. But it's a different server, not you the Internet Radio Station. You're streaming just a single stream...
Potential here? I could see relocating a few big boxes and a few fat pipes out of the US just for such a purpose. Could be a lucrative little business. Kind of like Akamai for audio streams...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Other than two acronym letters and the choice of medium, I would say it applies, but point taken.
Mr. Universe: "They can't stop the signal, Mal. They can never stop the signal."
If a DJ is based in America but the server that people tune into is based in the UK are they still liable? As the DJ is sending the RIAA music from America where it will matter to this law but its being Broadcast from the UK. If they aren't liable all i predict is a mass move of server locations to the UK. All that reduces is going to be US tax revenue on the server rental.
I didn't RTFA, I already know the whole story as I'm a program director for an internet radio station. Turning off the music for a day makes about as much sense as not buying gas for a day.
I do listen to a lot of Online Radio, primarily KTRS 550, and KMOX out of my home town of St. louis at work. There are some afternoon shows I like to listen too and now since I live out both of their radio range (I can get KMOX sometimes at night, but now that the Cards games have moved...)
Still I listen to more podcasts of shows that aren't in my market like the Tony Kornheiser show and then some of the ESPN shows like PTI.
I had my own radio show on the college radio back in the day, and I remember we were charged by the song, not the number of listeners, but as a low power system, I'm not sure how all those rates are calculated anymore. If that is still the case, this just seems like a way to cut competition for terrestrial radio stations.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
We have learned from the RIAA, that if you share the first part of a song on a peer to peer network, with garbage on the end, it is legal. Therefore if we play most of a song, and make a low pitch noise at the end. Effectively cutting off the last half second of a song, we would not be making a full performance per person and the record industry gets jack squat.
have a proxy where everyone logs into and that proxy connects to the radio broadcast. One connection one charge. Problem solved.
www.whitehouse.gov, www.riaa.com, www.mpaa.org What would really be interesting is if Google or another large tech company shut down their website for a day. They would lose too much money to even consider it though.
And no one is there to hear, does it make a sound?
While this is a a noble gesture, unfortunately it wont reach the people that mke the rules. The only thing that will catch their attention is cash.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The real goal should be to have the RIAA go silent for a day.
Hasn't the music industry realized yet that without radio (in any form) they would have zero distribution for new music and fall flat on their faces? If anything, these radio stations should be paid by the record labels for playing their songs for free and getting them much needed exposure, especially when it comes to the next big pop artist. Unbelievable.
17 USC 114(d)(1)(A) exempts "a nonsubscription broadcast transmission" from the exclusive right under section 106(6). I would assume that "broadcast" is defined as a radio transmission licensed by the FCC, not a packet stream sent to IPv4 address x.x.x.255.
No dealing with bad net connections or other shit. Just turn on XM receiver and boom music.
:-)
Only thing I love/hate are the top hits lists. Seems like there isn't much variation (maybe the fans really do vote for the same stuff day in day out), but fortunately there are rock/techno/classic channels to pad out the day
Nobody said you had to unicast music over TCP/IP. That was your choice. Now they're adding ridiculous rates to the mix, hey, don't play RIAA brand music. Problem solved.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
1. I myself have bought albums after hearing certain artists' songs on other net radio stations -- music I would never, ever, ever have heard otherwise except perhaps in the drunken haze of a goth club.
2. Several independent artists have sent me singles and even entire albums and other promo kits, encouraging me to put them in rotation. One synthpop artist wrote:
And another said, after sending me some tracks and I liked them but mentioned I'd never heard of this group before:
This has happened dozens of times. It's good for the artists who are trying to get noticed; it's good for the audience who gets to discover new music; it's good for the broadcaster cause it's just fun. I get permission from many of the labels or artists to play their stuff, and when I don't, well, it's a freaking 96k broadcast that can't be copied without some technical know-how (certainly much more difficult than jamming a tape into your radio and hitting "record"). Exactly who is being harmed here?
You know, there ain't no Benjamens in the net broadcasting trade. We do this for fun and the love of the music. The RIAA's outmoded and antiquated business models, and their continued attempts to strangle the life out of emergent technologies, is absolutely appalling. I'll continue to broadcast from my host in Germany and here's a big screw you to the suits. I don't make a single cent off my broadcast, and I don't play the kind of music that would come close to competing with the mass-appeal fare on the normal airwaves. You'll never get a dime from me.
mirrorshades radio -- darkwave, industrial, futurepop, ebm.
The RIAA does`nt care a bit about whether or not internet radio lives or dies. They want to be able to use the royalty pricing of internet and satellite radio as an excuse to jack BROADCAST radio royalties up to where Satellite royalties are now. The RIAA would love to be able to calculate broadcast rates the same way. 1. Set ridiculous royalty rates, 2. Get legislation to make it enforceable, 3. All broadcast methods go out of business, 4. Continue selling CD and DVD music at insane prices to people desperate for music, 5. Profit.
Tech Support: "No, sir...clicking on 'Remember Password' will NOT help you remember your password."
Somafm!
Vancouver may be closer to San Francisco, but Montréal is way cooler...
This whole fiasco only applies to the "artists" and "music" that is under the thumb of the RIAA, correct? Examples being Metallica and Avril La-fake-punk. Say I were to have my own internet radio site, playing my own original tracks and mixes of acid-techno and acid-house, as well as my dozens of contacts and Live PA partners and their music, would I be safe from this? Mostly, I don't give a damn about music that is controlled or even touched by the RIAA with a ten foot pole. Real musicians don't need those jerk-offs, anyways. Long live independent labels and artists! 3
Internet: Serious Business
This law only kills internet radio in the United States, it doesn't affect internet radio stations outside the US. I already listen to stations outside the US, and I'm sure there will be a heckuva lot more if this legislation passes.
So, in effect, this law will only serve to outsource these stations to other countries -- places where the RIAA can't extract any royalties at all. Brilliant, RIAA, brilliant...
...public radio broadcasters will be paying the same rate of one performance per citizen of whatever broadcast area they cover. For instance, perhaps WKRP would pay for the population of Cincinnati each time they play a song?
Seems equally logical to me, eh?
In B.C., our fascism is green.
Dunno if this will get read as this post has gone on awhile...but I was under the impression that the RIAA only has something to do with those labels under it's...um "Association." So, say Metropolis Records wouldn't be under them. Does this royalty thing only apply to those artists under the RIAA? What if an artist says "no I don't want royalties, I want radio play" (indie artists and small labels and such)? It seems to me like the only artists complaining about money are those under the RIAA, not Dark Angst, the German industrial-techo-clash-insert-genre-here-band or Jo Bob the Bluegrass fiddler. What if, as a musician I stream my own music? Do I have to pay myself royalties??
Shut off the whole freakin' internet for a day in protest.
I'm all for it. Everybody should at least try having a real life for at least one 24-hour period anyway.
Now I can start bittorent, so I have for at least 24 hours music
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
USA != Internet.
That is all.
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PGP Key ID 0xCB8FF658
This might actually be a good thing. How? Internet radio webcasters could still use non-evil licensed music such as available on places like magnatune.com. That would then give the non-evil music more air-play and boost its acceptance over that of the companies with the old business model of music (based on rape the listener just enough to avoid their death). Carried far enough, maybe the old business model will finally die the death it deserves.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Simply appallingly outrageous...but then, what else would you expect from corrupt U.S. politicians?
So, do 'regular' radio stations pay per user? Of course not, since there is no way to know how many people are receiving a typical AM/FM signal. But, hey, let the lobbyists bend the ear of politicians, and bingo, pay per user per performance. Hardly fair, since AM/FM stations are not targeted like this.
But according to the RIAA, you'd be wrong.
mirrorshades radio -- darkwave, industrial, futurepop, ebm.
You think real estate prices, gas prices, health insurance prices, beef prices, college tuition, and toothbrush prices can quadruple while music royalties stay the same? This isn't Japan. It's U. Know. Where.. Inflation is a fact of life.
Let mp3/ogg/wma/whatever propagate where they will. If you never pay for music now, you never will. And then there are those like me who like to sample things before spending money on it. If it's something I won't listen to more than a few times here and there, I likely am not going to buy it. Why should I? I'd be happy to just listen to it on the Internet streams or radio when it plays. No need to own something like that. Of the mp3s that I have downloaded, I've either bought the CD used (or borrowed from a friend if even the used price was ridiculous ... usually the 'one good song on the whole disk' situations), or simply removed the downloaded stuff, since it isn't something I listened to much, and if I did, I'd want better quality.
Use compressed music as advertisement.
Artists should be making most of their money off of live performances.
Sell CDs for a reasonable price (this is the real problem, RIAA. Why are you too greedy to see this?). $10 instead of $20. I *might* pay $15, if it is an artist I really dig and there are a lot of good songs on the CD. For older music, sell it for $5-$8 per CD. Sell MP3 CDs with 3-10 albums on them in compressed format for $20 (or the equivalent online, whatever).
Why is this so difficult? People don't pay for the shit because it's ridiculously over-priced. I definitely won't pay for compressed music, and buy most stuff used these days, or from local bands themselves at CD release parties ($5 a CD).
Compressed music == advertisement for the real product. If your product isn't worth paying for, then maybe you should fix THAT problem. For stuff I like and want to add to my collection, I much prefer having the uncompressed 'master' to encode and catalog as I see fit. (on that note, stop with the bullshit DRM crap, Mmmkay?).
Just some of my thoughts on the subject.
What exactly would this accomplish? Whether I listen to an FM station or an Internet station... as a consumer I've paid nothing
Silencing the internet stations will accomplish nothing more than giving up what they are fighting for. So I can't listen to my favorite internet stations...oh well... I'll actually take 2 seconds out of my life to tune into a conventional radio station. And they'll get exactly what they want.
Don't get me wrong... I support internet radio, however this type of action is well... counter productive.
That's exactly the point. To get the attention of selfish people like you who will only take action when their daily routine is affected.
Maybe instead of complaining to us, or to pandora, you should complain to Congress. Make the need for such outages unnecessary, and we'll stop promoting them.
But I somehow got the (mistaken) idea that all their stuff was indie stuff. It's not. They play plenty of RIAA stuff, which means my listening to them (even their subscription-free advert-paid streams) winds up putting money in the pockets of the RIAA, who in turn use it to lobby to take my rights away.
So, I stopped listening anyway. Sorry internet radio...but you shook hands with the devil. You are on your own.
Find any and all video streaming sites, find all music videos therein, attempt to charge hosting site and/or uploader per view, counting each view as one performance.
It's logical, isn't it?
Seriously.
NWA sold 2 million copys of their album (at the time) without ever being played on the radio, that made corporate america shake in its boots. Death row records with tupac and snoop dog sold over 100 million copys with minimal radio play. That also makes corporate America shake
You slashdotters say what you want about rap. Call it crap, gay , wigger music or whatever. Bottom line is, these people had the balls to stand up to the industry and do things their own way. If I am a good musician, have a good product, people are going to want it. I will then collect my own royalties and air my own music on my own internet radio stations that I pay someone to code for me. Why the fuck all the middle men?
It wouldn't be the first time that telecommunications or internet services have moved out of jurisdiction because of (mostly) stupid laws that have yet to be repealed.
I wonder if enough streaming radio based companies/organizations/etc. got together and decided on a friendly island nation that they could pool enough assets to get some overseas broadband trunk dropped in. There's got to be a couple places that would go for that. Then they could operate freely and thumb their noses at the system.
Look at online gambling for instance. People simply get foreign online bank acounts to pass funds through and work around any possible blocking by proxy. May not be legal, but I'm guessing there's people that don't have problems doing it.
Streaming radio wouldn't have the layers of taxes or income associated with gambling, and blocking the protocol would probably infringe on other nation's soverign access to the net (or something like that.)
There's plenty of internet radio OUTSIDE the USA ;-)
(Mind you, some poor Australian just got extradited recently for breaking US law although he'd never been to the USA)
Bring on peak oil, I say.
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No, wait. "Life" is what you'd have if you weren't trolling Slashdot.
I know this is contraversial, but for a good number of them, I say "balls to you". As a Brit, I see many US based Internet stations acting as parochially and as US-centric as your terrestrial stations do. I understand that most of their listeners are in the US, but they're not going to get many international listeners unless they open up a bit. I'll give you an example:
To highlight the royalties problem, a series of stations are putting ads in the stream which say something along the lines of, "the Copyright Royalty board just raised rates for this station. If this new rate increase holds, most Internet radio stations will close - they won't be able to make their royalty payments. Visit savenetradio.org, today, voice your opinion..."
For all you Americans, I'll translate that into English (which is far more compatible with people that live outside the US and are either British, or speak English as a second language).
"The US Copyright Royalty board has just raised rates for this station. If these new rates continue, most US based Internet radio stations will close - they won't be able to afford the royalty payments. Visit savenetradio.org and voice your opinion...".
There's another ad that's even worse, asking me to talk to my senators. Well, guess what, I don't have any. There's nothing wrong with promoting US culture or style, but this isn't even that - it's just plain ignorant.
When these people start even vaguely acknowledging the existence of the world outside the US borders, then I'll start feeling some sympathy towards them. Right now, this is effectively a US-only problem, confined to the US. The billions of people, and thousands of 'net radio stations in other nations needn't worry about it. Besides, you can bet that a whole load of these stations will start basing themselves out of non-US locations pretty soon (which with a bit of luck will make them realise there's a world out there).
I guess it may just be my age, but playing other people's records seems like a rather vicarious talent. Is it really a "right" to make a bit of pocket money/find small-pond fame/be cool-by-association on the back of someone else's creativity?
Most people want to hear songs that are familiar to them and those songs becomes familiar largely by being pushed by an industry that has honed its art since the days of sheet music. If you want to be associated with/exploit the the public image of a band or its music, then you have to buy into the system that delivered it and pay the cost.
Of course, these broadcasters could spend their day off-air commissioning or creating some new and original music, but that would cost money or time and probably no-one would listen to it. But at least it would be a genuinely creative activity.
Because you can "opt out" and tell the RIAA to go screw themselves if you like. And, in the example of Magnatune (and sites like them) this can be included right in the agreement - ie if you release a work to Magnatune you tick a box and they automatically handle the "opt out" notification to the RIAA.
Or, better, still, we get some sensible laws just as soon as someone takes the time to challenge this ridiculous law in federal court. It is, after all, a violation of copyright in that it allows the RIAA to essentially claim rights on your behalf that you may not want claimed... actually, it's little different than the Google "opt out" program the copyright statists are being so pissy over. Of course this essentially means exactly what I initially said will be the scenario because the RIAA is never going to go after a station that provably plays only "independant" material of the sort mentioned - because the last thing they want is such a precarious law to actually be tested.
What about a new streaming protocol where only the stations original content is streamed to all listeners ? ;-)
RIAA song are then only send as a playlist entry. The player can the play the local copy or request it from the station if its not buffered locally.
This should cut down on the broadcasted song per listener count
The application could even be expanded to automagicaly substitutes songs you dont want to hear or to play your own local hi-res version.
How long before some enterprising lawyer manages to get this applied to broadcast radio? what would Clear Channel owe I wonder?
The only real impact of this will be to move all of the internet radio industry overseas. Why does the government want to lose the US employment base, I wonder?
What will happen when this becomes an issue in the next election? It will, as this is a decision of the FCC, not a result of any act of Congress. The Dem's are gonna blame the Republicans solidly for this fiasco.
Just a few questions. No answers yet.
Everybody knows 3 people with my name.
You assumed that the elected representative looked at your letter. Bad assumption. That is the job of a staffer, who compiles a list of opinions each way for the Rep/Sen. They don't physically have time to read all of thier mail. Bulk e-mail just gets bulk deleted. Unread. Even staffers don't have time to read all the botnet sent letters they get. There are only occasional letters actually read by your elected representative. The best of the best, or one from an identified large donor, or one from someone who needs help that can make the elected official look or feel good.
You can figure it out, at 3 minutes per letter, 10,000 letters means they would need about 30,000 minutes per week just to read the mail. that's 500 hours per week. A full time job for about 12 people. This is assuming the letters actually get read. the staffer using a form letter to answer will not have that much time. More like 20 seconds really. Do the math.
Still, your opinion will be entered into the matrix, what's done will usually be where the majority opinion lies on that matrix.
Everybody knows 3 people with my name.
Nobody likes the laws that the USA's moronic leaders make due to pressure from greedy corporations.
Then every other country wants to enter in to trade agreements with the world's bully and accept all the same crap laws.
I thought that wisdom came from the collective group, not the individual. Doesn't seem to work with western nations.
Money talks. We listen.
Flamebait? Thanks, now I remember why I dont waste my time posting here anymore...
Internet radio was my last legal netcreation.
sometimes, nothing.
The finnish counterparts to RIAA killed off web radio in finland ages ago with the same thing.. I'm pretty amazed the US are so far behind.
Soo.. the RIAA will end up snuffing out US internet radio, and instead of taking in the 22+ million a year they currently receive from internet broadcasts, now will get virtually NOTHING, and at the same time failing to actually snuff out internet radio because everyone will simply tune into foreign stations. Yeah, real brilliant RIAA.
The only logic consecuence to this is the Internet radio will move to countries that don't pay any royalties at all. Internet is true global issue. What will be next? Maybe to block and censure 'illegal servers' because they come from some countries?
If this royalty hike goes into effect, we're going to lose a HUGE amount of good music in general. If anyone out there enjoys only listening to Clearchannel music all the time, they need a good slapping, if you ask me.
I'd also like to say that calling your senators and representatives is still a really good way to get their attention - whatever you do, just freaking do it.
brian botkiller "Condensing fact from the vapor of nuance" - Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash
I've never listened to internet radio for more than 20-30 seconds at a time. Much like normally broadcast radio, I just never find anything that interests me long enough to stay on. Or if I do, it simply prompts me to listen to a song from my library. But, this is just further proof that most members of congress are out of touch with their country, the world, and reality as a whole. I support the radio shutdown, as I do any other protest.
But, I have a question for those who know law better than I: Is it really legal to charge royalties retroactively? It seems akin to me purchasing a CD, and a month later finding it no longer plays, because the price has gone up for buying it new.
Don't like RIAA's policies and the licensing used by most modern record companies? Don't patronize them! I mean, really, do you whine about Microsoft and Apple charging a license fee for their os's -FOR EACH COMPUTER !!!!OMGBBQ!!!- or do you give them the finger and install FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Linux, FreeDOS, or some other free OS?
Look, start at the bottom... http://www.archive.org/details/audio and http://music.podshow.com/, then look around for bands and performers that offer music with licensing you approve of. Then, add to it! Make your own, create new versions of public domain music. If you can't play an instrument, use a sequencer! Look up open source projects like Rosegarden, Timidity and Audacity!
This is _SLASHDOT_ Why am I seeing so many people whining about commercial entities enforcing their copyrights instead of people laughing and showing off their new mp3 of "Ride of the Valkyries", done with guitars, a little keyboard and a heavy bassline at 120BPM? I mean, come ON people, the Creative Commons exists for a REASON!
Don't pirate, don't whine, create something and make it freely available, advocate PD, Creative Commons, "Open Source", and other fairly licensed works!
Apple, Microsoft and the entire software industry now takes *BSD and Linux seriously because the community did that with operating systems, so darn it, learn from a victory and do it with music, books, and movies! Where are the sections for those on Slashdot? Where are the announcements of them, the articles, the links, the ADVOCACY?
Vote with your dollars and your attention, show them how they are alienating you by supporting the changes needed in the market!
Ignore RIAA and the MPAA, and focus on independents! -BECOME- an independent!
Why should we care about this sort of thing again?
So what's this protest supposed to do? Make "the man" realize he sucks and change his ways?
Drop the pop music and support music licensed under gpl and other open licenses.(ok I know gpl doesn't cover music)
If all of a sudden unknown artists got airplay fast and thick and the industry babies got none,now that would stir things up!
Misdirected energy on the radiostations part.If they just continue to play pop,who really needs internet radio anyway?
I've got several actual radios that do that already! Make a diff, then the world will care.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Now instead of copyright damages of 18 million dollars or whatever for having a song shared for a given amount of time based on how many copies they assume could have been downloaded, all we have to do is keep logs of how many copies are actually downloaded from us, and each one counts as a "performance". Maybe not free, but a hell of a lot cheaper than what they're suing for.
We've secretly replaced Slashdot with new Folgers Crystals - let's see if it notices.
If is not congress that is suppressing our right to listen to music now they are charging DJ an exorbitant amount of money to stop us from listening to music. It is pity to our nation where they allow this economic terrorism to happen to us. They are not going directly kill us but use economic means to "kill" our lives.