Slashdot Mirror
Pandora Wants Radio Stations To Pay For Music, Too
suraj.sun sends along an Ars writeup of the lobbying Pandora is doing now that it has secured its future, royalties-wise. Some might think it odd that Pandora is weighing in on the side of the record labels in their fight to get radio stations to pay more for the music they broadcast. "US radio stations don't pay performers and producers for the music they play, but the recording industry hopes to change that with a new performance rights bill in Congress. Webcaster Pandora has jumped into the fray on the side of the artists and labels, asking why radio gets a free ride when Pandora does not. ... With revenues from recorded music sales declining, rights-holders have turned their eyes in recent years to commercial US radio, which currently pays songwriters (but not performers or record labels)... With its own future secure for the next few years, Pandora is now turning its attention to the public performance debate here in the US, saying that the issue is a simple matter of fairness: why should webcasters have to pay more for music than traditional radio does? ... [But] the 'fairness' argument could clearly go either way. Radio might start paying a performance right; on the other hand, perhaps webcasters and satellite radio companies should simply stop paying one, relying on the old argument about promotion."
Perhaps Canada is a leading the way on fees for once? (see bullet 6)
The internet provides all sorts of dynamics in the music being played. Radio has "Phone in a request" once in a blue moon. This would literally kill music radio, as radio stations don't have a direct way to charge the listeners. Something tells me this is simply Pandora having a hissy fit over having to pay.
Health Freedom is almost as popular as Freedom itself.
Pure greed when the industry turns in on itself to make a buck.
Be you Admins? nay, we are but lusers!
Internet radio has a potential audience that spans the globe. Radio stations are typically limited by geography and signal power.
Why should passengers flying from New York to Tokyo pay more than flying from Seattle to Portland? Because the distance is longer.
"but don't let them take away our free music."
Well, you paid for the radio and whatnot, how about you buy a guitar and have all the free music you could want?
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Hell no, I'm going to tell my elected officials to vote for it.
Sure we might lose mainstream music radio, but most of them are Clearchannel anyway. I can simulate a week of a Clearchannel station with a mini-CDR in a player set to deterministic shuffle.
On the upside, we gain a shot at lots of mobile bandwidth if the radio industry crumbles, plus we set the music & radio industries at each others throats, and any outcome besides the status quo also is likely to result in a weakened music industry(now or later) or more small artists getting radioplay cause they're cheaper.
On the other hand, that also makes it harder for indie artists...
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
Im surprised by how many are upset over this. Think about it for a minute, the vast majority are still clueless when it comes to the actions of the Music Industry, Pandora no doubt sees this as an opportunity to bring awareness to the masses of an archaic system thats time has passed.
severely diminish the quality of all radios out there.
Have you actually listened to the radio? How can it get any worse? Oh no, I won't be able to hear the same eleven songs played over and over and over again with random call-ins by idiots asking for the same crappy song that got played 30 minutes ago. I don't know if this legislation will help make radio better, but I can't imagine it getting much worse than it already is.
ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
They paid radio to play your song, so people would actually hear it and buy it... As a matter of fact, with one of my current bands, we still do that. Not in money, but by calling them every day and get a live performance on the radio... It's for them great to have live music and it's great for us to have an wider audience. A well, I must be getting old.
Seriously. Email/write/call your state representative about this bill and tell them how this bill is severely diminish the quality of all radios out there. Urge them to vote against it!!
I'd say that the quality of radio already was severely diminished when a few corporations started buying up every channel in the country so that they could ram their selected artists down the public's throat by playing their hit songs over and over every hour.
Perhaps Pandora hopes to have radio come to the aid of internet radio - "We'll drag you down with us if you don't step up!".
And if you hear someone humming a song, turn them in to the ASPCA ASAP
Todos mis movimientos están friamente calculados
I thought that went the way of the dodo. You can't get FM on the iPod, and who doesn't have a CD player or mp3 jack in their car? Who gives a crap about shitty-sounding distorted 'loud' FM pop music?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
They tried this already and it didn't work. so now its plan B time.
how about you buy a guitar and have all the free music you could want?
Popular music, the music that the majority of people actually choose to listen to, is non-free even if you're performing it yourself.
I can simulate a week of a Clearchannel station with a mini-CDR in a player set to deterministic shuffle.
Alternatively, one could save the cost of the CDR and still generate a passable simulation of a Clearchannel station, by beating oneself over the head with a stick for a few hours.
Just give up and bill everyone:
...and when they don't pay: Sue them.
Bill the artists for making it and everytime it's played.
Bill the distributor and packaging plant.
Bill the radio stations for playing it.
Bill the store for selling it.
Bill the Moving Picture Experts Group when it's moved digitally.
Bill your mom.
Bill the listener for liking it.
Bill them if they don't like it.
Bill Microsoft and Al Gore for bringing the internet.
Bill Apple and the beatles.
Bill Linux just cause.
This Greed - It's becoming bloody disgusting.
---
"Don't be too troubled. He'll be all right now. He left a packet for you.
There it is!"
On the other hand, that also makes it harder for indie artists...
Having heard the quality of most "indie artists," all I can say is thank God for that.
Advice: on VPS providers
This was done in Australia, and overnight the amount of Australian music broadcast dropped to close to zero. For a couple of years the government rattled sabres threatening to cancel broadcast licences and then eventually radio stations were charged for all content and not just Australian content. It really didn't matter if there were cases where there was no way the money charged could actually get back to the copyright holders because IT'S A SCAM. The money claimed on behalf of the local copyright holders that theoretically could get back to them does not and is absorbed in "administrative costs" for instance huge payouts to board members of the organisation running the scam. The British version of this is a prime example.
ASPCA
Did you mean ASCAP, or did a subtle joke about animal cruelty just fly over my head?
oh! and you can download tabs off the OLGA.... oh wait. . . hope you're original.
How the hell did these stations survive past the 90s? Seriously? This technology should be fazed out and the frequency bands allocated to something worthwhile. Radio was going the right way in the late 80s by playing local bands and more underground music, but that changed during the 90s and any kind of underground music was gone by 2000. (unless you listened to a college AM station) Since Pandora supports a broader range of music from Beethoven to Burzum, I hope they cause these shitty stations the pain they deserve for making my radio useless. Even the local 80s station stopped playing 80s music and started playing coldplay.... wtf? If I was Pandora I would try to team up with verizon and use that new wireless they are working on to compete with the radio. People who listen to music will pick Pandora; people who like to listen to short, ugly guys talk all day , will pick the radio.
at least the Pandora guys give you the option to buy what you're listening to on iTunes or Amazon, unlike a radio station.
If you mean enough artist and title information to write it down and buy it later, FM radio has that too. If you mean a button to Buy It Now, how would that work in a vehicle? Not everybody has $700 per year to spend on mobile broadband.
That might be one outcome. Alternately, we might just lose the independent stations and be stuck with all Clear Channel. This sort of regulation always hurts the little guys more than the big conglomerates.
Sure we might lose mainstream music radio, but most of them are Clearchannel anyway.
Except that this will actually help the largest stations by killing off their smaller competitors who can't afford the new fees. If you think things are bad now, just wait until this bill gets passed.
One of the radio stations I depend on for traffic reports is already fighting this. They run several advertisements predicting the free music you listen to is at risk of being eliminated by congress with new fees on the music they play. Call your congressman right away to stop this legislation that will end free music on radio.
The NAB, National Association of Broadcasters is leading the charge to oppose the bill.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ct-radio3-2009jul03,0,6937549.story/
The truth shall set you free!
The free dutch newspaper "De pers" had an intresting article about music sales yesterday. Or rather not about music sales at all which is probably why the copier (oops sorry journalist) failed to make the connection.
The story? A pension fund was reporting they made 8% profit last year, when the entire economy had collapsed, on their music portfolio. The article told that music rights are big business with a steady reliable revenue stream and that after 10 years you have made enough profit to have paid for the purchase of the rights and from then on its pure profits.
But yeah, music sales are declining.
How can music be an extremely reliable investment for pension funds when the sales are going down? The only similar reliable investment is in things like supermarkets because people always got to eat.
How can you tell someone from the content industry is lying? They got their mouth open.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
The RIAA giving radio a compelling reason to play independent artists is exactly what we need. They can only hurt themselves.
I find it ironic that not too long ago payola was a serious problem, and now we have this. These are the death throws of the recording industry, and I think that is a great thing.
Great Intellect...
Only a few months ago, it was charged in the US Congress that record companies have been paying radio stations (again, like in the fifties) to play their records.
Now they want the stations to pay them?
Playing a recording on the air is better than advertising it, and the record companies know it.
This effort is bound to fail, if not ignite laughter.
Just for grins, maybe the stations will raise fees to promote bands and labels to offset the new cost of doing business. This may be a good thing to raise costs to promote the bland bands. If you think payola to promote bands was bad before, wait until this bill passes an only payola of the highest budget plays on the radio.
The truth shall set you free!
If online radio has to pay, and satellite has to pay (for those of you who didn't know that, they do), then broadcast radio should also have to pay.
Broadcast radio keeps insisting what they want is a level playing field. Well, it ain't level if they don't have to pay.
No in between bullshit, all commercial broadcasters should be treated the same, regardless of the actual method of broadcast...either charge no one, or charge everyone.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
It already has.
There was a vague musical trend of each half-decade up until about 2005. You could decided something felt "dated" but at least it felt like it belonged to some era.
Now they're running out of fresh genres, and desperately working the 2nd level blended stuff.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Exactly - This should not be a surprise.
Pandora is a cool service and they're playing the cards they've been dealt. Maybe those cards are largely viewed as unfair, but they want a level playing field. Why would anyone expect them to pony up for fees that some of their major competition (even though it's different technology) is immune to? Sure it would be better if they could win free broadcasting, but now that they've lost that battle they're just trying to level the playing field.
Hell, you could even view this as Pandora trying to get a couple of more players into the "let us broadcast w/o complications" game...
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Warning: I work with EDM-variety music producers.
This is actually fantastic news. When we provide ala carte downloads for our tracks, they usually get shunned and our systems spend hours each month uploading to Rhapsody and the like... for $6 royalty statements.
The net result?
An hour block of unadvertised, "live mix" content wherein the latest music gets performed and no one pays a red cent to Harry Fox. It works thusly:
1. DJ in our roster wishes to promote.
2. Under US tax code, any music said DJ has paid for is a business expense as an appropriation of requisite tools to perform said job.
3. DJ plays promotional mix set, commercial free, and it's released to the blogs under fair use.
5. Profit. DJ sees more bookings as a result for live-performance gigs. The hottest tracks have already been promoted to BBC Radio One and artists see more BDS numbers as a result. People buy more hardcopies as a result of extended exposure.
6. You missed there wasn't a step 4, and there is no "... Profit?" meme.
It would take a bit of renegade work, but there isn't any reason why bands can't be promoted in the same way. It's more on the radio DJ's taking the responsibility for ownership instead of the studio for the tracks performed, but that would effectively shut down payola in most cases. With the advent of the Internet, it means these streams can be put out royalty-free and can survive for public enjoyment, while increasing artist exposure and cutting the middleman out. How would the site maintain itself? Through rabid fans. Just look at DogsOnAcid for an example.
Never attribute to Hanlon that which can be adequately attributed to Heinlein.
No, you won't. These frequencies are also shared with all sorts of navigation equipment, that luckly enough radio stations contribute to. Pilots regularly use standard radio stations in place of VOR transmitters for navigation. This is one of the primary reasons that radio stations have to say their callsigns at required intervals, so pilots can identify the station should they have some sort of insturment failure which allows them to tune in, but not know what they are tuning into. Once you figure out what you're listening to, and which direction it is, you can use just a few more landmarks or another station to figure out where the hell you are.
Very useful if you're in a small craft at night with partial equipment failures, and doing so is a requirement for getting an instrument rating for private pilots.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
The imminent death of Internet radio has led me to think of ways of modifying the Creative Commons share and share-alike non-commercial license. I wish to release some music I have composed, but before I do this, I would like to craft a variant of the creative commons licence under which SoundExchange, the RIAA and their legal representatives would be subject to a $10,000,000 fine if they listen to my music, create derivative works based on it, or if they attempt enforce my rights under the copyright act.
Specifically, the license I would like should impose a crippling fine on SoundExchange in case it attempts to collect royalties on my behalf paid by services making ephemeral phonorecords or digital audio transmissions of sound recordings, or both, under the statutory licenses set forth in 17 U.S.C. 112 and 17 U.S.C. 114 or if it attempts to distribute the collected royalties to me pursuant to 17 U.S.C. 114(g)(2). The license should go beyond merely threatening the possibilityof a lawsuit--it should stipulate an RIAA-level fine against SoundExchange and its legal representatives.
If such a license could be crafted with sufficient care, and if sufficiently many musicians were to release music under this license, in time it could effectively criminalize SoundExchange, the RIAA and its lawyers.
Generally speaking, when revolutions come, they don't tend to fare particularly well for the intellectual class (i.e. those that would read Slashdot). Honestly, I'd rather have a reasonably pacified populace than have to wonder if that guy in the trailer park down the street is coveting my "decadent and bourgeoisie" Kia.
I think it's pretty obvious what Pandora is angling at here, they're attacking the obvious double-standard. Problem is that if it goes the other way, then that's pretty much the last nail in the coffin of broadcast radio; it's already only a marginally profitable business to be in anymore, and having to pay more royalties will kill most of them off for good.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
MTV doesn't play music. Radio stations will stop playing music now too. Services like last.fm and Pandora only suggest music you already know about anyway. Live music sounds like crap (hey mr. indy band ever heard of an eq?). And I don't even care, because the industry quit making music long ago, it's just taken awhile for everyone to catch up.
Win a signed Stephen Carpenter ESP Guitar from the Deftones: http://def-tag.com/?r=0008781
Perhaps we don't care anymore either way? With car stereos able to hook up to iPods and the mash of annoying commercials/on-air "personalities" one has to listen too are people even using their radios anymore? I have a broken antennae on my car. I can get pretty much two radio stations reliably: NPR, and the local college's radio station. Considering the college station is a non-commercial low-power transmitter and the public radio station is, well, a public radio station I imagine they'll be immune to these changes, and I don't listen to those two stations anyway. All i listen to is my own CDs, some of which are actual CDs and some of which are burned with digital music files I bought at online stores or acquired through other means.
I learn about new music either through word of mouth from people I know online, other works the music gets used in like commercials or movie soundtracks, or listening to samples at online music stores and bands' own websites.
Radio? Who needs it!
NAB spent the last several years arguing that satellite radio should be forced to pay these royalties. Prior to those hearings, satellite hadn't been paying, since they were arguing that they were another form of radio. Any lawyer worth their salt would have told NAB to support satellite radio as protection against something like this. But they didn't. They saw a chance to eliminate a competitor, and hoped to saddle them with an additional expense.
One of the first victims of their stupidity were the NAB member stations that were streaming on the Internet. Previously, they hadn't had to pay, either - which was a good thing for them, considering that most streams had their advertising removed from the stream, and weren't generally profitable on their own.
Their arguments as to why they shouldn't have to pay are outdated. They claim that they're giving free promotion to music, but how many terrestrial stations are actually giving exposure to new music? Seriously - how many stations in your town are currently recycling everyone's favorite hits from the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s? Radio knows that new music doesn't draw listeners - it's easier to take the free ride and give audiences the music they already know and love.
Radio should have to pay. Given NAB's size, it shouldn't be difficult to negotiate with SoundExchange for a lower rate.
It's not independent. Anyway, we lost most of the independent radio stations in the 90's.
Perhaps their hope is that by playing this game they either A) effect an industry they might see as a competitor or B) they gain an ally in short term with their own fight who can help with legislation and/or rate negotiation. Kind of a reversal of what they might have seen as a divide and conquer scheme that landed them the different rates in the first place.
Of course the real fight is still coming as we begin the transition from analog broadcasting to an all digital networked signal. After all, a cell phone is just a radio device.
Quack, quack.
I think what they've found here is right. The Radio Format has been getting a free ride and so have all those brigands listening to it in their cars. All the people in the world are a bunch of no-good sound thieves, Hell, they even have large fleshy scoops on the side of their heads just sucking up and stealing all the free sounds they can get close to. If only we could have those things permanently blocked so the only sounds that come through them are properly paid and licensed by the source.
I should start going to sleep at night with earmuffs on so some ghetto-blasting kid in a donk doesn't come cruising down the street blasting hip-hop and turning me into a music pirate. Then I'd have no choice but to turn myself in for participating in an illegal public listening of a song I didn't pay for.
In typical modern capitalism fashion, companies are free to compete for exclusivity and preferential treatment, but not freely with each other.
The playing field is never even, and be it lobbying with congress, inking expensive deals, hiring an army of salesmen and lawyers, or leveraging your monopolistic weight, big businesses know how to tilt the market so money trickles only their way. New comers and outsiders on the wrong side of the slope cannot compete by price or quality, and the issue precedes supply and demand.
Some of us with working radios actually listen to it.
When I can listen to 'radio' on my phone, while wondering around the ozarks for days on end, then I might consider no longer listening to radio.
Since my phone requires far to many batteries to do that, and cell coverage in rural areas is a joke on a good day, I don't really think its going away tomorrow just because you don't listen to it.
America isn't just a collection of cities with few people inbetween like europe or japan, we have people all over the country side and alternative broadcast methods aren't good enough to compete with terrestrial radio.
Sat radio is rather useless for emergency broadcasts for many reasons, so you won't see any tornado workings on XM or Sirius since A) they'd have to tell everyone in the country about every warning basically and that'd annoy the piss out of people everywhere else, and well, more important is that XM/Sirius tend to cut own during storms so the people who need the warning would never hear them.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
If the recording industry wants the public to pay it more money for being good at making contracts with musicians, okay. In exchange let's repeal the Bono Act of 1998. This law not lengthened new music copyrights to 95 years, it placed every audio recording made before 1972 under copyright until 2067. Thousands of older works were re-copyrighted even though they had already been in the public domain for many years. If this law were repealed, historical works such as wax cylinder recordings made by Thomas Edison in the 1890s, which are now protected until 2067, would again be available for public use as they should be. I don't think this is too big a concession in return for creating a brand new revenue source for the industry.
You dont know what will come after opening it. Maybe the system could hold it running even with bigger charges, or maybe not, and be the end of radio, RIAA, music as something commercial or most major artists revolt and just put in Creative Commons all their work. Sometimes change end being good in the middle/long run,
Seriously, has anyone here ever written to their representatives and had it work properly? Usually, I send a clear letter stating my position and get a form letter saying something to the effect of "thank you for your support and we agree with you that's why" then they continue to list the very opposite of what my letter said. Not only does your representative not read the letter, their office flunkies miscount you letter as a letter of support rather than dissent.
It seems to me that the voter matters less and less every year. I guess once they get computerized voting machines in place, with their lack of recountable ballots, the voters will be removed from the loop entirely.
now that everyone has abandoned traditional radio for iPods, Pandora, and last.fm for 10 years now, its perfect timing to swoop in and milk radio dry
they've waited 90 years for the perfect time to do this
and you're next satellite radio... as soon as you declare bankruptcy!
how fucking pathetic. what, ran out of grandmothers and college kids to sue?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I take it public radio is not very high quality in your part of the world.
Here in Sweden we pay the equivalent of about $250 US for the (obligatory, if you have a tv receiver) tv-licence, which also pays for public radio. Public radio and tv is (supposedly) free from commercial and political influence and the quality is highly superior to anything else. I love it. (Some don't like the whole socialism thing, though.)
Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
about $250, yearly, that is.
Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
Actually I meant that the public radio station, being supported by public donations, grants, etc is not a profit-seeking venture, it would not be required to pay extra dues, if it does to begin with. Since quite a bit of it's programming is classical music a lot of it is also public domain in some ways. The people writing the bill would give a pass to public radio so the public wouldn't think they were trying to put public radio down by stifling their limited operating budgets with new fees.
And I misspoke on my last post. I do *occasionally* listen to those two radio stations, but in general I'm on my own "canned music". I would be more upset at those two stations being shut down by this for cultural reasons, not because I personally wouldn't have anything to listen to anymore. The area commercial radio stations I used to listen to have all changed format to stuff I'm not interested in -- some through acquisitions by national companies, some in changing their own formats to try and capture a different market.
Radio? Who needs it!
Back here on earth, more people are listening to radio than ever before. At least in the UK if not on earth, but that article is consistent with others I've seen looking at the US as well.
Seriously, has anyone here ever written to their representatives and had it work properly?
Yes and no. And when it doesn't work, it frustrates THE HELL out of me. I once called my Federal House of Representative's office and expressed my opinion on a political matter (not in an abrasive way, but in a 'hey, here's my opinion, please mark this down, and by the way what does the congressman think?'). By this woman's confused and slightly annoyed sound, you would've thought I'd have asked her to build a compiler from scratch. She had no idea what to do with my call.
On a separate occasion, I've also left voicemail messages for my Federal Senators - not even a form letter received. What a way to piss a constituent off. When someone offers their opinion, at least have the common decency to humor them FFS!!
OTOH, I emailed my state representatives and state senator (our district has only one), and all three emailed me back! I was extremely surprised, and happy.
In retrospect, yes, I understand these federal guys are busy, but they should have a process to deal with constituents, and I find it more than slightly alarming that if I were to throw a few hundred dollars in for the Congressman, and a few thousand down for the Senators, I could get their attention during a campaign fundraiser.
Probably the worst part was when I told other folks about this, and they didn't seem to give a shit, because they never have (and probably never will) contacted their government representatives. Democracy... pfft, I can't wait until we create an AI that will administer our stupid human civilization 100x better than we ever will.
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
I meant that the public radio station, being supported by public donations, grants, etc is not a profit-seeking venture, it would not be required to pay extra dues
Why would you think that? Why would a public radio station be exempt from copyright-related royalties? I don't see the connection.
because it's still the fight between established and new media.
It's not about fate, it's about character.
there be no shelter here, the frontline is everywhere!
Why shouldn't local broadcast radio in the US pay mechanical royalties? Radio stations in other countries manage fine and please show me where there's a special exemption for US local radio in the Berne convention. The US being the country most aggressively persuing "IP" protectionism abroad; this particular double standard goes much, much deeper than broadcast radio.
Not listening now, not listening then.
Seriously, this is about playing fair. Broadcasting radio stations don't have to pay the same fees that internet radio stations do. The playing field should be level.
I have an answer for you. Because you decided that you wanted to give in to the record labels and screw the small broadcasters in the process and now you you want other radio stations to feel your pain? Its not about fair, its about your inability to see past the record labels bullshit.
Radio and Internet play is free advertising for the record labels why they hell should they have to pay? the system has worked for years, now all of a sudden they want to get even more greedy? The Record Labels days are numbered.
Anyone who wanted to claim copyright on their music could register with the collection agency.
What's more - they could specify the price they wanted to charge for broadcast (within tiers for simplification).
That way radio station X could simply say, 'we won't play any track that costs more than X'. The rights holder would get to decide whether they want to charge more than X.
No more monopoly negotiations - the agency simply manages a market.
My guess is that most companies would pretty quickly list their tracks at $0 so as to maximise radio time.
That's just a guess though - the point is that it would be up to them to choose, and they would have no grounds for moaning.
VLC Remote for iPhone and Android
People that would rather make a buck today than ten bucks next week.
Well, to be fair, the record company execs that bought airtime were arguably more greedy and more manipulative than the ones are today, and it was also easier with local radio. Back in the day, if you had a local radio station, to get airplay, an exec might go and just bribe the DJ at the station to put something on. In those days DJs had more creative control but that also made it easier for them to take bribes. As a result, the studio would pay to get music on the air by bribing the DJ.
Now...
The system is a less corrupt on that score, and the problem was "solved" by removing creative control from the DJ. They can't play new music unless corporate decides its selling, and it won't sell until somebody plays it. To some extent college radio worked to break new music but with iPOD college radio isn't the force it once was.
This is my sig.
Likewise in Germany, although our public law stations (yes, they're called that) is of somewhat questionable value. In theory our fees guarantee free, unbiased public law media that deliver high qualita programming. Let's see what ARD (the most important public law TV station) has on today... Two daily soaps, one docu-soap about a zoo, three purple prose-ish movies, a quiz show and five times the same news. Oh, and actually one magazine that has actual reporters in its editorial staff. No, the news don't have real reporters working for them; they just take their info from news agencies and cut out half of it, often only presenting one half of the story.
Not every day is as bad as this but seriously, I don't quite think that that's worth paying a fee on every* TV set (PCs count as TV sets) and radio for.
* Actually you pay the fee once. If you have at least one TV set and/or internet enabled PC you pay the fiull fee and if you only have a radio you pay half of it. And yes, a TV set that can't possibly receive a signal still counts.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
So it wasn't Video which killed the Radio Star?
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
That's funny, the only radio stations I do listen to are the local college stations and the CBC (Canada's NPR).
Everybody seems to think I'm lazy I don't mind, I think they're crazy
To quote myself from the post you're replying to...
It's just an act of good faith on the part of the bill's sponsors (read as: PR move). Public radio stations generally are classical/world/independent programming, so they really aren't competing with the the media interests who push the royalty bills through.
Certainly, I do not think that a single Slashdot reader was alive around 1930, which is around when US Congress enacted legislation that would make it easier for the early terrestrial radio broadcasters to invest and build out their fledging radio transmission network, by granting them an exemption from the obligation of having to pay royalties to the owners of the sound recordings they were playing on the air, although they were still obligated to pay the writers, their publishers and appointed representatives (ASCAP, BMI, Harry Fox Agency).
These payments to both sound recording owners as well as publishers are the norm for stations everywhere else in the world.
A measure of how wildly successful the radio stations are in the US today should be the amount of money they appear to have available to spend on lobbyists hired to ensure that this one-time exemption never ends.
One could fail to see what is so bad for owners of sound recordings to finally get paid for the use of their work, broadcasters have had a free ride for 80 years or so, it's fairly clear that they do not need that exemption for its original purpose anymore, and they should build their business model around the same one every other radio station on earth has been using successfully all of this time.
Yes, it obviously fantastic to have your songs promoted on radio, and labels have always seen this as a great way to help sell many more copies of whatever physical product, downloads or ringtones even. But when comparing the amount the broadcasters would have to pay for each song played to what most of them are already racking up from pro-rated advertising income for the time slot that song was in, one cannot help but wonder what this fuss is all about.... a mere few drops in the bucket.
Z.
Nothing happened to it.
Slashdot is a den of misinformation about the distinction between ASCAP/BMI/etc and the RIAA.
The ASCAP/BMI licenses are for the composers/authors, not the performers. Performers are the RIAA's business.
Also, contrary to the OP, everyone isn't paid. Here in the U.S. it's a random selection of broadcast logs and the amounts are pro-rated from there. I'm a nonpop (classical) composer who has been on radio hundreds of times in the U.S., but never been randomly sampled and so have never received any broadcast royalties. (On the other hand, I get royalties from European broadcasts all the time.)
Dennis
> Pilots regularly use standard radio stations in place of VOR transmitters
I don't think so.
FM stations won't substitute for a VOR, the implementation is totally different.
AM stations can be used as an NDB for ADF, but my understanding is that this isn't used very much anymore. From what I've seen and read, most ADF equipment won't detect VHF frequencies.
I love radio. I listen to a great radio show in the mornings, and with my busy schedule it's the best way to briefly get the latest news in major headlines, sports, weather, and a few laughs, all in my 15-20 minute drive to work. I also use it for what I believe is one of its main purposes--to find new bands to listen to that I haven't heard before. Poking around the internet can be a crapshoot, but if I hear a song that perks my ears, I'm more likely to seek them out and MUCH more likely to buy an album. I would have paid for far less music without radio. And I don't know where you live, but 93.3 The Planet is an awesome station here where I am in the upstate of South Carolina, USA. Sucks if you don't have something comparably cool to listen to.
10 FILL MUG WITH COFFEE
20 DRINK COFFEE
30 GOTO 10
How about:
*IF* the performers and record companies get this, they lose the right to make covers under a statutory / compulsory type license and have to negotiate with the rights holders?
Just a thought...
drew
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
So, you're saying that you don't care about justice or fairness, only what personally benefits you? Spoken like a true American. And people wonder what's wrong with this country.
Now they're running out of fresh genres, and desperately working the 2nd level blended stuff.
Creativity has been blooming now that most people can afford instruments and put their music and videos on the internet. Fresh genres are appearing all the time, except my guess is that you are too old to actually be interested enough to put in the time finding new stuff.
I'm 32 and I find that my friends listen to the same old stuff that they listened in their teenager years while I spend hours every week trying to find new stuff.
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
Indeed. I just started working in the air traffic control technology biz. The "industry" is currently switching over to tracking squawked GPS coordinates from all planes.
On the other hand, that also makes it harder for indie artists...
Having heard the quality of most "indie artists," all I can say is thank God for that.
Nice attitude you got going there, buddy. "Collateral damage", it doesn't really mean anything to you, now does it?
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
Seriously I say this: let this bring an uttermost end to the music industry and music radio. Let their greed be their dying gasp. And when they (and the RIAA and their other-national counterparts) are dead and blowing in the breeze, the REAL meaning of music will return. That being, entertainment, enjoyment, and the performance itself. Music, like any art, was never meant to be "hey, I can get rich!" but more like "hey, look at this! I made a song! I hope you like it!"
Gordon Gecko was wrong, dead wrong: greed is not "good", rather it is the means to an end that is in itself wholly bad and ruinous.
Pandora should just tell the major labels to fuck off, and play music by artists who don't demand fees. But most radio stations are paying the web fees anyway, almost all broadcast stations stream to the web.
Funny how the majors beg the broadcast stations, who have limited reach, to play their stuff and have been caught bribing DJs to play it, while lobbying for webcasters to pay fees. It just goes to show that the RIAA labels are afraid of the internet (and P2P) because the internet empowers the indies. If there were no independant artists (if it still cost a king's ransom ro record and duplicate a disk), the majors would have embraces P2P with open arms. Nobody ever went broke from "pirates", but lots of artists starve from lack of promotion.
Cory Doctorow has an excellent explanation of this either in the forward or afterward (don't remember) in his book Little Brother, which he's released under a CC license and posted on the internet in various formats.
In a nutshell, If I hear your stuff and like it I'll buy it. If I've never heard your music (or seen your writing) there's no way you're going to get me to buy it.
Free Martian Whores!
With car stereos able to hook up to iPods and the mash of annoying commercials/on-air "personalities"
That's one thing that annoys the hell out of me about commercial radio - you can't hear music in the morning. Gabbing DJs who play two or three songs in a half hour's time. If I wanted to hear some dufud blabber I'd listen to talk radio.
I'm glad we have a very good non-commercial, low wattage station here (WQNA). It's the only station I've ever heard the Dead Kennedies sandwiched in between Tennessee Ernie Ford and Johnny Cash.
Free Martian Whores!
an an actual free country
Where would you suggest? Seriously -- I'm curious.
Why couldn't Pandora invest on a couple of solar panel. Have the solar panel generate power, sell the electricity, and use that money to pay for the music? So we all have endless supply of free music. Problem solved.
Nineties death metal band?
I think I'm with you, but I can see an argument that Pandora is different from a radio station. A radio station arguably promotes music sales; services that customize their playlists to your tastes might actually replace music sales. Maybe music becomes a service rather than a product in that case.
I do think it's silly that DJ-controlled stations should be charged differently simply because one broadcasts via radio and one via internet.
You know, the only people that suffer are the little kiddies who can't afford an ipod, who don't have access to the internet and are spoon fed the crap the clear channel broadcasts. The state of terrestrial radio is bad, really bad with hardly a choice of what to listen to and nothing but crap music (top 100, top 40, easy listening being the biggest categories). The only choice for any sort of radio is internet radio with a good selection of just about everything. Of course they're trying to kill that off so, good luck with that, right? Ohh, there's college radio which has a good selection, but i bet if this bill passes a lot of colleges will be dumping their licenses due to cost issues.
RIAA is the most absurd organization around. They do realize that the radio is ancient compared to them. They seriously are looking for money out of everyone's pockets in a time when the the economy is in the tank. I mean they tried to get millions in imaginary damages from a college student. Now they are trying to get money out of an already struggling radio business which has been playing the music for free for well over 50 years.
Just because you are wrong and I called you out on it doesn't mean I am a Troll.
Seems to say that terrestrial radio already pays the Songwriters huh? Those are the people I want my money going to anyway..Not a record exec who is going to spend it on the next craptastic pop album.
Pandora doesn't do that because they would lose a significant portion of their target market. They want to play in the market that includes the major players, and they need to accept the fees, which, after some fighting, they have.
Three rules of music ...
1. The world does not owe us free songs.
2. We don't owe the world free music.
3. We own what we create.
-- Me ... July 14-2009
www.Migrainesoft.com - Computer giving you a headache? We can fix that!
Sorry, I did a terrible job mashing two topics together and getting the worst of both.
1. Radio getting worse --> RIAA OldStyle "Top40 Machine" is on the fade. I think I tried to say there's a limit to the number of genres that fit that sales profile: bland enough to not require much work to listen to, upbeat enough to drive to, with a hook Consumer will remember long enough to buy a CD.
2. I agree that creativity is exploding - but at such a unique level I'm not sure if anything stays put long enough to separate "genre" from "marketing fad" name. To me it's becoming just "That Artist's Sound". Gothic-Bhangra-Enya-Punk-Progessive-Violin becomes verbal saltwater swirl toffee. Forget the colors and just enjoy.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Since Pandora plays music based on user recommendations and a presumably good (and improving) similarity metric rather than advertising, this should work out well for the arts. Private labels and performers are just as likely to be played as the Evil Empire's stuff. Indeed, Pandora can drop the big players anytime their contract becomes onerous, as the music genome will have good coverage of the popular genres.
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
I was flying across southwestern Ohio in a Piper Saratoga and knew there was going to be a good baseball game on that night. The AM radio in the airplane had some trouble picking up WGN, so we switched over to the ADF and tuned it to 720kHz. We got the Cubs game nice and clear, and the ADF needle was pointing towards Chicago.
"Having heard the quality of most "indie artists," all I can say is thank God for that."
And you are going to argue the mass-market artists broadcast by your 9 local Clear Channel affiliates are better?
Three more rules of music:
The value of a song is what people will pay for it.
The world doesn't owe you anything either.
Just because you own what you create does not entitle you to profit from it.
There is overlap between the AM band and what the ADF will receive. There is no overlap between the FM band and what any radio nav equipment in an airplane will receive.
If you happen to have a HF radio in your airplane (needed only on long over-water flights, and there are ways around that), you can communicate on some of the HAM bands.
un-ALTERED reproduction and dissimination of this IMPORTANT information is ENCOURAGED
Man exactly what kind of Apple planet you live instead of Earth and when did you move?
FM radio go in way of Dodo etc? Did you lose your mind? No, World doesn't consist of Apple Stores, Star Bucks and similar things. FM radio can't die because 10-20 people around you doesn't have FM radio capability since Apple was really horrified that they may dare to listen to top 40 crap 'free' instead of buying from iTMS. In fact, it will stay as FM form for a long time since every company except Apple fascists are putting FM radio to their low end cell phones these days. There hasn't been more FM capable devices in history than today. For example, Sony Ericsson are famous for putting a full feature (even including RDS) radio to every high end phone they use. My SE P1i phone doesn't just display RDS, it is also capable of "audio fingerprinting" currently playing track on radio (or actually the surrounding) and display it. That is the 'evil Sony!' for you. Now you have base score to see how evil Apple is for not putting a 10 cent chip inside iPod.
Ask CBS and Clear Channel giants if you want USA centric information about how FM radio is doing. You can also ask British people how "crap" FM sounds like since they didn't move to full digital DAB despite all the push of BBC which does make excellent music broadcast. I mean it is not NPR we talk about, it is the BBC giant. Their (!) DAB has failed because people didn't see (hear) a point. Of course, in British fashion, DAB owners will never get abandoned although DAB couldn't fulfil its promise.
Some people will always like the music chosen by them, by professionals, with a little chatter and information mixed and even ads. That is why radio survives. It should be dead right when the first 8 track shipped if you think that way. No, some people doesn't really want to bother with ''choice'' etc. too much. They want to hear their taste of music and information with minimum interaction as possible.
Why would anyone expect them to pony up for fees that some of their major competition (even though it's different technology) is immune to?
No, they expect them to die. Unfair fees are the point. Given that the recording industry can control radio, and it can't control Pandora, they are trying to kill Pandora with excessive fees.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
1. The world does not owe us free songs.
Agreed, but I'm not about to refuse if someone offers me a copy of something they like.
2. We don't owe the world free music.
Agreed, but good luck getting me to buy a concert ticket, or t-shirt if I've never heard your stuff.
3. We own what we create.
Until you sell or give it away, then it's owned by someone else.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Pandora is a jukebox. Yes a Jukebox with high technology. There is no similarity with a radio, even if the radio is web only broadcast.
Radios multicast since they were invented. If the entire planet somehow had multicast capability, could pandora multicast? No. They are streaming aac files to individuals, each individual gets their unique stream.
IMHO, after Last.fm backed by CBS giant went payware in markets excluding USA, UK etc., they also figured they won't really stay afloat with that kind of bandwidth use. As they see thousands of users coming from last.fm because it faced the sad reality mostly because of stupid advertisers can't understand where World is heading to, they now try to trick justice system also somehow troubling REAL RADIO which has nothing to do with them.
If anyone can confuse last.fm, pandora with a real traditional radio, I would be really surprised. The closest thing to real radio on that 'AI' fashion was Spinner which got acquired by AOL and wasted as usual. It was airing (!) same track on its channels.
I understand that record labels are the entities that distribute the media that artists create. If they aren't charging the radio station for them accessing the media then they should start. If the radio stations circumvent them then I guess they have a legitimate claim. The radio stations are using the music to procure a source of income(Ads targeting listeners). As per performers I have no idea how they are defined and won't comment.
Many truly believe the world all have iPhones and everybody spends their day playing with them and looking to add little $1 apps to it. Even more can't fathom a world where people spend hours a day in their car and not only can you not get a data service on your phone, you can barely pick up one or two AM stations.
People should get out more ;)
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
We can always do what we see in other industries: exemptions for smaller entities. The question is, how small. Will it just be college radio, or will independent stations be exempt or pay less?
No, that's composers, writers and publishers.
I listen to two hours of NPR almost every day. To hell with music stations, online and off; they just support the tyrant. We need some consumer rights in copyrights; fair use needs to be expanded. Artists need protection from businesses, not fans.
deseipel: most people think of the performers as the writers/composers
Then they'd be wrong, which is why this discussion always gets so confused. Publishers don't perform, and there are tens of thousands of composers who compose music and writers who write lyrics -- but who never perform their own material. I'm one of them, and an ASCAP member (but please don't ask me to defend their stupid behaviors, like the ringtone follies going on now). That's our only source of musical income. Those little names under the song titles -- that's us. We get paid (by random 'lottery' here in the US) and the trickle of pennies is a valuable one. On the other hand, I do think the payment scale is way skewed, and nonprofits or volunteer programs shouldn't be hustled for ASCAP/BMI/SESAC royalties or RIAA performance fees.
Dennis
That's interesting. But when I was doing radio, the station ID was required once an hour, as close to the :00 as possible, usually within 2 minutes either way. With that kind of timing, I don't see how it would be much good for a pilot in distress, unless the distress conveniently started around :55 or so.
In a time several careers ago, I worked at a radio station and had the "pleasure" of being there during the week that we maintained detailed logs (by hand, I said it was a long time ago) for ASCAP/BMI payment. It is just as the OP said, the sample was somewhat random and many cuts didn't make it on the log at all (we averaged 10-12 songs per hour). It would be the same for the RIAA if their wishes are granted.
The RIAA seems to think that they can get $$ from radio stations with no other impact. If they were talking about 1% or so of gross renevues, there would be objections but probably their money would come in. At 10% or more of gross, many stations would convert to other formats (more talk radio anyone?) to survive. And there is the rub, less stations with music, less $$ to the RIAA than they think they will get and much less promotion of artists.
Radio for me is mostly valuable for traffic reports and other time critical items, not music. However, music comes with the package. If it weren't part of broadcasting I'd get the same value (small as it is) and the RIAA would see no payments. In fact, I often listen to NPR because of the lack of value on the other stations, music format of not. I also avoid the get rich quick blurbs and weight loss drug ads that take up 20 minutes of every hour.
If this goes through I'd bet that the only music left would be Radio Disney since that payment is from one pocket to another. In fact, would the RIAA get into the broadcasting business if this goes through? It probably woudl be the only way to keep a significant part of music on air.
Phonograms were originally considered merely an alternate form of musical notation, such as a MIDI sequence could be thought of today. This was because the first phonograms were piano rolls, which indeed were little other than an alternative form of notation. Hence the 1909 Copyright Act did not consider them copyrightable separately from the underlying music. Recording technology quickly made this view obsolete, but it took decades for the law to catch up. This is why there is no public performance right in most sound recordings.
Creating a public performance right in all sound recordings would make the statute more consistent. But we shouldn't let the robber barons get something for nothing. The new right would be an expansion in the scope of copyright. The quid-pro-quo should be a contraction in copyright's scope elsewhere (such as an expanded margin of fair use) or a reduction in the duration of copyright, from life-plus-70 down to life-plus-60 or life-plus-50.
I prefer anarchy, but only under a strong & wise anarch
while it might be more fair for radio to pay more fees, it's really Pandora being a crybaby. I hardly believe that they would have been advocating that radio pay no fees at all had record lables agreed to let Pandora pay no fees. The reason radio stations have the system they have is because they argue that they are effectively a big promotional tool (which they are) for artists, and I fail to see (as the ARS article points out) how this would change now that Pandora has to pay fees. Pandora, even though they sorta lost to the record companies, should be advocating for the radio industry the same thing it advocated (and lost) for itself. While I understand that the radio is their competition and it's in their best interest (financially) for the radio to have to pay more they're still bastards for jumping into bed with the music industry.
I KUT J00 M4NG!!!
I meant write your own stuff, not copy everyone else.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Actually most of us that are into guitars would use something like Guitar Pro or PowerTab with either MySongbook, Ultimate Guitar, or 911Tabs, or all three, or we'd use Guitar Pro or PowerTab to compose our own stuff and submit it.
OLGA? I've never bothered with that site. Tablature without the timing properly notated above? FUCK THAT!
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I meant write your own stuff
George Harrison tried that, got sued for having accidentally copied someone else's song, and lost. Bright Tunes Music v. Harrisongs Music, 420 F. Supp. 177 (S.D.N.Y. 1976). What reasonable steps should I take when writing music to make sure that the same thing doesn't happen to me?
So tell me where would all your friends be finding out about these new artists if everyone but the Big Boys of the Industry get shut down due to the fees? If its only the Big Boys left they'll probably do what Pandora is now and do everything they can to keep the RIAA and its ilk happy by only playing the music of the Big Four and shut out the independents.
Oh! Your friends will find out on sites like Youtube you say. Well who do you think will be the next target? They'll use some excuse about there being no way to legally prove its the artists themselves posting there and that they can always get the royalty back from Soundexchange anyway if it is them posting.
As too the argument that the Music Industry doesn't get anything back from the free play of music on the Radio. musicFIRST a coalition of artist who have testified before Congress asking that Radio pay the fees is also the same coalition which has petitioned the FCC over the fact Radio Stations have stopped playing the songs of Members of musicFIRST and Artists of the Big Four. Seems they want Radio to be forced to pay royalties for playing their songs and be forced to play them since not doing so hurts since the public never hears of them.
As to Independents collecting their Royalties from these collected fees. The list of Artist whom Soundexchange, the group who collects the fees, can't find in order to pay is laughable since it seems to find such "Obscure" artists as Ted Nugent and has yet to pay out over 50% of what they;ve collected.
Why? Pandora has already paid up. If the rules change, they don't get back any of their money. Sure, it was unfair to have to pay the fees but that's over and done, Radio didn't back THEM up and made sure to cut its own deal for an exception. Congress decided there would be pay for performance fees and the courts made Pandora pay.. now Pandora wants others to pay their "fair" share too and close the loophole. It's "eye for an eye" baby!
Besides that the royalties and performance fees are government mandated if you run a radio station or web streaming service. Even if you played only stuff from yourself and your buddies... you'd still have to pay the fees to the radio nazis. The only way you'd get the fees BACK is to sign up with a label big enough to pay the registration fees required by the royalty boards... hence, you wouldn't see a penny.
This is why NPR in many shows plays little to no music and why most of the former NPR classical music radio has become all "talk" because they have to pay fees for everything even silly background music on shows like Prairie Home Companion.
Besides that the royalties and performance fees are government mandated if you run a radio station or web streaming service. Even if you played only stuff from yourself and your buddies... you'd still have to pay the fees to the radio nazis.
Who would have a claim against me if I didn't play non-free music and didn't pay?
Have you guys even read the bill? The fact that my comment went down into a troll really shows the ignorance of this place.
There are a lot of independent radio stations out there that are not ClearChannel stations. This will in fact benefit ClearChannel as there are more of them. A lot of the small radio stations will not be able to compete and all we will have is one radio station company that will play the same 20 songs over and over again.
Previewing comments are for sissies!