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Copyright Board Lawyer Responds On Pandora's End
mattnyc99 writes "A month ago we talked about the impending death of streaming music site Pandora thanks to a very backwards fight over royalties. PopMech follows up with an article that, besides noting how insane it is that Pandora has to pay record labels for the bad songs that users skip, also gets the (three-member) Copyright Royalty Board to try and defend itself about why the government is determining royalty rates for the music industry. Quoting: 'It was uninvited,' says Richard Strasser, senior attorney for the Copyright Royalty Board. 'I don't think anybody was jumping up and down with joy in the government that they have this responsibility, but the former systems just weren't working out.'" No one seems to be trying to defend or explain why Internet radio is being hit so much harder than satellite or broadcast.
I have been listening to Pandora, discovering new artists, and had begun to buy music again (most of my music collection is CDs bought in the Eighties). Guess I'll just go back to listening to my 'oldies' - I can't be bothered to keep fighting the music industry to accept my money.
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
The reason is regular people can be broadcasters on the internet. This is not very appealing to large commercial cartels. They want to make royalties not just on the content but also the the broadcasting hardware. It ain't cheap or easy to start an XM radio or regular O-T-A radio station. The commercial interests want their cut â" so they seek to drive any one out of business who is doing internet radio.
No one seems to be trying to defend or explain why Internet radio is being hit so much harder than satellite or broadcast.
That's an easy one. Cause people use the internet to steal copyrighted material.
People can't "steal copyrighted material" from satellite and broadcast?
I think I've got a better explanation. Broadcast and satellite are channels that require very high initial investment, thus locking out small competitors. Internet radio can be set up by anyone, and thus is harder for an industry cartel to control.
Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
Won't this just mean that there won't be any U.S. Internet radio stations? They'll either fold up or move off-shore. They won't be able to conduct any "business" in the U.S., but short of the Great Firewall of Comrizon/Vericast, the MAFIAA won't be able to stop U.S. users from streaming.
It's not just about stream-ripping. It's also about controlling the market. Internet radio destroys the ability of the major labels to determine what music gets played, which means that they lose the marketing oligopoly they currently hold.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Except the cost of such material, and the authorization to use some part of the radio spectrum? Hum, nothing.
who the hell listens to internet radio for 8 hours every single day in a month?If you're considering listening while at the office, that's not bandwidth you should be concerned about so that's gone. The only people we have left using that kind of bandwidth are radio junkies who need some kind of noise playing all the time and who work from home/are unemployed. That's not a very big market, and to a person who needs to listen to that much radio, 30 GB out of 250GB per month (taking the recent Comcast announcement) isn't that much.
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
They want to make royalties not just on the content but also the the broadcasting hardware
What's to stop me from using my choice of broadcasting hardware if I was in the terrestrial radio business?
In the USA, that would be the FCC, which operates its Office of Engineering and Technology (OET) "tasked with overseeing equipment authorization for all devices using the electromagnetic energy from 9 kHz to 300 GHz. OET maintains an electronic database of all Certified equipment which can be easily accessed by the public."
Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
Oh, I think the fear is very logical, for the reasons that have been pointed out. Gotta maintain that barrier-to-entry to keep the markets under firm control. Otherwise, you know, we might have a free market, and the only people who want that are the very ones being excluded.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Yes, payola is illegal. It's also standard operating procedure, and nobody gives a damn that it happens (or nobody in a position to do anything, at least).
And let's face it - Pandora wouldn't be nearly as successful as it has been if it could only play indie music. Say what you want about quality, but there's a tremendously larger audience for mainstream music, pretty much by definition (now technically mainstream and indie aren't mutually exclusive, but it tends to work out that way more often than not).
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
YOU may not care, but the people paying for uploading those bits to you (the net radio providers) certainly care if you're consuming bits that much.
If Pandora used their algorithms point you to indie music
that you are likely to want to buy, they could very well
completely sabotage the RIAA entirely.
An indie-centric version of Pandora would be quite cool actually...
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Although Pandora is often seen as the little guy fighting the big bad music industry, Pandora just repackages the output of that industry, so it's feeding the monster and helping to ensure that the money-grabbing evil continues. If we want the monster to die, we need to stop feeding it. Pandora doesn't want the monster to die, it merely wants it to eat less.
So it's make-your-mind-up time, if you want to influence the evolution of music.
If you really want a sea change to occur, try listening to Creative Commons music instead of commercial output. The immense repositories at Jamendo (11,955 albums) and at Archive.org (53,088 concerts, 310,685 recordings) should be enough to keep you busy for the rest of your life, but there's lots more out there.
It's hard work, because there is nobody around to tell you what you must like, as the industry has been doing to us through radio and TV all these years. The diversity and sheer scale of Commons music is astounding, and exploring its uncharted vastness isn't quick nor easy, but ultimately your voyage will be very rewarding. Mine has been.
But you have to take that first step yourself, nobody can help you, short of handing you a few links.
The future really is in your hands. If everyone were to stop buying label output today, the Big 4 and the RIAA would disappear as soon as their coffers dry up, and the small labels would adapt perfectly happily because they're agile. You *can* drop your favourite chart bands if you try --- the discomfort doesn't last long, because there is no shortage of very high quality replacements. The Commons is vast, and the creativity amazing.
The future really is in your hands.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra