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A Commonsense Proposal On Net Radio Rates
quark235 tips us to an open letter to the RIAA, proposing a fairer royalty structure for Net radio, written by Paul A. Gathard. Gathard is president of Barnabus Road Media, a company that provides streaming radio services to commercial and non-commercial stations across the US. He contends that his proposed rate structure, if implemented, would actually result in higher total revenues to SoundExchange than their current proposal would, after it kills off 90% of Net radio stations.
..I almost hope they succeed in killing off "legit" Internet Radio. The Internet could really use a nice dose of the good old Pirate Radio culture.
When the answer is simple (complex). You either rely on the whims and foresight of another (bad business strategy) or you chose your own route. The RIAA holds its control over the net radio market by a hair. Simply because no-ones really challenged them, on their own ground.
Begging is going to get you very little, but working directly with the very labels and artists in an organized fashion and you'll be able to by-pass the RIAA in this regard (largely) altogether. Setup a foundation to be a industry friendly clearing-house to handle limited blanket licensing in terms the industry finds acceptable. Most labels want protection (from piracy and misuse) but also want exposure. With a little will (and funding) I think there would only be a few majors that would hold out. The same ones that want the market to be smaller in the first place. Which really would be a win-win. RIAA exclusive labels/artists could limit their exposure and practice the same kinds of influence they've become accustomed to. Smaller or more open labels and artists could continue to gain exposure and change the very markets the RIAA is trying to limit.
Quack, quack.