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.""

Comments

Re:What, you're shocked?

[popo]

"Whoever has deeper pockets wins."
--------

Not true. (Let's call your argument the "neo con" argument.)

The people who actually win are the people who can't be controlled.

(We'll call that the "Iraqi" argument.)

Internet Radio will morph into P2P streaming and offshore stations. It's not going anywhere.

The only thing that's going away is the last hopes the record labels had to profit from it.

Foot, meet bullet. Information wants to be free.

Re:Killing the goose that lays the golden egg.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think this is a good thing. Please bear with me....

Look, the goose is already cooked. Let's face it, the MAFIAA have all but completely destroyed the recording industry. I remember saying
in a post on this site maybe 7 or 8 years ago that they would ultimately destroy the industry rather than give up control.
Putting all the internet radio stations out of business is a scorched earth move, merely a spiteful parting gesture from a walking corpse.

Let them do it.

Let them use their sweaty, mean spirited little pencil pushing lawyers to take their ball and go home.

Nothing short of this will precipitate the revolution that is needed in the media, and it starts with the smallest independent
broadcasters.

You think these businesses will roll over and disappear without a fight? No way, they will merely adapt to circumstance.
The MAFIAA work by creating a false scarcity of content. In reality there is a glut of high quality Free content out there, millions
of musicians and podcasters who have had a decade to become highly skilled content producers are just waiting for the death of Big Media so that their work can become valuable. The myth of "artists need to be paid" has been so completely destroyed only fools cling to it. Everybody knows (to quote Mr Cohen) how crooked the game is, that artists never get paid properly anyway, and that all the ones who have any merit produce because they
want to and would do so even without an audience. Once the MAFIAA skulk off home to mommy taking their hyped manufactured rubbish with them there's gonna be an explosion of new talent, new voices, fresh political commentators and documentary, new celebrity.... It's ripe to happen, simple supply and demand. There is a vast reservoir of supply, and now the demand is about to kick in. I hope to God they pass this law, because it will be the death of the bastards. Once mainstream radio and TV get a sniff of how internet stations are surviving by bypassing corporate controlled material they will want a piece too. And thus the whole filthy mess begins to unwind....

Re:What, you're shocked?

[Anonymous Coward]

Information wants to be free. That may be true, but entertaiment wants to be paid and you just want to be cheap.

Re:Killing the goose that lays the golden egg.

[onion_joe]

I get an inappropriate sense of glee when I tell clients that they can't do this or that or they have to spend x^2 dollars to make something obvious happen because of DRM issues.

eg.: Windows Media Center will not stream from a server to a client laptop. You can buy an xbox and a "media extender" but that removes any mobile functionality (unless you want to lug a DC->AC inverter and battery pack with you, or appropriate DC mobile power supply.)

So what am I doing now? Setting up a test box with MythTV.

I think the inappropriate feelings stem from watching non-standard and poorly implemented DRM wreaking havoc on MS/RIAA/MPAA customer loyalty.

A previous post mentioned, "shooting oneself in the foot." Fine by me. I sell OSS every chance I get. It's only us hard-core gamers that need MS [for the time being.]

-OJ

Re:What, you're overseas?

[PMBjornerud]

As for the first, I don't think P2P was made for the kind of streaming that stations do. However, it would be extremely useful to have a local "cache" of the last 50 songs played on radio. Really liked that previous song? Just drag it into your portable music player and go. That tune they played 30 minutes ago stuck in your mind? Just click and play it again.

Such a cache would obviously be illegal. But convenient for the users, and it would mean that most listeners on any channel/playlist/tag would have a large selection of the typical songs. There is some synergy, so I would not discard the possibility of someone coming up with a clever protocol for doing something like this.

Hm... Such a program would actually download and share music without you telling it which songs to download. Nasty.

Copyright is expired on that one

[Solandri]

Taps was composed by Daniel Butterfield in 1862 during the U.S. Civil War. He died in 1901, so under current copyright law it would've entered the public domain in 1971. If it was considered a work for hire, the copyright would've been valid for 120 years, which would mean it entered public domain in 1982. (This is just worst-case. It probably entered public domain before then.)

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.

Re:Killing the goose that lays the golden egg.

[Daengbo]

I don't play anymore, but I used to and I still know guys in their 40's playing, so I'll chime in. Yes. Most musicians don't play so they'll get "discovered" and rich. They love to play. They make CDs to sell at their gigs. They play their gigs for money, but not much, so they almost all work full-time jobs and get off work on Friday only to grab all their gear and run to the bar. They practice incessantly because they love it. They are artists in the true sense, who just want to play. Playing for people is good, but just getting some guys together and playing can be almost as good. Having people enjoy their art makes them happy, and they don't often think about "making it big." They enjoy what they do. They would (and sometimes do) do it for free.

Actually, terrestrial radio may be next...

[Abcd1234]

Actually, what's really interesting about this whole situation is that, from what I understand, they plan to go after terrestrial radio next. To quote:

Where webcasters and the recording industry do agree is on the unfairness of making tiny Web stations pay for performance rights while huge radio companies pay nothing. Congress decided that Web stations must pay royalties to the composers of each song and to the performers and record labels, even as traditional AM and FM broadcasters continue paying only the composers -- a quirk in the law that gives broadcast radio a huge advantage.

Simson agrees that "there's really no justification for broadcast radio not paying, and we're going to try to address that."

Yeah... they really are that crazy.