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Day of Silence On the Internet
A number of readers sent in stories about Net radio going dark for a day. Not all of it, but according to the Globe and Mail at least 45 stations representing thousands of channels. The stations are protesting a ruling establishing royalty rates that will put most of them out of business on July 15. "The ruling... is expected to cost large webcasters such as Yahoo and Real Networks millions of dollars, drive smaller websites like Pandora.com and Live365.com out of business and leave a large chunk of the 72 million Net radio listeners in the dark." SaveNetRadio has a page where US residents can locate their senators and representatives to call them today.
...am having a day of silence on the net.
It's not going so well so far... argg... must... stop... posting...
ccalam - acoustic versions of new songs.
Is this the result of a ruling, a law, or a company decision? Who exactly has to pay and who doesn't? What do they have to pay? Why do they have to pay it? To whom do they pay it, and why them? Where they paying before? Is it a matter of amount or are they challenging having to pay at all?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Ya know, this sucks so bad that I had to torrent some music at work to listen to since I didn't have my streams. :(
Can all fish swim?
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
Is there anything we can do if we live outside of the USA? Will our voice/concerns even matter? We want to help in any way we can if it's all at possible.
Thanks.
... because my porn is downloading so much faster today!
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
And to think that Yahoo's music service (Launch) is working just as well as always, today. I had no idea that there was any kind of boycott going on. I have Launchcast streaming all day, every day. Too bad Yahoo wasn't involved.
Then how come I get the following message if I try to listen to any stream?
" LAUNCHcast Is Off the Air - It's a Day of Silence
LAUNCHcast Radio and other webcasters are silent today, from
12 midnight EST to 11:59 pm EST. A recent COPYRIGHT ROYALTY decision will impose punishing fees that could shut down most online radio.
You can do something about it. Go to www.savenetradio.org to find out more, and call your congressional representative before JULY 15th.
Today is only one day of silence -- but if you don't speak up, this could be the only sound we'll hear from online radio. "
Looks like involvement to me...
-- It's always darker before it goes pitch black.
Is there any way we could contact our regular Radio & Local News stations and raise awareness of this issue?
The local stations may not care or may even be supportive of the bans seeing as internet radio competes with them.
Won't work. The issue is that SoundExchange, which is the 'collections agency', has gotten the right to collect money "on behalf of" ALL artists, even those not registered with it. So even playing small-name garage-bands has the exact same price. The payments being foisted on the net radio companies have nothing to do with the actual artists at all.
Actually it raises awareness. I didn't even know today was a boycott day until all my favorite stations I have saved played the same message when I connected. I went to the site, found the appropriate contact information and tossed an email. Sure I admit that they probably won't read my email but they will notice that 1 because it will be part of hundreds if not thousands. Lets say 1 in 10 people listening today took the 2 minutes it took me to email them. That's 7.5million people. That's a lot of email any way you look at it.
It gets all the listeners to actually notice that this is going to happen. Maybe some of them will call their senators, perhaps enough to get the bill they want passed. Doubtful, since the RIAA can lobby via the power of bribery--er,uh... campaign donations?
Tell me something...it's still "We, the people"... right?
US NetCasters will either move to a country without those laws
OR
use an SSL tunnel to a server in a country without those laws.
I wonder what they do to Net radio stations with "ALL TALK" or ALL News" format?
Damned stupid over-bribed politicians.
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
Okay, here's what I understand of it.
In the beginning. Prior to 1995, you could 'perform' music in public, via digital broadcasting, without paying any royalties on it. I'm a little fuzzy on exactly what you used to have to pay royalties for (Wikipedia says there was "no performance right" for artists, but that doesn't make a lot of sense, I remember performance-rights cases prior to '95; I think it was just a digital thing), but anyway, in 1995 Congress passed a law granting rightsholders control over the digital 'performance' of their works. The upshot of this was that anyone distributing music digitally now had to pay 'performance' royalties for it.
Obviously, trying to pay royalties directly to the owner of each piece of music that you might play on a radio station would be problematic. It would require negotiating a license with each rightsholder, for each work, for every station. The paperwork and negotiations would be crippling. So a provision was made for so-called 'statutory licenses,' basically blanket licenses that you buy from an organization who takes the proceeds and divides them up among artists. (Blanket broadcast licenses like this aren't a new thing, but this extended them to digital broadcasting.) In return, you can play whatever you want, without worrying about negotiating individual contracts. The cost and rate structure of these licenses is set, theoretically, by the U.S. Copyright Office.
Enter SoundExchange. The RIAA [1] has a division/subsidiary/department-of-evil called "SoundExchange", which is designated, by the U.S. Copyright Office, as the sole supplier of "statutory licenses" for digital music. So if you wanted to run an internet radio station or other digital broadcast, and weren't going to stick to just playing independent artists who have relinquished some of their rights to public performance, you needed to go to SoundExchange and buy a license. While philosophically objectionable to many (including many artists!) because of the metrics they use to distribute the fees, SoundExchange had licensing terms that weren't horrific, including some that were based on a percentage-of-revenue (I've heard 10-13% quoted). So if you were running a small-time internet radio station, the fees wouldn't break the bank. This has been the status quo for a while now.
The Rubber Stamp. The current controversy started a while back, when SoundExchange proposed, and the Copyright Office approved, a dramatic rate hike. Among other things, the new rates eliminated the percent-of-revenue model, replacing it instead with a per-song-per-listener model, combined with a minimum per-channel fee, and a bunch of other onerous terms (including making the fees retroactive to some point in the past, which would instantly force any station without large cash reserves out of existence). The bottom line was that under the new fees, most small internet radio stations -- particularly those who have lots of channels tailored to particular musical tastes or genres -- just wouldn't be able to pay the bills. The effect as far as I can tell, would be to make Internet radio much like terrestrial broadcast radio: dominated by a few corporate-backed players (e.g., Last.fm), with a small number of channels playing basically the same thing. The new rates, if nothing happens to forestall them, go into effect around the middle of next month.
[1] Okay, allegedly it's "independent" now. Riiight...
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
How is this even legal? If they are collecting money for bands that aren't even affiliated with them, then they aren't giving these bands any money either, so basically they are just taking money. How do they define a song anyway. If I start up my own internet radio station, and it has no music, then I probably shouldn't have to pay them. However, if I sing "jingle bells" on air, will they now require that I pay them? What about the opening musical jingle to my radio talk show? What about if I'm a band and I let my fans stream my songs from my website for free? Does this count as an internet radio station?
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I am a friend of a terrestial FM station's president. He also streams his content, for free. Him and I were discussing this issue just last week.
/AC for a reason.
He can afford paying the royalties, if he must. The smaller shops will pay about the same.
Here are the issues as he pointed out.
1. He is going to have to pay 10x what he would have in the past.
2. The artists don't even know the cut they are going to get.
2a. The artists are beginning to catch on.
My local college radio station (WREK) will also be affected by these new regs, not just pirate radio.
Why? Because WREK streams to the internet as well as using its website to host archives of the past week's music. Missed the Hour of Slack or dozed off during your favorite techno show? No problem, it's waiting for you! It's not even different from the terrestrial radio; just packaged a little nicer for your PC.
How does forcing collegiate radio to pay excessive royalty rates help ANYBODY but these SoundExchange folks? All this is going to do is stifle new investments into the system...
Why can't these companies move somewhere outside the US? It's not like US law is applicable elsewhere in the world.
Radio silences YOU!
I know I know, I can't believe I just posted that, I also can't believe it's not butter.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Except that this day of silence is to draw attention to the issue, much like the read people stop buying gas for a day. Has nothing or at least, very little to do with making them lower their prices. This will make a lot of people aware that the net radio stations are being extorted, a few of those people will be driven to do something about it that otherwise were unaware. If even a thousand people write to their congress critters about the issue, considering 72 million listeners that seems like a reasonable figure then there may be some legislative support stepping in to fight this obvious abuse of power.
If Pandora has to pay a minimum of $500 per channel and I have roughly 22 channels on my account alone right now then they are basically paying $11,000 just so I can listen to music. Could they pass that on to me? Sure but I would stop using the service and a truly great service dies. I keep Pandora even on my cell phone because I love it so much. The pricing is out of reach because it's modeled after traditional broadcasting services which realistically don't apply to net radio with it's unlimited personalization options.
In short, the pricing is absurd and most people don't even know what's happening.
In solidarity, I won't download any illegal music torrents for 24 hours. I'll keep my uploads going, though.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Not true. A lot of terrestrial radio stations also broadcast a stream over the Internet
and, AFAICT, they are exempt from these new rules. they get to stay with the same rules as they currently have with terrestrial radio, so they get to have their current market and keep the new market all to themselves.
then again, i could be wrong, so someone please correct me if i am.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
What effect will this legislation have on shoutcast? That is the main internet radio that I listen to.
Server error 500: User should stop being so retarded and try it right for once.
How is this even legal?
It's called a compulsory license, and it's a pretty well-understood legal structure. Interestingly, this is what makes allofmp3.com legal in Russia. The terms are just different.
The goal is to make it easier for broadcasters to secure rights to the material they're broadcasting, as they can choose to make use of the compulsory license, rather than negotiating a deal with each artist individually. This is, of course, assuming the fees are fair. And note, this doesn't preclude broadcasters from securing rights from the artists themselves... it's just a pain in the ass.
If they are collecting money for bands that aren't even affiliated with them, then they aren't giving these bands any money either, so basically they are just taking money
a) The bands are "affiliated" with them because the government chose SoundExchange as the arbiter of the royalties. Complain to the CRB if you don't like that.
b) The bands are free to secure their royalties from SoundExchange at any point. The CRB website has links to the necessary forms, IIRC.
However, if I sing "jingle bells" on air, will they now require that I pay them?
If the song is under valid copyright, yes, unless you've secured rights from the copyright holder directly.
What about the opening musical jingle to my radio talk show?
Presumably you've already secured rights.
What about if I'm a band and I let my fans stream my songs from my website for free?
Well, you own the copyright in that case, don't you? So you're free to do what you wish with the material.
In the end, compulsory licensing, as a concept is a very very good idea. Assuming reasonable royalties, it reduces overall costs for broadcasters, since they only end up dealing with a single entity.
The problem comes in when the CRB and SoundExchange agree to modify the rates in a fashion which is clearly discriminatory. In this case, it seems pretty clear that SE is acting in the interests of the entrenched music oligopoly. And the CRB has apparently chosen to kowtow to those same interests.
So, I called my people in Congress. Levin hasn't taken a position and wouldn't say when he would (I'll take that as "no"). Stabenow put me on voicemail and promised to call back (funny, "no" again). Dingell, ah there's the funny part. I talk to the aide, he hasn't heard about the bill. I tell him H.R.2060 and he's able to look it up. Then says they are not familiar with the bill. I ask when it'll be voted on and the aide says the bill is still in committee. I ask, "how can I find out who is on the committee?" His reply, "Dingell is chair of the committee." Sounds like the bill is doomed.
I've noticed that every time we see an article about this issue we always get a plethora of people stating to the effect of "pfft, theres still the rest of the world out there to host servers on". Given that this is the case, and the recording industry is most likely aware of this fact, isnt it likely that this is what they would WANT?
It seems to me that they do not care about sustaining the revenues from these small operators, merely getting them hit out of the market completely. Not because they think its logical and valid but because these small stations allow for a lot more EXPOSURE to different musics. The Recording industry seems to be heart-set on controlling the united states listener market, indoctrinating them into their current "top 40 for your genre of choice" way of thinking. By keeping the royalties as a per-channel issue, the more styles people try to put out there, they have a direct incentive not to diversify. This allows the usual gang (CC, etc) to keep control of what music people are being exposed to.
How often to people buy cd's of bands they dont know? and if they manage to kill Fair-Use by the end of the day, they'll have it enforceably illegal to share with friends (in a MAFIAA perfect world).
Then all thats left is to mass produce more of the same crap, ensure its all the target market is exposed to, and guaranteeing revenue without need for unimportant points like "taste" or "quality". Seems to me the RIAA is slowly giving up on affecting the world and are instead trying to create a fortress out of the USA.
Ice Cream has no bones.
From the Cornell Law School Wex:
Ex post facto
Latin for "from a thing done afterward." Ex post facto is most typically used to refer to a law that applies retroactively, thereby criminalizing conduct that was legal when originally performed. Two clauses in the US Constitution prohibit ex post facto laws: Art 1, 9 and Art. 1 10. see, e.g. Collins v. Youngblood, 497 US 37 (1990) and California Dep't of Corrections v. Morales, 514 US 499 (1995).
The distinction between civil and criminal in ex post facto cases was made in Calder v.Bull, 1798.
You can argue The Case Against Civil Ex Post Facto Laws, but the Supreme Court is not in the habit of overturning 200 years of settled law.
" Thank you for contacting me regarding H.R. 2060, the Internet Radio Equality Act. I appreciate hearing from you on this important, and I am pleased to tell you that I am a cosponsor of this bill.
As you know, on March 2, 2007, the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) dramatically raised the performance royalty rates for webcasters. The CRB eliminated the percentage of revenue fee that many small webcasters used to determine their performance royalty. The move from a percentage of revenue to a per-song rate hits small webcasters the hardest. Royalty rates would increase over 300% for the largest webcasters and as much as 1200% for the smallest webcasters. This kind of rate hike would mean the end of many Internet radio stations that would not be able to stay in business under the crushing new royalty rates. Therefore, I have cosponsored H.R. 2060, the Internet Radio Equality Act. This bill would render the CRB ruling ineffective and would reinstate the percentage of revenue royalty payments. This bill has referred to the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce and the Committee on Judiciary.
Thank you for contacting me about this important issue. I will continue to be a strong voice for you in Washington.
Sincerely,
Mike McIntyre
Member of Congress"
"Straddling the sword of technology..."