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.
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.
“These actions further distances the corporation from its mandate, while placing it directly on a collision course with private broadcasters who can only rely on advertising and subscription revenues to sustain their services,”
Isn't one of the mandate of the CBC to promote Canadian art and culture? The CBC does a lot more to promote quality Canadian content then any other broadcaster on that list.
"The only music that you can hear for free is when the birds sing." That guy has probably never been on the internet before... You know, the place where a bunch of bands are releasing their music for free because they love what they do?
To be strictly fair, it's not exactly a level playing-field. The CBC is a crown corporation, and is directly supported in part by taxpayer dollars. The current government isn't terribly friendly to the CBC these days, and would sell off or axe the whole thing if they thought the electorate wouldn't revolt, but still. Not exactly a textbook case for free market competition.
Having said that, the CBC has paid it's licensing fees for the content, like any other corp, and is selling advertising to pay for the service, and is fulfilling its mandate of exposing Canadian and international listeners to Canadian artists, so I'm all for it.
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
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
Oh BS. These asshole have no problem when it's CBC radio broadcasting jazz or Classical, which it's been doing longer than any of the guys have been around. If they had a problem why didn't they go after CBC 20 years ago?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
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.
Proposing things to and supporting politicians with same views as you is not bribery. If they were bribing the police to bust you, then you would have a case. But it's not the same, and also, you are allowed to do the same.
Actually, in Canada it is bribery. Our Elections act is quite clear on that point. It's illegal for a candidate or party to accept funding from an entity who is not a citizen of the country (and unlike the US, corporations are not citizens). Additionally, there is a limit to how much an individual can give, per year, to a given candidate/party.
Violating the elections act can get a candidate's election results invalidated, and carries significant fines, in the case of a corporation giving money to a candidate. Lest you think that they'll find some way to hide the funding, their finances must be submitted to the elections officer, there is a limit to how much can be spent on elections, and their financial returns are a matter of public record, and can be searched by anybody.
And yet the Conservatives (Currently in power in Canada) have been found 3 times to have breached these exact same laws (and fudging the elections finance submissions) and nothing has happened (barely even made a blip on the News).
Unfortunately, there are MANY ways around these rules and way too many ways to bend them, thus neutering those laws.
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.
These are all pretty obscure acts that the for-profit guys won't touch, so what exactly is the problem? And if it does give some of these acts greater exposure why are you upset? If the big media companies wouldn't touch these acts, then they've lost nothing.
Unless they're scares the A&R guys are now as pointless as testicles on a hen, and talent is being ignored in favor of the talentless dreck they foist on everyone.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
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
They also provide financing for new musicians,
As somebody who was involved in the underground music scene in Saint John's, I can say that the record labels are useless to new musicians. The best way for new musicians to finance themselves is to play all-ages shows, sell merchandise, and apply for (small) grants from the government. All the labels do is engage a high-risk high-return advertising machine, and work the musicians to the bone.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
You don't? You mean you don't see how the CBC is cutting and gutting into new business startups, that they're exceeding their funding mandate by doing this either? Libraries are far different from what the CBC is pulling.
Almost EVERY single radio station is owned by Chorus/Rogers or is planned to be owned by Chorus/Rogers. Even the college radio stations are being bought. In my mind, all CBC is doing is modernizing. Price is not the only thing to compete on... what about News/Traffic humorous enjoyable adverts, morning shows and proper exclusive programming?!? I remember turning on the radio at a certain time to hear the on-going history of new music or could change the station during commercials or news... since Chrous/Rogers has been buying all the stations Canadian radio has gone to the shitter and they have every right to be scared that they will no longer be able to synchronize the commercials on every radio station at the same time and playing almost the same content commercials programs and morning shows.
Chorus / Rogers are complaining because free streaming by CBC threatens them by giving listeners options, something they figured they could work around by buying everything.
120 characters ought to be enough for anyone
So, every thing provided by the government then?
No, only the things that citizens believe should be so provided.
In Canada, apparently, this includes streaming music.
I was a worker for many years, now I am a co-owner of a very small business. Do you know what my current windfall from the "ownership of capital" is? It's negative, "red" as they say in accounting. And it is supposed to remain so for at least a few years. Many startups fail, thus never recovering the invested money. I'm hoping for a positive return, but I'm taking large risks with my money, and I may never see it again. Are you willing to mortgage your house, for example, to invest into your own startup? If not then you are a worker.
Something to keep in mind is that small business owners like you are not capitalists in Marxist classification - they are "petit bourgeoisie". The difference is that the means of production - capital - owned by the owner of a small business is, generally speaking, not generating sufficient wealth for rapid expansion.
Simply put, you're a capitalist if your capital is large enough that you can hire a manager and retire, living entirely off the proceeds without having to work yourself - purely on the "rent" extracted from others.
The USSR model artfully combines the worst aspects of communism, socialism and capitalism. The factories are not yours, so you never get any dividends on your investment - nor you can make those investments. You only get the salary; but since the state is the only capitalist in town, the state gets to dictate how much you are going to eat today. Socialism is simply capitalism with only one capitalist; one big company town from which there is no escape.
That's precisely why a lot of Marxists argue that USSR was never socialist, except perhaps for a few years early on when it truly had factories run by their workers, but rather a degenerate form of state capitalism. As you note, the factories in the USSR were not really owned by people working in them - they were owned by the state, which exploited the workers just the same, and paid out part of what it extracted from them as salary. Soviet apologists generally claim that the state was democratic, and therefore workers were able to influence how much they were payed; but it was a sham democracy in practice with no real choices.
And there were no socialist (or self-proclaimed socialist) states that were based on any model other than the Soviet one - of all the early socialist revolutions that happened, Soviet was the only one that succeeded, and all further socialist states were backed by USSR, and, by necessity, picked up its ideology - sometimes diverging from it later, like China or Yugoslavia, but the roots were always there. So we don't really know what a "real socialism" would be like, and whether it could have worked out better.
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.