Slashdot Mirror
Canadian Media Companies Target CBC's Free Music Site
silentbrad writes, with bits and pieces from the Globe and Mail: "A number of Canadian media companies have joined forces to try to shut down a free music website recently launched by the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., claiming it threatens to ruin the music business for all of them. The group, which includes Quebecor Inc., Stingray Digital, Cogeco Cable Inc., the Jim Pattison Group and Golden West Radio, believes that CBCmusic.ca will siphon away listeners from their own services, including private radio stations and competing websites that sell streaming music for a fee. The coalition is expected to expand soon to include Rogers Communications Inc. and Corus Entertainment Inc., two of the largest owners of radio stations in Canada. It intends to file a formal complaint with the CRTC, arguing that the broadcaster has no right under its mandate to compete with the private broadcasters in the online music space. ... 'The only music that you can hear for free is when the birds sing,' said Stingray CEO Eric Boyko, whose company runs the Galaxie music app that charges users $4.99 a month for unlimited listening. 'There is a cost to everything, yet CBC does not seem to think that is true.' ... The companies argue they must charge customers to offset royalty costs which are triggered every time a song is played, while the CBC gets around the pay-per-click problem because it is considered a non-profit corporation. ... Media executives aren't the only ones who have expressed concern. When the CBC service was launched in February, the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers said that when it set a flat fees for the more than 100,000 music publishers it represents, it never envisioned a constant stream of free music flooding the Internet."
... what the hell, guy?
I am having a hard time even understanding what the hell is going on here. Of course the CBC has a right to compete with private broadcasters... that's sort of what they do. The CBC is there to ensure that people will still have free access to the best in broadcast media, for free, forever, and as far as I can tell the only music that's available for free download is music that the artists have said they're ok with the CBC offering.
The problem is... where?
So now that I've got my initial reaction out of the way...
12.0 Why is there advertising on CBC Music?
Advertising is the primary means that allows us to fairly compensate the artists we play on CBC Music. We signed an agreement with the Audio-Video Licensing Agency (AVLA), which represents over 1,000 music labels. We are very excited to report that through this deal, all artists registered via AVLA will be paid for having their work broadcast on CBC Radio 2, CBC Radio 3, and our 40 web radio stations.
Another reason we've decided to pursue advertising on CBC Music is that, in the current economic climate, CBC cannot afford to have a large new service like CBC Music that isn't self-sustaining. This revenue stream not only allows us to survive, but also helps us to grow and continue to expand CBC Music.
Emphasis added.
So I'm not sure of the full legalities of it, but according to the CBC Music FAQ, they have acquired the right to stream all the music on their site.
What's the problem? My guess is that these are companies that refused to sign, and they're bitching about the fact that they couldn't get the price they wanted for their music. Excuse me while I shed a tear or two.
"The only music that you can hear for free is when the birds sing." In other words, if you haven't paid me and my friends to listen to music, you can't listen to it at all. What an asshole.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
... is when the birds sing."
He picked a particularly ironic example.
-- Insert witty one-liner here. --
I am so freaking sick of private companies who believe the only way to protect their profits is to legislate against other organisations threatening their market share. And I'm sick of governments and courts indulging them. Take it as an opportunity to better your services and provide something that CBC (or whoever you're whining about) doesn't - there are hundreds of ideas out there. You may actually surprise yourself and become more successful than you ever imagined.
The free market is WONDERFUL, until something happens that the fat cats, criminals and freeloaders of Big Content have their business interests threatened. The stench of hypocrisy is unbearable.
If they can't compete with free, then they can either 1) do something else where they CAN make money; or 2) eat shit and die.
Except...that the media companies are asking for more restrictions and regulations, not less. And the media companies don't innovate, they take innovative work from one group of people and show it to another group of people, and charge high prices for the service. A service that's no longer required.
The real problem is that while innovation is hard, distribution is not anymore. Someone at the CBC realizes this; the media companies, which insist on charging high rates for distribution, have not.
Personally, I think what the CBC is doing is daring, and has a lot of potential to help connect Canadian musicians with audiences. Perhaps this can be a replacement for the obsolete CanCon laws, that currently mandate all those radio stations to play a certain percentage of Canadian music (regardless of how good that music is).
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
Sorry, but "innovation" is not hard. Implementation can be hard , but innovation is simply the process of an idea.. and perhaps validation of the idea given the materials at hand.
The article points out how complex and unfair the way music is licensed. That is what is wrong with the implementation, not that thousands of people have come up with ways of innovating music in the digital age and how to turn a profit from it.
If the Music and Video industries could come up with fair ways of getting content to users at reduced prices, pick a service and it could be done.
People are quick to bash Napster as "ewww, they are evil pirates". Is it so much that they are evil pirates, or more that most of what was being traded was only available when people turned physical media in to digital to share? Or is it that some digital content is not affordable?
As again the article points out, many people iTunes as the only way to get in to digital music. What if you or your family can't afford an iPod, iPhone, MAC or PC to connect to the internet? Or if it costs so much they can't afford to download anything?
It's easy to excuse shit policies and laws in the name of innovation. Especially when the PTO has the rights to patent even the dumbest fucking ideas.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Not to mention the fact that the data seems to show that they stand to gain by promoting, rather than condemning, contemporary distribution models.
I don't think it's protecting their assets so much as defending a particular, ideological view of art which is ultimately just a little blip in the historical trajectory of human creativity and how we share and experience it.
.: Semper Absurda
Have you looked at the music on offer? A lot of it is stuff that the other play-on-demand sites wouldn't bother providing because it's too obscure.
I don't think we should be telling them that are not allowed to use services provided by record labels.
I don't think that the record labels should be allowed to dictate the copyright laws of our country to the point of regulating technology development, and I think that's a far greater and real threat than that of new musicians not finding experienced people in the music industry who want to help them succeed in exchange for a paycheck.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
I have a theory about people like you... You use the word "Socialism" in the same way that a 4 year old uses "Shit". You really have no idea what it really means, you just know that it gets a rise out of people. The Fox News talking heads are even more guilty of this, labeling President Obama a Socialist because he is slightly less of a Capitalist than they themselves. If you want to see examples of Socialism, look to a history book. What you are seeing is a government subsidized means of distributing music. If you are a citizen of the United States, I may remind you that we are rather Socialist as well. Unless you want the free-market to determine what roads we drive on, whose houses burn down, and which kids get a decent education please go shove your divisive partisan drivel into the nearest Fox News comment section, I'm sure they'd appreciate it.
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
they are a government funded network, we're already paying for it with out taxes!
The problem there is that the financing, marketing experience etc aren't really necessary either; these days it's perfectly possible to do all that yourself, or source it from your manager instead of from your distributor, and still earn a living. The hype and marketing and financing of the big super-groups and performers isn't about music at all, and studies have shown that people who want music aren't consuming their product. At it's best it's about providing a multi-platform, multi-media marketing message that feeds and feeds on the big media industry Product. At worst, it's spending a lot of money polishing turds. Most big record-label promotion is about scrabbling for a sliver of attention from people for whom music is a background thing. Katy Perry isn't big because of her music, and people don't consume her music. They consume Katy Perry. And her bosses use Katy Perry to sell other product, like So You Think You Can Dance and whatever's passing for Super Music Video Hits of the Super Music Video Stars, but mostly they just use her to sell more eyeballs to more advertisers. And even this is probably not self-sustaining. Don't forget that Justin Bieber was a Youtube sensation before he was a mega-star. Big Media needs the digital age, but the digital age doesn't need Big Media.
Musicians are finding that they don't need the promotion power of Big Media, they can do the promotion themselves. They sell less product but the margins are much much higher, and if they're any good their customers will pay more for the product.
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
They also have this tendency to fuck artists over, which is why even very big acts have to haul their thieving asses into court over unpaid royalties and other contract breaches. Anyone who praises record companies should review Robert Fripp's multi-year campaign to get Universal/UMG to provide accurate royalty figures and explain how King Crimson songs had got onto Universal-affiliated download services width out the rights holders' permission (and again being unable to report sales).
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Lobbyism is bribery, period. It doesn't matter how much you dress it up it's still the same thing, people using money to gain more power than they're legally entitled to.
Couldn't it also be that they feel its unfair to have to compete with a government funded agency?
Just askin. I couldn't find any clear statement on the site as to the source of their funding.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Plus, the CBC being a Crown Corporation, is run by the state and funded by tax dollars, which also allows for many unfair advantages - They're claiming non-proft, getting the tax break, and being funded by tax dollars to begin with, don't even need to be profitable or self-sustaining, and is, as a result, undercutting big media.
Contrary to what people here (who really will just say anything to avoid just coming out and saying that all this hoopla is because they want things for free), might insist, this is a huge dick move by the CBC, and they have every reason to be pissed.
How is it a dick move to do precisely what they were set up to do?
from their mandate:
The 1991 Broadcasting Act states that... ... ...
"...the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, as the national public broadcaster, should provide radio and television services incorporating a wide range of programming that informs, enlightens and entertains;
be made available throughout Canada by the most appropriate and efficient means and as resources become available for the purpose, and
this would seem to be the most efficient means to provide this service.
the fee was negotiated and agreed to. you can't change your mind afterwards unless you hold that right as part of the initial agreement.
Canada has decided as a country that they wanted to set up a body to make entertainment available to all its citizens the CBC is doing that in the best way possible. sorry if you don't like that but well, deal with it.
And all this talk about innovation is patently absurd, you'll see these very same people in any other thread arguing about how "blah blah blah ON A TABLET" is invalid and not innovative, but now, "blah blah blah, BUT FOR FREE" is the be all, end all of innovation?
1. They're not trying to patent a model for free distribution of music.
2. Their distribution method is not exactly the same as big media, only free.
i spent five minutes thinking and all i got was this crappy sig
The CBC is government funded.
Not sure I see the relevance, though. Should libraries be shut down because they cut into Amazon's profit? Ridiculous.
Commercial radio is so god-awful here, all I listen to is CBC 1 (no commercials, mostly interviews and talk programs, news). Sure beats the alternative of 60% commercials, 40% of the same twenty songs repeated and dumb DJs hurr durring.
The purpose of human society is to provide the best possible services to the majority not to fucking enrich a psychopathic minority. If a service is best provided by a non-profit government agency, then that is the appropriate medium for provision of the service.
Forget the insane bullshit that a service should only be provided by the most corrupt most greedy organisation that can tilt laws in it's favour and and, pay for the most PR=B$ (marketing lies for profit).
"JUST TELLING" human society is for the benefit of the majority not so that a psychopathic minority can prey upon the majority.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
There are a lot of Canadians who like the CBC. I listen CBC 1 on the radio all the time as it is the only quality radio available even though I'm in the third biggest market in Canada and the only TV available for myself and many others is also the CBC. (Used to have quite a few over the air TV channels and generally the CBC was still the best. Now the governments have ordered them to move away from the good frequencies so big media and telco can make more money and the only analog station left is the CBC.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Thing about that is, I suspect most Canadians would happily do away with the CBC and the CRTC.
I suspect you're wrong. Most Canadians I knew when living in Canada did rather appreciate CBC. The ones that hated it were mostly extreme right-wing, which are not the majority.