Slashdot Mirror
Net Radio Wins Partial Reprieve
Joren writes "Just a few hours after our last discussion on this topic, Wired News is reporting that Internet radio broadcasters have won a temporary reprieve from the new rates. Apparently the details are still being worked out. 'A coalition of webcasters have worked out a deal with the recording industry that could temporarily stave off a portion of crippling net radio royalties set to take effect Sunday, according to people familiar with the negotiations ... For now, the parties involved in what's described as ongoing negotiations have agreed to waive at least temporarily the minimum charge of $6,000 per channel required under a scheme created by the Copyright Royalty Board, or CRB. The deal, brokered late Thursday, is not final and could change. One person involved in the talks described the situation as a reprieve, and said that internet radio won't be saved until a workable royalty rate is set.'"
to maintain a 'temporary' reprieve?
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
This is a delaying tactic until Congress is out of session. Just keep in mind that their real goal is to accomplish exactly what is feared - eliminating internet radio. While Congress is in session, there is a chance they will intervene. Wait a few weeks, the reprieve will be over, bills will go out, then it's "lights out" and Congress will be too busy pocketing contributions from the folks back home to notice.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
This "reprieve" is just an attempt by the RIAA controlled Sound Exchange to stave off legislation that would return the royalty rates to a sane number. Once the momentum for the legislation wanes, Sound Exchange can crank the fees back up without worrying that Congress will have the fortitude to try legislation again.
Perhaps, alternatively, they aren't trying to shut it down, but they are trying to extract maximum profits out of it. They must know, at a certain level, that internet radio is good for them.
Instead, they are using what I have heard called the "Soviet negotiation model," in which you make an unreasonable first demand; Then it seems a lot more reasonable when you lower it a little. It works quite well, especially when you have the upperhand to begin with.
When soundexchange halves their demands, they'll look like heroes to congress and the public, and still be making a lot more money. Genius...
Now that Congress is interested, stalling until it is out of session is as much of a "reprieve" as we are going to get. The entire goal is to permanently quash alternative music distribution forms and independent labels through a two-pronged attack, this just being one of them, the right to now collect royalties on all NON-RIAA music being the other(which allows them to control access and distribution of it same as they are doing to internet radio). This while they exert more control on real radio and other traditional distribution channels eventually gives them an actual, not just virtual, control of all music period. The entire goal is to kill all non-RIAA controlled access to music. When there is no other alternative, no matter how bad their products or stupid the pricing, it will be RIAA supplied crap or silence.
Free to you maybe, but the internet radio stations have always payed a licensing fee. The big change here is that in the past internet radio had the same basic fee structure as a traditional broadcast radio station, in which the station paid a flat rate for a blanket license to play music from the RIAA's catalog (don't remember, but I think it may have been a small per song charge). The change is that they want to go to a payment system that charges not only per song, but per listener, which will grossly inflate the fees these stations will need to pay. Never mind the technical feasibility of tracking the number of unique listeners to any given station, but simply multiplying the .8 cent fee per song by even a thousand listeners brings the cost per song to 8 dollars, and there's no way these small broadcasters can recoup that cost in advertising fees. The RIAA actually knows this, but they don't care, they want control of the whole thing, so they've set it up where only a few companies can actually afford to provide internet radio, and they're just fine with that, less chance for anyone not already under the RIAA's thumb to get any sort of air time.
Curiosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.
I think what many forget here is that while this may shut down people running internet radio from US servers and domain names, it is only a question of time for a foreign supply to take advantage of any vacuum that may result if the us pulls the plug. So rather than shutting down internet radio, this whole circus will move it abroad. The RIAA won't win, artists won't win, customers won't win and America won't win. Foreign ISPs will however win and the US will become a little less competitive on the global market. In short, the more the RIAA tightens their grip, the more will slip through to abroad where laws are different. In the long run this might just be what causes the RIAA's downfall. By crippling the American music industry they pave the way for competitors to take their place.
This is a blatant attempt to quash the issue through confusion. Most people don't know about the Copyright Review Board or what a bad deal it's just created for everyone. What they are hearing is a mixed signal. What people need to hear is, "Streaming music from your computer is about to be expensive and/or illegal for the benefit of big publishers." Corporate media, even Slashdot, are blaring out "Internet Radio Royalty Hikes Delayed" as if the RIAA had force of law and this temporary reprieve had any meaning.
They might as well have that. The whole thing is so unAmerican, most have a hard time believing it when they do learn. That a group of unelected could make such a fundamental decision boggles the mind. How is it that legislation has to be passed to keep an arm of government from creating an all encompassing monster like SoundExchange?
The end game is the destruction of Internet Radio and the internet itself. They want to go back to 1911 where you and me were not part of popular culture.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.