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U.S. Court Denies Webcasters' Stay Petition
Michael Manoochehri writes "Reuters reports that a "federal appeals court has denied a petition by U.S. Internet radio stations seeking to delay a royalty rate hike due July 15 they say could kill the fledgling industry." This royalty rate hike, put forth by the US Copyright Royalty Board, will increase royalty rates for webcast music tremendously, in some cases to more per year than many webcasters bring in from revenue. Save Net Radio, a coalition of webcasters, is telling listeners that "We are appealing to the millions of Internet radio listeners out there, the webcasters they support and the artists and labels we treasure to rise up and make your voices heard again before this vibrant medium is silenced.""
Whoever has deeper pockets wins.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Does Taps require any kind of royalty fee to be payed? Perhaps web radio stations should play it all day, every day, until their final day.
Just because you can, does not mean you should.
I don't think congress is going to fix this tomorrow ... so the RIAA should get what they deserve and lose all their royalties altogether.
Fuck 'em. I expect everyone has had enough of their shit.
It's just too bad that all the honest people in this new business are going to have to suffer for it.
// Agent Green (Ian / IU7 / KB1JQO)
// IEEE 802.3: All 10base Are Belong To Us
Is this going to make the royalty rates for internet radio higher than standard over-the-air radio royalty rates?
The begging is pathetic. You don't try to worm your way into getting a broken system to work. You fucking bypass it. If they aren't ready to do that but would rather beg their audience fuck them.
What needs to be done is putting that whining commitment (and the money they are frittering away) into something that supports the cause as they see it. Namely an alternative for licensing that promotes reasonable use (as seen by both the artist/label and radio/streamer/etc). If they aren't willing to do that then let them hurt until they see it more clearly. The RIAA and the US Copyright Royalty Board are both well funded and motivated by *their own interests*. Not the label. Not the artist. And you want to crawl in bed with them? !!!
Sorry if I'm ranting but this is just so fucking stupid.
FTR, I AM a internet broadcaster. I try to work closely with the artist because A) I support small artists which tend to be interested that you're interested B) I can't afford the royalty schemes, I can't afford the management of the license. I have a day job that lets me afford the whole project in the first place. Fact: 99% of artists want 1) to protect their property (fair enough) 2) to be heard (guess what they love? that right what they do).
Personally I think this is the best thing to happen in a long time. Let the poor morons sink. Lose millions of dollars or whatever else they fear will happen. Maybe a few with some cash (like they money they've wasted fight this..) will wise the fuck up and setup means for artists/labels to provide limited rights to broadcasters. This should have been done ages ago. Take back control.
Quack, quack.
> There's a few, shall we say... urgent matters that need to be holding their attention right now.
a merica/contact-information-for-50-politicians-who- take-campaign-money-from-the-riaa-264638.php
Let's see.
Senate's recent accomplishments:
* Voted not to Vote on the Immigration Reform Bill
* Voted not to Vote on firing Alberto "I don't recall" Gonzales
Congress' recent accomplishments:
* Passed another 'Get out of Iraq' Bill that the President has already said he'll veto.
No, they've got time to do this. Congress may have received half a million messages. I'd suggest the Webcasters get their audience to donate to a fund that will in turn donate to these politicians who accepted money from the RIAA. It would make the point beautifully. http://consumerist.com/consumer/worst-company-in-
I subscribe to Pandora, which has really helped me find new bands and music, and they send out a message every so often about this, asking for our help. They give phone numbers for local congressmen, as well as some places to find half-canned scripts to mail in. I would like to see Pandora stick around, even if it meant I did a paid subscription (which I am willing to do, if they can move it into its own client), but I really can't see any action I could take affecting it.
This kind of issue seems too "localized" and small scale for any Congressman to give a shit about, not that know what the hell is going on in the first place. I could call or mail, only to have some intern glance over or listen to what I said, and in return give me the closest canned script that works for this situation. Then of course are those Congressman who are being paid off, and would turn a cold shoulder to it, anyway.
If I believed in market forces more, I would say that this is something that the market would take care of; sadly, the greed and conspiring of large companies coupled with the stupidity of most consumers guarantees that this would stay in effect for quite a long time without a high-level intervention. So what, exactly, could I do without a complete hopeless feeling? I'm sure common answers would be to donate to the EFF, UCLA, or some other activist group, which is not a bad idea at all, but I lack funds.
More aside from the point, even more sad is that it seems that I would have about the same effect on any issue with a congressman, from internet radio fees to the use of taxpayer money in regards to education. Perhaps it's a current bout of depression talking, but I can feel nothing but a sense of hopelessness for this country in the future, looking at the way things are turning now.
The problem is that webcasters can't even do this. July 15th the royalty rate hike goes in effect for songs played up to a year ago. On this day even if all webcasters switched to open music, many of them would go bankrupt.
As we watch corporate america slowly suffocate american culture, what will history call these days? The day the music died?
"Internet Radio will morph into P2P streaming and offshore stations. It's not going anywhere."
The second part I see although I should point out a lot of stations are already overseas. I use to listen to French and German sites. As for the first, I don't think P2P was made for the kind of streaming that stations do.
I've let both my Senate and House reps know that 1) I vote, contribute $$$, and 2) This issue is important to me and 3) I have influence on my voting friends on technical issues and 4) I will be very unhappy if they fail to represent my interests. Yes, this includes paper, online petitions, email, and phone calls.
While no single issue would cause me to actively campaign against an incumbent I like, I still want them to know that I'm watching what they do and will actively work against them if they don't consistently stand up for my interests. It's too bad we can't force a re-election on newly elected reps that don't deliver.
Corporations can't vote. Remind your reps of this.
Moderation in everything, including moderation.
http://blog.wired.com/music/2007/07/breaking-news- o.html
Just saw this posted on Fark. Sound Exchange, who I'm assuming are the people set to collect all the royalties, vowed in front of Congress not to enforce this against internet radio until new rates are worked out.
What is the situation in other countries? It makes a mockery of the whole system if US webstations have to pay royalities for playing a Beatles song, but the same song played by an Australian or British webstation is exempt/has cheaper fees.
After all, when it comes down to it the stations are more or less competing against each other.
It is kinda fun watching the RIAA trying to piece together their egg of influence after it was cracked by the sledgehammer of globalisation.
If the pattern goes 9am, 10am, 11am, why isn't noon 12am?
What's their collective over-all general take on this? Do they care that they won't be played much on the internet now, or what? Do they honestly think all these little stations can pay those exorbitant rates? It's certainly quite a strange situation.
Second point, won't this just mean that a lot of stations will switch to outside the US hosting?
Third point-good luck generation x and y. Now is the time to show if you have any actual political muscle or not. I'm a boomer, thinking back, last time I had anything to do with music and the radio and politics was an incident where a local college decided to censor their online little micro fm radio djs (girlfriend I had then was one of them) back during the viet nam war period. With one days notice we shut that school down, I mean a complete halt. No one went to class, buildings occupied, we just sat and said no censorship, free the station, etc. It worked, the authorities caved. I guess times change, so much is done online now that "in your face" brand last ditch activism type protesting has become passe or something.
Now I don't listen to online music streams, no huge interest, grew out of my nonstop music addiction years ago, I prefer talk radio now so this doesn't affect that, but for those who do, may I suggest you get on the stick and actually do some work beyond sending an email if this really is an important issue for you.
Congresspeople and assorted business folk just dump negative email like you would delete spam, they just don't care all that much. Real phone calls, snail mail, faxes, and personal visits get more attention, especially if you are cogent and to the point and show that you have a good grasp of the situation. Remember to keep it simple and to the point, overly emotional or complexities will get you ignored and dismissed out of hand as just a kook or something.
Back to the musicians, and their assorted parasitical business partners.. this is directed to you. Are you guys just crazy, or what? I follow this entire copyright and electronics thing a little bit, and it just seems you are bound and determined to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs without fail every single time you have a chance to prove otherwise.. You never miss, every single time, shoot yourself in the foot. Classical definition of insanity, keep doing the same thing expecting a different result..
To *you* folks I suggest getting with the technological program. this is the 21st century, not the medieval period with hand scribing by monks, get it? Digital bits are very, very, VERY fucking cheap-don't be so greedy. Think super high volume, not high net profit per digital bits copy, and you'll do a lot better overall long term.
Now, all of you punks, get off my damn lawn!
Although, I reckon if anything kills internet TV and radio, it will be ISP's (poorly implemented) traffic shaping systems. Ever since my ISP increased the bandwidth to 3mbit/s, but introduced traffic shaping, the performance of even low bitrate streaming media has turned to crap. It's because every packet gets inspected (apparently) which causes all kinds of lag. Speed tests show I'm getting the full download speed at most times.
Politicians have NOT killed the golden goose. They have made it safe for large business and only for them. Look, the last time this came up, I suggested that these stations play groups that are not associated with the RIAA. Apparently, the RIAA gets to collect it wether the group is signed up or not. Amazingly, the group gets to KEEP that money until the music group signs up with them. And they do not have to pay interest. That means that congress has given RIAA a monopoly. In addition, they have eliminated the competition for the broadcasters, by pricing it too much for the little guy to pay. But where are you going to go? Streams from another nation? W. is running around trying to kill them all off.
The only way that I can see this happening is if the muscian's OWN the stream site that plays them. Imagine a site that is devoted to the 90's, might get 10 groups (from the 90's) to BUY into them. 1 share each. They pay the musicians the old rate. As time progresses, they would get more groups to buy into them. I think that it is possible that the company could even allow other groups to own them or perhaps buy into them. Just 1 share. I think that is all it would take. Any lawyers out there? Tear this apart.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I think many internet radio stations will just move to less retarded countries than the USA and continue broadcasting. We have Dutch commercial TV stations that are officialy based in Luxembourgh. They were founded in th mid-1980's to circumvent the stupid Dutch laws that were in place at the time. Later on the laws were changed but the TV stations are still officially in Luxembourgh. I don't see why this shouldn't happen to internet radio.
-- Cheers!
Either way, it's way too effing long, that something created around the time my great-great-grandparents were born should only come into the public domain during my lifetime.
I think you need to do some research on the issue.
This isn't just a dispute between the recording industry and some radio stations. If it were, it would be settled according to contract law and that would be the end of it.
SoundExchange has been granted a special distinction -- a monopoly, in fact -- by the government (in the form of the Copyright Office), allowing it to sell special 'blanket licenses' to broadcasters. These licenses allow a broadcaster to play whatever sort of music they want, without having to worry about getting permission from each individual artist. They are an absolute requirement in order to broadcast music, either terrestrially or digitally, unless you stick only to the very tiny minority of music that's freely licensed, or you negotiate individual licenses with each rights-holder (which is not only the artist, but could be the person with the rights to the score, the rights to the lyrics, etc., in addition to the recording itself), which is obviously impractical on anything but a trivial scale.
SoundExchange is the only place that one can go to for this, by law. Therefore, I think it's entirely reasonable for people to protest the rates that they charge, since they were granted their entire business by the Copyright Office, which is a government agency. SoundExchange is allowed to speak for all artists, and license the copyright to all artists' music, only because the Copyright Office says they can. They don't "own" the music they purport to represent; it's not "theirs." They don't own the rights to anything.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
If you don't care, why did you post a comment? Anyway, I'll bite on the troll fishing line here...
It's important because those who enjoy music are getting less and less of a choice. Whether its DRM, radio industry consolidation, or music industry consolidation, it seems that if we just want to listen to music and other content using the technologies that have been invented and developed, there is something or someone getting in the way.
It's not just a flawed business model. A lot of people do it as a hobby. A lot of webstreams are "microcasts" of programming that we can't get over the airwaves because there isn't a market for it, or because the commercial broadcasters don't care about it (or isn't profitable enough). It's also about the uncompetitive edge that over-the-air broadcasters have in not having to pay SoundExchange royalties for their broadcasts, yet webcasters having to pay them because the RIAA believes listening to web streams encourages piracy (because everyone rips streams off their computer and doesn't buy a CD instead).
Most of all, its because this was all pretty much free to do until a few years ago. Personally, I was grandfathered in on Live365, and had a free, unlimited streaming account because I beta tested for them when they first started up their streaming services. All "hobby" accounts were free for several years. It wasn't until the RIAA thought that they should be paid royalties for these songs did it become a problem, for both the hobbiest and for the for-profit broadcaster.
So that's why you should care. If you don't, well, don't antagonize the rest of us with your elitist bullshit attitude. Just move on to the next article.
End rant...
How is it the will of the artists when NiN were stunned to discover that stores were charging a $10 premium on their new CD (Year Zero) simply because they're NiN? They don't get a single penny of that $10 premium.
grey wolf
LET FORTRAN DIE!
ago I decide to tell the RIAA to screw off and have not bought one single album. Don't feed the beast.
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!
First did anyone even watch the Congressional hearin on this matter? Its up on you tube to see what what stated. Second has anyone even looked at Sound Exchanges website? They have offered for any webcaster making under 1.2 Million a year to cap the rates for small webcasters http://www.soundexchange.com/documents/07_06_29%20 Fee%20Cap%20June%2029%20release%20FINAL%20_2_.pdf
They are trying to hit the Big webcasters (Yahoo, AOL etc) with this rate increase and are trying to work with the smaller ones and Public Radio.
Do I agree with any of the increase, not really, but in the same respect, I can understand why they want to do it. I would much rather see them use the 7.5% of revenues like they do with satellite. Add on that any webcaster can make individual agreements with any label/artist that will allow then to play their songs without touching Sound Exchange.
Why are the smaller artists who don't want internet radio to be shut down going to the big stations at least if not the smaller ones and promoting this fact?
The one sided look at it all really make me disappointed in a community that has a lot of intelligent people on it.
*puts on flame retardant underwear* Go head, flame away, Oh and yes I do DJ for an internet Radio Station that is extremely small (average of about 35 listeners) So I have been watching all of this very closely.
Just realise the reality of the situation..... There is no reality.
I listened to internet "radio" in the beginning just because I could but the novelty soon wore off. I guess there are still people who think it is the dogs bollocks however. I skimmed over the savenetradio.org site and noticed a trend. The bands that are saying net radio has helped them are the bands that don't get played on real radio and most don't have record labels. The listeners who I see whining about this the most are the ones that say they've discovered all of these indie bands through it. So why don't the net radio guys and these independent unsigned bands get together and come up with their own terms for royalties? They could even go a step further and form their own recording industry association and work on creating record labels run by people who actually get it.
I always hear people say that the recording industry needs to change. I don't think it does. I think it needs to be replaced. In the early days of radio artists would make a recording and take them to radio stations to get airplay. This is exactly what the indie artists are doing today with net radio. According to Arbitron ratings, between 50 and 70 million people listen to net radio each month. These numbers are about the same as the size of the US population in urban areas in those early days (69 million in 1930). The RIAA didn't pop up until the early 1950's and at this point the US population was around 150 million, 95% of households had radios, and this was the time where people were going nuts and buying records. When I see the numbers net radio supposedly has today I really think there is probably an opportunity here. Indie artists, online music retailers who sell indie music, podcasters (netcasters for those living in Leoville), and net radio should be able to make something happen. I think the problem is people are looking for something to happen over night and that isn't going to happen. So, even though I am not part of that group of 70 million, I think those 70 million who are obviously listening to this stuff for a reason and not listening to their local Clear Channel or Cox affiliate should probably be a little excited about what this gives them. This is a chance for the RIAA to fail. They're cutting off a new and growing medium and this is your chance to claim it and write the rules and maybe someday dictate to the RIAA and the major labels what it will take for them to be able to play with you.
'Same speed C but faster'
I'm not in any 3 of those categories, so why should I care?
The next argument is that the smallest medium - Internet radio - pays the most royalties; and under the new CRB royalty scheme the smallest webcasters will pay the highest relative royalties in amounts shockingly disproportionate to their revenue. While I can certainly see where their coming from (to be honest, it looks the whole point of the ruling is to kill internet radio), it reads as "WHY NOT ME" talk. Why shouldn't ALL mediums have to pay?
About half-way through the page, they make a good argument that somebody on either side of the debate can agree with:
If this was the true intent, I think this is important because it guarantees there will be competition. People realized how crappy FM radio got when Clear Channel bought all the stations. It wasn't that long ago that stations started going independent again - so remind people of that! Competition means better selection!Furthermore, I have no idea where technology will take us. Its evolving so quickly now that everything could very well be wireless and connected in 10 years. I'm going to be angry that if in 10 years, the selection of internet radio stations is terrible and the cost to enter the market is insane because of a bad decision that was made in 2007.
Finally, we need to recognize that the Copyright Royalty Board is going to get away with murder. I didn't realize this until I did some further research on this, but do you know how many people the CRB is composed of? Three. Three judges are going to decide the future of internet radio that will affect millions of people. What an awful system! I saw we put pressure on the CRB (James Scott Sledge (Chief Copyright Royalty Judge), Stanley Wisniewski, and William J. Roberts.) and congress to make this a more fair system. Three people having that much power is not a fair game.
Internet Radio is, and will continue to be, alive and well. Just not in the USA.
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PGP Key ID 0xCB8FF658
The major record label's business models are all based on controlling the bottleneck -- when record-making equipment was expensive, they used that; now, they control the promotion.
The internet; in this case, internet radio, represents a promotional channel outside their control. Especially the smaller stations, how can they get them under a "paid promotion" contract? All of them? Hence the minumum fees of 500$
Crap. What did the new CSS do with the "Post anonymously" option??
Just like the crackdown on mix tapes, I fail to see the reasoning behind something like this. Internet radio is good for the music industry. It helps to promote current artists as well as new artists. Internet radio is nothing more then a technological extension of regular AM/FM radio. Are copyright owners entitled to payment for those copyrights? Of course. However, if the music industry exists, like most businesses, to make money, then why set the price that, according to webcasters, will destroy their industry? Somewhere in here, there is a straight truth. Did they not do research to determine what the average webcast station makes a year in revenue? Is the internet radio industry exaggerating? I tend to side with the webcasters on this one though. This is not the first time things like this have been reported. I remember a previous article on slashdot about two days ago that told a story about a bar owner who was told he needed to pay a royalty fee because the monday night football song was being played on a bar owned TV right before...monday night football. Rather then pay the fee, the owner simply mutes the volume ever monday night when the song plays, and unmutes it when the game starts. As time goes on, we as consumers have less and less freedom when it comes to our entertainment. DRM is in almost everything now, from CD's to video games, even Tivo. So much thought has been put into anti-piracy protection, has anyone thought about what consumers really want? TBH, piracy is not what is killing music sales, the music industry is what is killing music sales. To get a legal piece of music that I want to hear, I have only a few options. Pay $14 for a CD that might have 3 or 4 songs out of 12 that I like and will listen to. Or I can go online and download an MP3. Easy as pie? Sure, unless.. you are using iTunes, then, you will also need an iPod or an Apple approved cell phone. Unless, you are using napster, then you will need a napster approved phone or mp3 player. Unless, you are using p2p or allofmp3.com, in which case you risk being sued by the RIAA. Unless, I buy a DRM free mp3 from iTunes, which costs 30 cents more and has my account information and email address embedded inside of it. Can I just get an MP3 that I can play on my computer, in my car, or on my stereo with no DRM, no hidden information, no rootkits, and no extra hardware? Just an MP3, that I can play anywhere, anytime I want. Is that too much to ask?
Yeah... they really are that crazy.
OSS is obsolete for listening to music. You should be using ALSA by now.
In general, it is safe and legal to kill your children. -- POSIX Programmer's Guide
So you have to ask the question "why?"
Soundexchange and the RIAA both know that this will kill off 99% of net radio, so why are they doing it? IMHO the reason is that they want to keep independent bands in check. if indies had a good place to be heard and become known without going through their slimy hands then that's scary thing for them. If you can limit the amount of stations that play music then you can limit everyone's choices to a few classically popular bands that are already signed to the big labels.
That's the same behavior you get from radio broadcasting now a days. Time is valuable and so you can only play the bands that are "popular". if you can't aim at a niche audience then you have to be broad and boring. I'm sure the through of democratizing our listening habits scares the crap out of the big labels. This is just a means of using ancient laws to prop up the current paradigm that much longer.
d
all language nazi's will burne in heil!
Yes, this will only have two effects:
short term : it'll improve the quality of internet radio by cutting out the Americans
long term : it'll force the technology to develop better & extra-legally
Future internet radio station will only broadcast mixing instructions & torrent files. Your player will download & cache upcomming music on your system. Of course this cache may be gigabytes in size. And you'll easily replay & save previous songs. You might even automatte the saving of old songs, i.e. save any song I skip. In fact you won't even need to change the channel to avoid bad soungs, you'll just sip into the future, the DJ can always put out more music than time allows. And this new technology will reduce the cost to radio operators.
Also any technology prefering synchronous to asynchronous bandwidth is better for the internet.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
while some startup station may be able to "broadcast from overseas", but any college or community station is still screwed. there are some college stations these days that do not even broadcast on FM due to budget reasons. they are all done.
Hah. As if downloading a bunch of shit from Pirate Bay makes it somehow culturally significant. Thousands of crappy McDonalds burgers are sold every day, but that doesn't make it *cuisine*.
mirrorshades radio -- darkwave, industrial, futurepop, ebm.