ASCAP Petitions FCC To Deny Pandora's Purchase of Radio Station

chipperdog writes "NorthPine.com reports: 'ASCAP is firing back against Pandora Radio's attempt to get lower music royalty rates by buying a terrestrial radio station, "Hits 102.7" (KXMZ Box Elder-Rapid City). In a petition to deny, ASCAP alleges "Pandora has failed to fully disclose its ownership, and to adequately demonstrate that it complies with the Commission's foreign ownership rules." ASCAP also alleges that Pandora has no intention of operating KXMZ to serve the public interest, but is rather only interested in obtaining lower royalty rates. Pandora reached a deal to buy KXMZ from Connoisseur Media for $600,000 earlier this year and is already running the station through a local marketing agreement.'"

Comments

Fuck ASCAP

[Type44Q]

Fuck ASCAP and everything they represent.

Re:Fuck ASCAP

[Anonymous Coward]

But it's no FAIR! ASCAP wants to go to the LAAAAAAKKEEE!!!!!!

Re:Fuck ASCAP

[LifesABeach]

So the acts that Rufford Murdoch serve the public interest? I'm certain the parents of Milly Dowler would be enlightened.

Re:Fuck ASCAP

[Anonymous Coward]

Who is Rufford Murdoch?

Re:Fuck ASCAP

[Anonymous Coward]

Rupert Murdoch's dog. Named in a process similar to Katy Perry's cat, Kitty Purry.

Re:Fuck ASCAP

[N0Man74]

Who is Rufford Murdoch?

You don't know Rufus? Rufus is Rupert's Cajun, cantankerous old coot of a cousin that hails from the Bayou.

Ah, that Rufus... what a character.

Re:Fuck ASCAP

[Anonymous Coward]

No, no, that's Rupedeaux Murdoch.

Re:Fuck ASCAP

[easyTree]

Until there's a "Fuck ASCAP" moderation, these will have to do...

Re:Fuck ASCAP

[Anonymous Coward]

It's either a small world or that harpy's voice carries further than I thought. You'd think the guy might have realised what he was getting into before he married her.

The video in question. Warning: do not watch if you value your time, or have anything against grown-ups throwing tantrums like toddlers.

Intentions

[Anonymous Coward]

ASCAP also alleges that Pandora has no intention of operating KXMZ to serve the public interest, but is rather only interested in obtaining lower royalty rates.

Paying lower royalty rates to parasites like ASCAP unquestionably serves the public interest.

Re:Intentions

[Nadaka]

You think the songwriters actually get more than a pittance from ASCAP?

Re:Intentions

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a songwriter and to get a few cents from ASCAP I have to pay them.

Re:Intentions

[IndustrialComplex]

Nothing more parasitic than a songwriter getting paid for the public performance of their work... shame on those people... shame.

With how much our culture and technology has been retarded in the name of preserving archaic quasi-governmental licensing systems...

I shed the same tears for the newspapers who lose revenue when jurisdictions no longer require legal notices to be posted in the classifieds. Won't you consider the jobs of the fax machine manufacturers? If signatures can be electronically signed, what will happen to the market for specialized devices designed to print images received over outdated phone lines?

Re:Intentions

[intermodal]

Tell you what. When I get a law that makes people keep paying me for work I did decades ago, maybe I'll be ok with songwriters getting the same privilege.

Re:Intentions

[RazzleFrog]

Except that to earn a living then they would have to write a new song every day. Copyrights makes sense on a much more limited basis. An artist could literally spend years working on something without any benefit. It is not unreasonable to expect some term that allows them to benefit exclusively for their work. Otherwise there would be no incentive to create in the first place.

The problem is that the laws have changed to the point where it is almost infinite thanks to the lobbying of the big entertainment companies.

Re:Intentions

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see why that's such a hard concept to grasp. Artists of all kinds are functionally are at the end of the day merely producers no different than producers of any other field. Why should an artist get paid every time someone views their work when a factory line worker only gets paid for the hours he's clocked in?

Could you imagine a world where factory workers were paid royalties every time someone drove a car, how fucking nuts would that be? But that's exactly what we have in the entertainment industry.

Re:Intentions

[intermodal]

Ah, but if they want to get paid, I do think they should continually have to write songs/perform/whatever other art they may produce.

Re:Intentions

[RazzleFrog]

If an artist worked for a company that paid him a fixed hourly/annual wage for the work he does - whether he completes anything or not - then I am sure he would be fine with not getting paid when his work is viewed.

There aren't many companies that pay artists that way, though. Not to mention that the artist would then be stuck producing only what the company wants which leads to the crap Hollywood produces.

If you don't have a compensation model for artists outside of corporations then you aren't going to get good creative artists.

Re:Intentions

[intermodal]

Also, I do favour a limited-term copyright. but by limited, I mean very limited. We're talking somewhere in the range of 7-10 years.

Re:Intentions

[RazzleFrog]

Of course they do. Very rarely is an artist going to make one work and retire. Of course, being that they have to keep producing for a living they continually run the risk of producing a flop.

If you think that being an artist is such a cozy easy life then why don't you do it?

Re:Intentions

[Nickodeimus]

I am speaking from ignorance here, so keep that in mind...

Couldn't you sue them for something like racketeering? I've heard this way too many times from local artists for it not to be true on at least some level.

Re:Intentions

[intermodal]

Who said anything about easy? I don't think artists should have it any easier than anyone else. If they want to retire, they should save for it like everyone else.

Re:Intentions

[RazzleFrog]

Well I think some reasonable analysis needs to be done to figure out what is fair compensation. For example:

Let's say author A spends 3 years writing a novel while his wife supports him. In those 3 years, a college educated individual could have earned say $300K (just picking round numbers). Then let's assume that an average novel produces $30K per year in royalties for its author. That means he would need 10 years to break even. Now if his novel is a huge success he's likely to make back far more than that - which is only fair.

Of course, those are bullshit numbers and only one example. Some calculation could be done based on the last 10 years and updated every 10 years as the market changes. Maybe after the calculation is done the copyright term should be 30 years or maybe 5 but it definitely won't be life plus 30.

Re:Intentions

[intermodal]

You do realize that you are essentially describing concerts, right? You know, where musicians actually make money as opposed to record deals which usually land the artists deeply in debt when they don't pan out?

you're defending the broken business model over the one that works.

Re:Intentions

[poetmatt]

it's a very, very high bar for rico/racketeering. Proof of malice or something, if I recall? IANAL (lawyers, correct me?) While that's easily and clearly what ASCAP is doing to the average individual, the likeliness of success in court proving it is basically zero. They get to parade around with this shit saying how they protect "artist's interests" even when artists disagree and/or it's to the artist's own detriment.

Re:Intentions

[RazzleFrog]

I would say that probably only 1% of artists live a life even close to "easy". Go into Barnes and Noble and look at all the books in there. Stay away from the Stephen Kings and John Grishams but look at the thousands of other authors who may be much better authors but just don't get the right publicity or who can't afford to write full time.

There is a reason they say "starving artist" and not "starving accountant".

Re:Intentions

[RazzleFrog]

How does an artist get a paid concert gig they can live off of if they aren't already famous? They maybe spend years getting paid in food at a local bar.

And I hate the record labels. Definitely not defending them. You can have copyrights without labels.

Re:Intentions

[Dishevel]

You do not have to run numbers. Cut it to 15 years. If the people stop creating music and literature and movies then we can raise it. If they continue on or even start producing more we can try 10 years. The market will tell us exactly where copyright needs to be.

Re:Intentions

[Anonymous Coward]

No. They don't need to write a new song every day, they need to PERFORM every day to get paid.

Re:Intentions

[RazzleFrog]

I think it's more complicated than that, though. It could take years to see a shift in production and even then measuring it would be incredibly difficult. Even if people start producing more would you really want to cut the term? I don't think there is such a thing as too much creative production.

Re:Intentions

[intermodal]

While I generally agree with the results of your thought of a very limited term, I disagree with the way it was reached. There's no reason to expect a person to get back what they would have earned working otherwise. It's always a risk and always will be, creating art for profit. And I certainly don't support even the potential of a 30-year copyright. That's how works disappear into the æther.

Seldom does somebody become a novelist by quitting their day job to spend three years on it. To expect art to be one's sole source of income is unreasonable, though certainly not impossible.

Re:Intentions

[Type44Q]

Except that to earn a living then they would have to write a new song every day.

Hear that sound? (>appears to roll a booger between thumb and forefinger...)

Re:Intentions

[omnichad]

Some people make a living just by writing songs. A lot of famous singers do not write their own songs. Both skills don't always go hand-in-hand except for the most talented people. That's why there are writer's royalties and performance royalties - both are separate for a good reason.

Re:Intentions

[RazzleFrog]

You have little sympathy for artists so I assume you don't read books or listen to music.

Re:Intentions

[kiwimate]

Well, it'd be pretty easy to verify, as their books are open to the public to examine. For reference, ASCAP claims 88 cents out of every dollar is distributed to artists.

Of course, they are a member run organization, so members could vote for a different board of directors, or even simply not join.

Re:Intentions

[flibbidyfloo]

It is not unreasonable to expect some term that allows them to benefit exclusively for their work. Otherwise there would be no incentive to create in the first place.

This is exactly right. In fact, there was no music, or singing, or recordings, or concerts of any sort before copyright was instituted and ASCAP was founded to protect the artist and give him the brand new incentive to create.

Re:Intentions

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if people start producing more would you really want to cut the term? I don't think there is such a thing as too much creative production.

I think what the GP means is that if we cut the term and we see more works produced (presumably because of the resulting greater freedom to create derivative works), then it might be worth a try to cut them further to see if we get even more. I'm not saying whether I agree with that proposition, just pointing out that he isn't aiming to reduce creative production.

Re:Intentions

[sconeu]

We need copyright to extend after the death of the author!!!! Otherwise, what motiviation does Elvis Presley have to write new music?

Re:Intentions

[shentino]

So what?

Maybe you shouldn't be spending effort that can easily be duplicated in the first place.

And besides that, if it's easily duplicated, the free market says it's in high supply and doesn't command a high price anyway.

Copyright is only for the benefit of those who care more about making money than they do about their work being produced.

A real artist cares more about art than money.

Re:Intentions

[intermodal]

I don't know or care how they get a paid gig. It's really not my problem. I care more that they love and believe in what they're doing. Beyond that, success in the fiscal sense is just gravy.

I don't think anyone has a right to be successful because they want it. They gain the right to success by producing something people want, just like any other line of work. Sure, not everyone gets a big break, and sure, not everyone who gets one deserves it.

Re:Intentions

[RazzleFrog]

If you read any of my posts you would see that I think it is ridiculous that copyrights extend past death or even close to what they are now.

I will say one thing, though. I don't think copyright should end with the death of the artist if it is still within the regular term. So let's say an artist writes a great novel after years of his wife supporting him and dies the next day. I think it is reasonable that his wife receive the benefit of his work.

Re:Intentions

[intermodal]

Indeed, but Stephen King and John Grishaam living comfortably is not sufficient justification for other (superior) authors to get the same.

Re:Intentions

[RazzleFrog]

Artists often had wealthy sponsors who fed and clothed them so they could enjoy the exclusive benefit of their works.

Re:Intentions

[dywolf]

they dont have it any easier, and copywright is not inehrently evil (though it seems to me you take the view they are).

in fact its quite a bit harder. you're probably like me, and work a normal day to day hourly wage job. we work, we get paid. its simple, easy, and garutneed. its very low risk, very low reward, but we make it up on volume of hours worked.

for the sake of discussion, ignoring the MAFIAA and how they have perferted the industry..... ....a music (or any other kind) artist by contrast is not normal day to day work. it is a high risk, high reward situation. the starving artist stereotype is true because that reflects the condition of the majority of "artists": people who have not been and will never be successful.at it. and most artists DO work continuously. so here we have people who work continuously, trying to be successful, trying to get something creative created AND sold to the public, AND get paid for it. a lot of time and effort with a extremely high chance of NOT succeeding. yet people still do it anyway....because its still a high reward comensurate with the high risk.

if you eliminate completely any protections or garuntees of that works profitability (ie, copywright) the reward drops significantly. the creator of a work does have an right to profit from it, for a -reasonable- period of time. this concept of a limited copywright serves both the personal need of the artist to get a reason reward for his creative effort if he is successful, and the public's cultural interest in having works not perpetually owned and locked down.

but that is the key point: the reasonable period of time. very few people take the stance that copywright is inherently evil, and most agree that a limited duration protection incentivizes artists and protects them, while still encouraging them to continue to produce, and serving the public interest. given that, the rest of negotiation of the meaning of "reasonable". and that is precisely where the MAFIAA comes in, and where they have perverted this topic (another perversionis the enslavement of artists, and using hollywood accounting to prevent having to pay them...but that's another topic). Clearly to most of us this perpetual lockdown that they have managed to bring about is UN-reasonable.

but equally unreasonable is the complete abolishment of copyright.
Turn the clock back to a reasonable duration.

Re:Intentions

[RazzleFrog]

People can't feed themselves off of love for what they do. You don't just write a book overnight and feed yourself the next day. You can go years struggling, working odd jobs just to eat, living in poverty, just for the chance that your book will get noticed and receive financial success. The people who can do these truly do love what they do and are willing to make that sacrifice. But even they would have to think twice if at the end they didn't get paid.

Re:Intentions

[RazzleFrog]

I am not saying that every author needs to live like them. But they do need to live.

And those top grossing authors all have one thing in common - they put out bestsellers nearly every year. And for many of them they have multiple movie deals. They most likely spend more hours actually working than most 9-5ers.

Re:Intentions

[RazzleFrog]

Wow. So nobody should ever be an author, musician, painter, photographer, etc. Why bother doing anything that can be copied. What a sad world we would live in.

A real artist still needs to eat.

Re:Intentions

[dywolf]

actually he's describing commercial work, where they make music and art for (pun not intended) commercials.

you're conflating the abusive and unethical practices of the MAFIAA and their business model with copyright. the two are seperate if related issues.

Re:Intentions

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we get this exact response filed as an amicus brief? Please?

Re:Intentions

[intermodal]

Still not my problem. I don't care if they get jobs as accountants of fry cooks. Figuring it out 's really just not a crucial piece to this puzzle. Non-artists have the same problem. Being artists doesn't make them somehow special and exempt.

Re:Intentions

[EvanED]

You know, where musicians actually make money as opposed to record deals which usually land the artists deeply in debt when they don't pan out?

This isn't necessarily the case, especially for self-published artists. For instance, Zoe Keating has published her revenue breakdown -- only 26% comes from touring. And that's revenue, not profit, and touring is expensive.

Her situation is unique as she is independent (so no label to take profits) and yet reasonably successful. However, the aggregate information based on responses to this survey puts live performance income at 28%, so her experience is right in line with that. (The survey responses are wildly spread out though -- it covers people who just don't do live performances all the way through people who only make money from live performance (6.3%). The number varies a lot by genre; e.g., in rock, the average was 44%. But that's still a long way from "where they actually make money".)

Re:Intentions

[dywolf]

its not about a right to be successful. no one anywhere is demanding that.
its about "i cant legally record someone else, and sell their 'product' for profit".
without copyright a creator of a work is at the mercy of a bigger fish who can imitate or outright steal his creation and profit from it, while giving him nothing. its the same as theft of a craftsmans work to sell to a fence, only of an intangible "good". that is the biggest thing copyright protects for an artist.

Re:Intentions

[Anonymous Coward]

you are looking at this all wrong:
if i work for my WHOLE LIFE writing a book, play, song, opera, score, or producing a sculpture, painting, whatever, IT DOESN'T MATTER...
we do NOT 'appreciate' the artist's output BECAUSE it took me/them a lifetime, THAT IS BESIDE THE POINT...
similarly, i/they work our whole lives on this opus, but it is CRAP, how much do i/they 'deserve' ? ? ?
basically, nothing...

it is YOUR CHOICE if you spend an inordinate amount of time working on some art to the neglect of your basic human needs of food/shelter/etc... YOUR CHOICE... i/we don't give a shit whether it took you 5 minutes, 5 years, or 5 decades, that was YOUR CHOICE; you are not 'owed' ONE PENNY for your obsession... ESPECIALLY, given that sturgeon's law says there is a 90% chance it is dreck...

but i/we still 'owe' for that dreck because you poured your life's blood into it (whether 'good' or not) ? ? ?
nope...

Re:Intentions

[cpt kangarooski]

It is not unreasonable to expect some term that allows them to benefit exclusively for their work. Otherwise there would be no incentive to create in the first place.

Well, authors got no such thing until copyright was invented in the wary 18th century, and even then it took quite some time (with a helping hand from colonialism) for it to become widespread. But new works were still created, from antiquity on.

Copyright is an incentive to create a work, but it is not the only one, and it is not always even the most important one.

Re:Intentions

[RazzleFrog]

You misunderstand, the term doesn't guarantee that they'll make back their money. Most authors wouldn't even come close. It's just a reasonable term that on average would allow somebody to have enough time to make back about the same amount of money. Some artists will make far more and some will make nothing. The market will still determine that.

And why is it any more unreasonable to think that an artist make a living doing art than an accounting doing accounting?

Re:Intentions

[westlake]

You think the songwriters actually get more than a pittance from ASCAP?

Collectively? Yes.

But only the top tier artists are going to see a significant payout.

In 2012, ASCAP collected over US$941 million in licensing fees and distributed $828.7 million in royalties to its members, with an 11.6 percent operating expense ratio. As of July 2013, ASCAP membership included over 460,000 songwriters, composers, and music publishers.

American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers

If you thought LMFAO and Bruno Mars were ubiquitous in this country, good luck trying to avoid them overseas. Songs from both artists, already massive hits at home, were huge earners outside the United States last year.
Of the top 10 earning songs of the year for ASCAP members, four were recorded by Bruno Mars. Although LMFAO's "Party Rock Anthem" scored the most revenue internationally, Bruno Mars swept the next three spots.
In 2012, the organization's foreign revenue topped 340 million, more than double its 2000 foreign revenue of 128 million. As that revenue has grown, it has also increased its share of ASCAP's total. Foreign share of ASCAP revenue was 36% last year, compared with 22% in 2000.
In all, ASCAP takes in about six times what it pays out to performance rights organizations in other countries.
ASCAP collects royalties from performances in foreign countries through its agreements with fellow rights organizations in those territories. It currently collects from 100 such groups, recently adding Uganda.
ASCAP's largest affiliate partner is Britain, from which it receives about 50 million a year for American songs

LMFAO, Bruno Mars top ASCAP's foreign royalties for 2012

Re:Intentions

[The Archon V2.0]

In the real world, paying someone to get money back (and getting nothing) is a Nigerian scam.

In the music world, paying someone to get money back (and getting nothing) is business as usual.

Re:Intentions

[flibbidyfloo]

I suspect "often" is not accurate in this case, but it's irrelevant. Copyright law doesn't encourage the artistically inclined to create. It encourages some people to try and make a living at creating. I don't have any problem with that. I just disagree with the basic premise that absent copyright there'd be no incentive to create, because IMO it's obviously false on its face.

In the time before, I imagine very few people made a decent living just by writing songs. They had to perform them pretty regularly if they wanted to eat every day. As far as I'm concerned, the idea that someone can sit down and write a song and then get paid for that one act for many years without ever again even thinking about it is stupid, and I don't think it should be encouraged.

People invented things before there were patents too, you know.

Re:Intentions

[RazzleFrog]

No one is saying they have to be compensated but if their work is great than they SHOULD be compensated. Without that then there is no incentive to create amazing art. Have you never read a book or listened to music in your life? Do you have no appreciation for creative works and the effort that goes into them?

Re:Intentions

[richlv]

Except that to earn a living then they would have to write a new song every day.

in order to get paid, an architect would have to design buildings constantly instead of getting royalties for 70 years after their death... er, wait.

Re:Intentions

[intermodal]

I never argued against having copyrights, as much as the idea appeals to me.

I take the view that copyright is evil, but a necessary one in extremely limited doses for the purposes of encouraging the creation of a rich public domain. And yes, that means the artists necessarily need to make their money while they can from it, as they will (largely) live to see their copyrights expire, and in not all that many years in the grand scheme of things. Which does, effectively, necessitate that the artist continue producing new successful works. I don't see that as unreasonable.

What we have today is anything but serving that purpose.

Re:Intentions

[richlv]

I am not saying that every author needs to live like them. But they do need to live.

sure. just that society should not guarantee them income. go do something else...
excessive ownership and milking of ideas (which are based off other ideas) is not helping either (that being said, i'd be ok with limited copyright. i don't know... 5 years ? 10 years ?)

Re:Intentions

[RazzleFrog]

The problem is you aren't comparing apples to apples. Copying things even just 100 years ago was very difficult and time-consuming. If a wandering minstrel overheard a song from another minstrel then he could copy it and perform it but not on a massive scale. The equivalent today is if 5 minutes after a minstrel performed a new song that every minstrel in the world could perform it an infinite number of times.

We just live in a very different world.

Re:Intentions

[RazzleFrog]

And copying in the 18th century was an involved process. It wasn't something easily done. Copyright laws followed soon after the printing press for a reason. Before then making a copy probably took longer than actually writing the book in the first place. Not to mention that the literacy rate was ridiculous low.

It's just not apples to apples.

Re:Intentions

[intermodal]

I understand, I just disagree.

As far as why it's unreasonable to think that an artist should make a living doing art than an accountant doing accounting, it's self-explanatory. An accountant performs a job that, to somebody, is worth the wage the accountant is paid. An artist only can reasonably make a living if a sufficient quantity of buyers (or a publisher with deep enough pockets) is willing to pay for their works. To assume that people will sufficiently desire your particular works is silly, but an accountant's numbers are the same under any competent and legally compliant accountant.

Re:Intentions

[RazzleFrog]

Society doesn't guarantee them income. Not sure where you got that idea. Society just says that for a certain period they should be the only people who DO benefit off their work. Copyright is mainly there so that somebody else can't profit off of my work. If my work sucks, though, I am not going to make enough to live. Nothing changes that.

Re:Intentions

[dywolf]

you're equating the concept with a garuntee of success.
its not.
its a protection of the possibility of success.

copyright does not beget success, but simply makes it possible by allowing one to profit from one's own work, without the interference of others, ie, by ripping it off and selling it themselves. the individual citizen has a clear and vested interest served by this protection from the idea that any of us could potentially be that creator.

the opposing force of "scoeity at large" has an opposite interest served by the availability of works in the public domain, for cultural purposes, educational, derivitive, etc. but you cannot sacrifice the individual wholesale for the betterment of everyone else. collective society doesn't create the works, and without the reasonable protection of the individual there would be no works to enter the public domain. having a limited copyright actually serves the public interest, as well as the individual creator's.

Re:Intentions

[intermodal]

Self-published artists are, I hope, the future. Labels are a gigantic scam for most artists.

Re:Intentions

[RazzleFrog]

Well I think art is definitely more of a gamble. The risk is greater and therefore the reward should be greater. Without copyrights, of a reasonable term as I've said, they would potentially not benefit at all. Then why take the risk?

Re:Intentions

[cpt kangarooski]

if you eliminate completely any protections or garuntees of that works profitability (ie, copywright) the reward drops significantly. the creator of a work does have an right to profit from it, for a -reasonable- period of time. this concept of a limited copywright serves both the personal need of the artist to get a reason reward for his creative effort if he is successful, and the public's cultural interest in having works not perpetually owned and locked down. ...

but equally unreasonable is the complete abolishment of copyright.
Turn the clock back to a reasonable duration.

I agree (provided that you mean that authors' right to try to profit is granted by the public for public purposes) but with one caveat: copyright exists to serve the public interest (specifically the public interest in having the greatest possible public domain) and should be fine-tuned so as to not merely fulfill that interest one way or another, but to do to the greatest extent possible. If, and only if, abolishing copyright would result in this public purpose being advanced more than in any other way, it is right to abolish it.

We should not take abolition off of the table. When it is unnecessary, there's no need for anti-abolitionists to fret, and when it is the best option, not considering it would be wrong.

Re:Intentions

[dywolf]

and there was also no money made off them.

in the case of those who DID make money off works they created, it was also not uncommon for them to find people who copied them, or performed them without permission, and beat them with sticks until they agreed to not do it again.

Re:Intentions

[dywolf]

plus what Razzle said about wealthy sponsors

Re:Intentions

[intermodal]

Tangible things are fundamentally different from intangible ones. That's how the concept of tangibility works.

Re:Intentions

[cpt kangarooski]

I think it's more complicated than that, though. It could take years to see a shift in production and even then measuring it would be incredibly difficult. Even if people start producing more would you really want to cut the term? I don't think there is such a thing as too much creative production.

The creation and publication of more original works is only one of the goals of copyright, but it is neither the only one nor the most important one. Copyright also seeks to enlarge the public domain as rapidly and as fully as possible. Beyond some optimal point, we get into a situation of diminishing returns. And if copyright gets too long and too onerous, it can actually be worse for society than not having it at all.

I don't think there can be too many works created and published either, but some works do come at too high a cost. If I would only create a particular work of art in exchange for a perpetual copyright and mandatory royalty payments from everyone, all the time, we can probably agree that while it would be nice for my art to exist, society will be better off overall not paying so much, even if that means the art doesn't get made.

Right now the closest we're seeing to that are the multi hundred million dollar blockbuster movies. If more sensible copyright law meant that they were no longer profitable to make, well, if rather have the law. Much as I might like the spectacle, we know we can all live with lower movie budgets.

Re:Intentions

[richlv]

i was mostly catching on the phrase "But they do need to live". currently we are making and enforcing really insane limits (both time and scope) that are actually damaging to the society as a whole, just because a couple of professions "need to live".
we do not offer the same level of insane protection to recipes or dress designs. it would be great to break up cartels that control culture, but they have grown too powerful...

these laws make nearly everybody a criminal. who has not downloaded at least one song nowadays ? played something in a party - public performance.

Re:Intentions

[cpt kangarooski]

I think that it is reasonable for copyright terms to last for a set period of time, and for there to be a set number of renewal terms available (if sought), and for copyrights to be transferred as if they were ordinary property of a decedent's estate.

But beware of the infamous widows and orphans argument. The value of a copyright is a total crapshoot. Most are worthless. Of the few with any economic value, most of them will see most of that value realized very shortly after publication in a given medium.

Leaving copyrights to the survivors of an author is like leaving them a big pile of lottery tickets. Most are worthless, a rare few get lucky, and it's just plain financially irresponsible unless you already knew which ones were valuable. If you're worried about the survivors, encourage authors to spend wisely, to get life insurance, to make sound investments, and to support governments that create and maintain good welfare systems as a safety net just in case. Besides, helping only the families of authors is unfair to everyone else in dire straits, so copyright is really not the place for widows and orphans.

Re:Intentions

[Dishevel]

3 year automatic copyright with the ability to extend to 7 years if you apply. That would be about right.

Re:Intentions

[cpt kangarooski]

And copying in the 18th century was an involved process. It wasn't something easily done.

Pirates have never enjoyed a technological advantage over legitimate publishers. There is no technology that pirates can use which publishers can't (though some may be stubborn or stupid enough that they won't), and publishers also have the advantage of generally being able to work openly, while pirates often (though not always) have to be more surreptitious or at the very least lack some of the advantages of legitimate publishers like early access to the MS and the imprimatur of the author for marketing.

And in fact 18th century printing was much easier than pre 15th century hand-copying, if you wanted more than one new copy.

Before then making a copy probably took longer than actually writing the book in the first place.

That literally makes no sense.

Not to mention that the literacy rate was ridiculous low

Yes; better literacy rates, improved artificial lighting, improved paper and ink making, better printing processes, greater leisure time, etc. are all factors other than copyright that have aided authors.

Re:Intentions

[intermodal]

I disagree with your premise. I don't see merit in justifying art based on its profit margin. Those who want to make music will continue to make music. Those who write novels will continue to write novels. With or without copyright.

In fact, I find that much of what art is made based on profit margins tends to be inferior in general.

Re:Intentions

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? It's only a gamble based on the way we have structured the production & consumption of 'art'. There used to be a time when the production of art was effectively a job just like an 'accountant'...eg. people contracted for an 'artist' to product 'a work of art'...whether that art was any good was & still is dependent on the skill of the artist...just like the production of any particular output from an accountant is based on their skill & knowledge. Even today there are examples where the production of art IS a job just like an accountant (screen writing, music for movies & tv shows etc.) and in these cases the copyright extends not to the artist but to the person/company contracting for the job, giving that company any type of copyright protection especially for the length of time we do is inconceivable in comparison to the job of an accountant.

Re:Intentions

[intermodal]

I don't see where you get that impression of my argument. I was simply pointing out that (in the example presented) John Grisham's level of income does not necessarily justify any particular level of pay for any other author. In fact, it doesn't justify Grisham's own pay grade on its own either. It also doesn't mean that I think a less profitable author's plight means Grisham has any business making money off The Firm over 20 years later, even if that's what it would take for a less successful novelist to turn a profit comparable to holding an actual job for the time it took to write.

Re:Intentions

[flibbidyfloo]

Your analogy is incorrect. Listening to a recording is not the same as seeing the original artist perform it, or no one would ever go to a concert. And listening to a song doesn't instantly give anyone the ability to duplicate it exactly in a live performance.

Also, copyright was around long before it was "easy" to copy or steal a musical recording.

Indeed, it's a very different world; but my point still stands. Lack of copyright didn't, doesn't, and wouldn't rid the world of creative endeavors. It would certainly change the way creativity is "done". But are there no artists in Somalia, where there is no copyright law? I don't know, I've never been there. But I suspect there are at least a few, because art is part of human nature.

If you really believe that copyright the thing preventing the world from becoming a barren, artless place, where no one ever works to write a new song or paint a new picture, I guess I'm not going to convince you.

Re:Intentions

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell you what. When I get a law that makes people keep paying me for work I did decades ago, maybe I'll be ok with songwriters getting the same privilege.

Well, wah, wah, waaaaaah. Sorry that YOU picked a shitty profession. Don't come crying to us because you decided to take up engineering rather than learn how the system works, SOME of us found a better way to make money. Your lack of fiscal responsibility isn't our fault.

--
ASCAP

Re:Intentions

[Anonymous Coward]

The market will tell us exactly where copyright needs to be.

For certain specific definitions of "the market" convenient to you, I see.

"The market" didn't just spring into existence today. "The market" is what got us into the situation we're in now. "The market" has been making its decisions over a longer period of time than you've been alive, and it's decided on perpetual lengthening of terms whether you like it or not. Just because you don't agree with it doesn't mean it's magically not "the market".

NOTE: Please don't embarrass yourself by saying it's legislators or lawyers or whatever that decided this, not "the market"; you're the one somehow suggesting "the market" decide the laws in your favor, a concept which I can't even begin to comprehend without directly accusing you of blatant hypocrisy.

Re:Intentions

[Type44Q]

You have little sympathy for artists so I assume you don't read books or listen to music.

I stand corrected; artists should be able to create once and then sit back, relax and draw a never-ending stream of compensation without ever having to create again. Wait, what's that you say? You're not advocating something that extreme? Well, then, what the fuck do you call THIS horseshit??

Re:Intentions

[TENTH SHOW JAM]

No. There is a simple mathematical way. To register a copyrighted work should cost a dollar in the first year. Every man and their dog can register that. It costs double that on year 2. After 10 years it's costing you $1000 ish to own the copyright. So you had better be making more than that for it to be worthwhile. After 15 Years, it's costing you bucket loads.

You can keep paying for the long tail, but now it becomes a business decision over whether you keep a copyright or not. Disney can keep Steamboat Willie indefinitely, if they can afford it.

Re:Intentions

[F.Ultra]

Why does it cost them $112.3 million to collect this money and to distribute it. A profit margin of 12% is better than most retail businesses.

Re:Intentions

[EvanED]

No one is arguing that the artists deserve to be paid. That's a strawman.

The argument from copyright supporters is that if the artists make something that people want to have, they deserve to get paid by the people who have it. In other words, if you make something good, other people shouldn't be able to just torrent it.

If you disagree with that, there's an interesting discussion. But saying that artists are demanding to be paid just because they put in the work is not correct.

Re:Intentions

[Anonymous Coward]

If I pitched a movie to the studios with a guaranteed profit within 15 years, they would laugh me right off the lot. They want to make a profit THE FIRST WEEKEND. The long tail does not enter into their calculations when deciding whether to green light a movie.

Same thing with publishers. They don't care about year 10. They want to make their money back in year 1. Ditto for music studios or for anyone else.

Copyright could be FIVE YEARS and it would have little effect on the current creative industry. Sure, they would whine, but show me projections for some big budget 2013 movies. I guarantee they don't go more than 2 years out.

Re:Intentions

[Hawke666]

Problem is that “a certain period” is currently “their entire life, and beyond” — to the point where they literally *cannot* benefit from it because they are dead.

Re:Intentions

[jxander]

Or tour. Play a gig every couple days. Build a fan-base. If a band has a big enough hit that they're worried about royalties from radio play, they should be able to fill a local bar gig.

Being a song writer or musician with 1 or 2 radio hits shouldn't be an automatic ticket to the a lifetime of relaxation, Money for Nothing, etc. Almost every career profession requires ~40 hours a week of work, plus some of your own time dedicated to honing your craft, learning and growing. Why should singing, song-writing, etc be any different?

Re:Intentions

[easyTree]

Otherwise there would be no incentive to create in the first place.

I pray that such a day comes soon.

Re:Intentions

[spire3661]

I agree with what you are saying, but what other choice is there but to call for total abolishment? The media cartels are using FORCE to keep things the way they are. They have pushed extremism at us for so long, the only possible response is equally extreme. So much energy has been spent protecting them its going to take a huge amount of counter-force to put an end to it.

I agree copyright isnt inherently evil, but its been made that way in the modern interpretation.

Re:Intentions

[spire3661]

Stop with the ridiculous examples. Art's worth is measured in how it is received by the masses, not its creation cost.

Re:Intentions

[newcastlejon]

Why does it cost them $112.3 million to collect this money and to distribute it. A profit margin of 12% is better than most retail businesses.

I'm guessing you've not dealt with many lawyers.

Re:Intentions

[spire3661]

And this changes your example how? Does it matter if 1 or a thousand minstrels learn the song? How does this change you having to perform as a minstrel to continue to eat? Because 1000 other minstrels are not performing your song, should you not have to perform anymore, living off minstrel royalties?

Re:Intentions

[Anonymous Coward]

Then the real artist can do something that doesn't require bullshit laws to extort money from people. Clean some toilets or something 8 hours a day; and create art the other 8 they are awake/getting drunk/smoking dope/whatever.

Re:Intentions

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's where you are wrong.

No one deserves money for anything.

They deserve to try. No one is stopping them from trying. If they aren't good, if they haven't got the right marketing, then they need to do something else to earn money and produce their art on the side.

Fact is; there are too many artists, yes I said it; too many artists. Too many artists, mean that all that money that goes to artists is spread across them all, such that they all make fuck all money. Welcome to Supply and Demand. Perhaps the artists should have chosen to listen to that Economics class in highschool to learn that - statistically speaking - being an artist is a ticket to being poor.

Re:Intentions

[Anonymous Coward]

We need copyright to extend after the death of the author!!!! Otherwise, what motiviation do Ben Weisman and Otis Blackwell have to write new music?

FTFY

Re:Intentions

[aardvarkjoe]

They have pushed extremism at us for so long, the only possible response is equally extreme. So much energy has been spent protecting them its going to take a huge amount of counter-force to put an end to it.

Calling for a complete end to copyright is not more forceful than calling for reasonable limits to copyright. If anything, it's less powerful, because complete abolition of copyright is a complete non-starter, and is going to go nowhere.

You can find nuts who will take just about any position on any debate that you can come up with. Taking up an equally nutty position in response is not productive.

Re:Intentions

[multimediavt]

If you don't have a compensation model for artists outside of corporations then you aren't going to get good creative artists.

Thank the flying spaghetti monster that's wholly untrue, or we would have no artists at all. The problem is, where do you set the bar? Is art successful because it makes a lot of money, or because it's good art? Who decides? So far, the corporations that sponsor art seem to be the only ones getting a say because of the lobbying they do. Sure, there are artist guilds and such that do lobbying, but they don't bring much cash^H^H^H^H err, clout to the table. Good thing they keep making great art when they can, though. ASCAP can rot in the deepest reaches of whatever perdition they believe in along with all the other acronym-having organizations that exploit artists! [queue Charlton Heston's Planet of the Apes scene]

Re:Intentions

[Anonymous Coward]

Because you are an artist.
It shouldn't be a risk; it should be what you do in your time off.

Re:Intentions

[Shadow of Eternity]

You mean sue the people with hundreds of millions of dollars who can just pay congressmen to vote "yes" on something they wrote?

Re:Intentions

[Anonymous Coward]

Then those Song-writers should sell their songs for the value they have.
Good song writer? One song per year? you should hope to sell your song for what... 60,000 dollars?
If you are a "Song Writer" and hope to be paid a decent wage, sell your fucking wares and earn one. Don't come to us crying that you aren't a performer and can't perform it.

Same as a programmer, I write programs for a salary. Songwriters (that are only songwriters) sell their songs for the value of the work.

I know I *could* write programs for the chance at 1 dollar per buy, and try to enforce copyrights as hard as I can, but I know that is a fucking retarded business model that means if I don't spend all my life attempting to force potential customers into paying the one dollar I will be a poor bastard.
Instead I take the valuable portions of my knowledge (the ability to write programs) and come to an agreement with someone that needs my services (has a function they want a program to do) and I sell that.

Performers have valuable knowledge. (Ability to play songs .. well?) and should come to an agreement with someone that needs that service (a music venue needs music to placate and or draw in an audience to buy alcohol). And then the performer can sell that.

The Songwriter has valuable knowledge (ability to arrange music) and should come to an agreement with someone that needs that service (a Performer that can't write music) and the songwriter can sell that.
That way we have the perfect circle jerk, Songwriters sell music to performers to perform at clubs and shit to make money for the club owners.
Or maybe the sell their performance to a crowd of people.

Just because the cost to write songs is fuckall of nothing, doesn't mean a good songwriter wont make a living. Just because the cost to perform songs is between fuckall of nothing and the cost of a second hand musical instrument, doesn't mean they wont make a living.

If any one of the above can figure out a way to get other people to pay them, that is a bonus. No one else "deserves" a fucking thing beyond that.

Re:Intentions

[Tyler Eaves]

Alternatively: That's better than a hell of a lot of charities.

Re:Intentions

[UnknownSoldier]

> Well, authors got no such thing until copyright was invented in the wary 18th century

While that is true that is a little misleading as it doesn't list WHY copyright was even invented in the first place:

Publishers invented copyright to stop other publishers from copying and making money.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_copyright_law [wikipedia.org]
"The history of copyright law starts with early privileges and monopolies granted to printers of books. The British Statute of Anne 1710, full title "An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors or purchasers of such Copies, during the Times therein mentioned", was the first copyright statute. Initially copyright law only applied to the copying of books."

and

"Pope Alexander VI issued a bull in 1501 against the unlicensed printing of books and in 1559 the Index Expurgatorius, or List of Prohibited Books, was issued for the first time."

and

"The first copyright privilege in England bears date 1518 and was issued to Richard Pynson, King's Printer, the successor to William Caxton. The privilege gives a monopoly for the term of two years. The date is 15 years later than that of the first privilege issued in France. Early copyright privileges were called "monopolies," ...

and

"In England the printers, known as stationers, formed a collective organisation, known as the Stationers' Company. In the 16th century the Stationers' Company was given the power to require all lawfully printed books to be entered into its register. Only members of the Stationers' Company could enter books into the register. This meant that the Stationers' Company achieved a dominant position over publishing in 17th century England"

and Emphasis added about Statute of Anne:

The Statute of Anne (c.19), an act of the Parliament of Great Britain, was the first statute to provide for copyright regulated by the government and courts, rather than by private parties.

Prior to the statute's enactment in 1710, copying restrictions were authorized by the Licensing Act of 1662. These restrictions were enforced by the Stationers' Company, a guild of printers given the exclusive power to print -- and the responsibility to censor -- literary works. The censorship administered under the Licensing Act led to public protest; as the act had to be renewed at two-year intervals, authors and others sought to prevent its reauthorisation.

...

Faced with this failure, the Stationers decided to emphasise the benefits of licensing to authors rather than publishers, and the Stationers succeeded in getting Parliament to consider a new bill. This bill, which after substantial amendments was granted Royal Assent on 5 April 1710, became known as the Statute of Anne due to its passage during the reign of Queen Anne. The new law prescribed a copyright term of 14 years, with a provision for renewal for a similar term, during which only the author and the printers they chose to license their works to could publish the author's creations.

This was not "copyright" as is normally understood; although there was a monopoly on the right to copy, this was available to publishers, not authors, and did not exist by default; it only applied to books which had been accepted and published by the Company.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Anne

Re:Intentions

[mattack2]

yet people still do it anyway....because its still a high reward comensurate with the high risk.

I don't claim there isn't anybody who does it for that reason (e.g. 'hitmakers' on Tin Pan Alley). I think that many of them do it because it's what they want to do, just like I would play with computers even if I weren't paid for it.

Re:Intentions

[Rockoon]

Copying things even just 100 years ago was very difficult and time-consuming.

So what you are saying is that the copyright laws are from a time when things were radically different...

Now explain to us why they should still be in effect since things are now radically different.

Re:Intentions

[Miamicanes]

> Right now the closest we're seeing to that are the multi hundred million dollar blockbuster movies.
> If more sensible copyright law meant that they were no longer profitable to make, well, if rather have the law.
> Much as I might like the spectacle, we know we can all live with lower movie budgets.

Or, more likely, the next logical step we're likely to see within a decade... big-budget Hollywood movies that film the same movie with two different sets of actors... one English-speaking, one Chinese. Same plot, same (translated) dialogue, same sets, same director, same film crews, same CGI... just different slabs of talking meat, filmed scene by scene, one after the other. Maybe even add an ethnically-Indian third cast if it's likely to make the difference between a big movie and an insane blockbuster mega-hit in India. 20-50% higher production cost, double the profits or more. Right now, I can *guarantee* that there's a bilingual Chinese & English-speaking film major who's going to school somewhere in America or China & already has the business plan mapped out.

It makes to much sense to NOT happen. China is a vast market that loves big-budget Hollywood films, but people there still kind of have a love-hate relationship with them as "foreign" films and really prefer their own big-budget blockbuster movies. Let's face it... NOBODY likes watching dubbed movies, and the only thing worse are subtitles. America has its blockbuster movie stars, but so does China. As expensive as paying two sets of actors who are "Tom Cruise" or "Wesley Snipes" level would be, it's a pittance compared to the cost of everything else that goes into making a big-budget movie. We ALREADY remake hit British TV shows into American shows and vice-versa... doing it all at once just cuts the production costs and increases the profit.

That said, I personally wouldn't mind English-dubbed movies so much if they'd just get people with the expected foreign accent to DO them (preferably, the original actors themselves). Maybe it's just an "American" preference, but to me, it seems blatantly obvious that someone who's French and speaking English in France is going to have a French accent. Ditto for German, Russian, and other languages. The moment somebody in a German film, standing in an obviously-German street opens his mouth and sounds like somebody from Ohio, the illusion is shattered, and I might very well switch the language back to German and turn on the subtitles. It's just *WRONG*. Yet, it seems like every foreign film that gets dubbed into English does the EXACT SAME STUPID THING. I've talked to British, Canadian, and Australian friends & coworkers over the years, and they've all expressed similar sentiments... dubbed English should HAVE the accent of whatever country the film is set in. Yet, I still see film after film dubbed with completely absurd and inappropriate American accents.

But anyway, if you think we have big-budget blockbuster movies now, just wait until Hollywood is cross-producing 3-megamarket movies with budgets that George Lucas would have regarded as jaw-droppingly absurd, and a movie is considered to be a flop if its first-week gross revenues don't exceed a billion dollars. When you're talking about *that kind* of money, it's *worth* filming every scene 2 or 3 times with different actors for each major market, so it can be a "native hit" in each one.

Re:Intentions

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell you what. Write a piece of software and then sell it. Do it so well that you don't have to update it anymore. That's about equivalent to writing a song and then getting paid for it later. It's not hourly work. It's creation of novel stuff, sold to the public.

Re:Intentions

[narcc]

Otherwise there would be no incentive to create in the first place.

If the internet has taught us anything, it's that people will create without any sort of extrinsic motivator. For the few that need an extra push to get their work off their desk and out to an audience, a little recognition from a supportive community of like-minded creatives is more than adequate.

Without copyright, we'd not only have music, movies, books, games, etc. we'd have them in abundance. As a bonus, Justin Bieber wouldn't be a name you'd recognize. :)

(Yes, copyright is still a very good thing. I agree that the term should be much shorter. Something like 10-15 years.)

Re:Intentions

[Anonymous Coward]

They transition to running out of a booth at the local flea market.

Re:Intentions

[davester666]

Holy crap. 12% overhead? Just how big are the families of the directors?

Re:Intentions

[cpt kangarooski]

Or, more likely, the next logical step we're likely to see within a decade... big-budget Hollywood movies that film the same movie with two different sets of actors... one English-speaking, one Chinese. Same plot, same (translated) dialogue, same sets, same director, same film crews, same CGI... just different slabs of talking meat, filmed scene by scene, one after the other. Maybe even add an ethnically-Indian third cast if it's likely to make the difference between a big movie and an insane blockbuster mega-hit in India. 20-50% higher production cost, double the profits or more. Right now, I can *guarantee* that there's a bilingual Chinese & English-speaking film major who's going to school somewhere in America or China & already has the business plan mapped out.

Well, it wouldn't be a new thing. This is how Hollywood used to film movies way way back in the day. It had been easy, of course, in the silent era; just have different title cards. In the early talkie era, some movies would be filmed with the same actors reading a transliteration off of cue cards -- Laurel and Hardy are well known for this -- while some other movies would be filmed with foreign language casts on the same sets -- the Spanish language version of Dracula is probably the most famous example.

I guess it was deemed to be impractical by the mid to late 30s to work this way; cheaper to just redub the movie and not worry much about the lip sync.

Re:Intentions

[F.Ultra]

To be honest I'm not surprised, but it's quite sickening.

Re:Intentions

[intermodal]

Two fundamental problems with that approach. First, how to define a work (is it an album? a song? A short story? A book of short stories?), and second, who gets the money and why?

And owing to the ass-backwards international treaties on the matter, we're stuck with a third problem: People would simply copyright their material with other treaty nations, who would certainly offer competition for their business by waiving or reducing the fees involved. The treaties are a huge problem in general, really.

Re:Intentions

[N0Man74]

They gain the right to success by producing something people want, just like any other line of work.

So, the best method to produce art is to leave it to the free market?

Sure, not everyone gets a big break, and sure, not everyone who gets one deserves it.

So, the free market isn't the best method of producing art?

Re:Intentions

[Dishevel]

You are right. [Sarc]Legislators never make the laws.[/Sarc]

Re:Intentions

[intermodal]

So, the best method to produce art is to leave it to the free market?

Yes. Especially since art is, in most cases, derivative, there are great benefits to short copyrights.

So, the free market isn't the best method of producing art?

We haven't experienced an information-age equivalent of a free market. The closest we've seen is the early days of Napster, and my impression is that it increased exposure for lesser-known musicians, decreased emphasis on the "biggest" acts (hence Metallica's reaction, for example), and generally speaking, increased rather than decreased sales. Not just consumption and downloading, but sales.

The free market isn't perfect, but It's gotta be better than what we've got.

Re:Intentions

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a programmer, and I have literally spent years working on something without any benefit. Sure, it paid off heavily when it was completed, but I can't collect 10+ year royalties everytime someone starts up my app.

Re:Intentions

[Firethorn]

If you read any of my posts you would see that I think it is ridiculous that copyrights extend past death or even close to what they are now.

I'm an advocate for shorter copyrights, but extending past death is well within reason as far as I'm concerned. When it comes to business, consistency is generally better than randomness - A company shouldn't have to worry about the copyright of it's works if a random popular author gets hit by a bus tomorrow.

I'll use Robert Jordan as an example. As he was writing his last book it was well known that he was dying(cardiac amyloidosis). Ergo, lacking any reasonable copyright term no publisher would have paid for his last works, depriving him of income and justification to write.

Thus I'd vote for something along the lines of 'death or 20 years, whichever is longer'. Heck, I'd prefer a flat 20, extendable to 40, from the time of 'first commercial publication'. IE copyright doesn't start as long as it's part of the 'slush drawer'(but is still protected), but once it's released the timer starts. Actual rules would probably fill a book - what happens to a creator's slush drawer when he or she dies and the heirs start 'finishing' stuff and releasing it?

In the end, I actually have dozens of ideas on how to handle copyright/patents, each with it's own positives/negatives. Most I feel would be better than the current system.

Re:Intentions

[spire3661]

THe problem I have is the copyright side has already significantly stifled technology. I cant get my PC to dual output audio because of copyright. I dont think you understand the insidiousness of the media companies. They have been playing dirty pool for a CENTURY. Are you going to still be appeasing when they extend copyright again? Im not saying abolishment is the right or correct thing to do, but it shouldn't be off the table completely, given the nature and actions of its supporters.

Re:Intentions

[aardvarkjoe]

Are you going to still be appeasing when they extend copyright again?

Just because I support a position that is not 100% in opposition to those who want to take copyright to extreme levels does not make it "appeasing." That word would only apply if I was taking a position that I do not agree with in order to placate them, which is not the case.

In the case of the inevitable attempt to extend the period of copyright again, I will of course be against it, as I support a much more limited term of copyright. I don't have to oppose copyright completely in order to oppose unreasonable copyright terms.

Im not saying abolishment is the right or correct thing to do, but it shouldn't be off the table completely, given the nature and actions of its supporters.

The law should be set based on what is most beneficial for society, not as an attempt to punish those that you believe deserve to be punished. If abolishment is not the right thing to do, then it should be off the table.

Re:Intentions

[spire3661]

I fully understand what the law should be, but the reality is quite different. They have made it the fight that it is by overstepping the grace granted by society using money, not reason or justice or the public good. Its a war, there is no other way to phrase it. Copyright has been pushed so far beyond the bounds of its intended purpose and creative tools are so widely spread you could easily make the argument that copyright hinders far more then it contributes to the Public Domain.

Re:Intentions

[aardvarkjoe]

It sounds to me like you're more interested in revenge than in implementing a copyright policy that benefits society as a whole.

Back to my original point: calling for a complete end to copyright is not likely to lead to any real policy changes, because as a policy that has very little support. If you're fighting a "war", the approach to take is probably not the one that has no chance of success.

Suck it ASCAP

[Anonymous Coward]

You're not the only one who can work loopholes in their favor.

No public interest?

[redmid17]

Have they heard most of the radio stations operating today? 99.9% of the content is demonstrably not for the public good.

Re:No public interest?

[Jeff DeMaagd]

And yet people still listen to the crap when there are plenty of easy alternatives - including podcasts & personal music collections. I really don't get it. Sports and other live events are the only decent reasons to turn on the radio.

I really cringe at how often music is repeated on a music radio station, it's the same 20 songs repeated every hour or something like that.

Re:No public interest?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sort of hot and cold about NPR. That's occasionally worth listening to. Car Talk ftw.

Re:No public interest?

[Runaway1956]

"the same 20 songs repeated every hour"

That's what I like about BobFM and JackFM. Or, did. The Bob station that I listened to on the way to work was bought by someone who thought that Texarkana needed yet another country station. But - no matter the genre, if they can't avoid repeating the same song more than once a day, the station is a FAILURE!!

Re:No public interest?

[Anonymous Coward]

Have they heard most of the radio stations operating today? 99.9% of the content is demonstrably not for the public good.

That's because most stations receive their programming from Clear Channel, which puts out crap because it's cheap.

ah the ASCAP

[iggymanz]

these are the choads that wanted royalties for your ringtones, but federal court smacked them down.

Past time to put this cartel parasites to the flames, treat them the same as the mafia.

Re:ah the ASCAP

[Overzeetop]

Oh, they just wanted to double dip on ringtones. Want to record and sell a whole 3 minute song? That'll be 9.6c per track. Want to clip and distribute a 10 second clip of that song as a ringtone? That's 25c. Written into law. They just wanted to get paid a second time for when some asshole's phone rings with a clip of a song you didn't want to hear anyway.

Re:ah the ASCAP

[bill_mcgonigle]

Past time to put this cartel parasites to the flames, treat them the same as the mafia.

Perhaps Pandora has a RICO complaint ready...

Re:ah the ASCAP

[msauve]

I'm thinking of this Nilsson song.

So, it's okay for every other broadcaster...

[Overzeetop]

...to pay a pittance in royalties, and nothing-nada-zilch to the recording artists, but they get all bent out of shape when you do it over this newfangled "internet" thing, even if it's basically the same (Hit 90s Pop on Pandora sounds like every other Clear Channel station out there).

ASCAP is just looking to make sure they don't lose all that money they spent lobbying to get much higher rates for internet streaming than for airwave streaming.

Re: So, it's okay for every other broadcaster...

[jd2112]

the difference is that ASCAP gets a lot more per 'play' from radio stations than they get from streaming sites like Pandora which just isn't fair. Just because a 'play' on terrestrial radio could be head by half the population of Chicago and a streaming 'play' is usually heard by a single person should not be a reason that they shouldn't be paying the same per-play rates right?

Re: So, it's okay for every other broadcaster...

[hawguy]

the difference is that ASCAP gets a lot more per 'play' from radio stations than they get from streaming sites like Pandora which just isn't fair. Just because a 'play' on terrestrial radio could be head by half the population of Chicago and a streaming 'play' is usually heard by a single person should not be a reason that they shouldn't be paying the same per-play rates right?

If it makes you feel any better about it, no radio "play" will ever be heard by me - the only new music I hear is from Pandora or Spotify (while comutting, I either stream Pandora or a podcast from my phone to my bluetooth enabled car stereo). And I suspect that increasingly, fewer and fewer of the listeners that advertisers care about will be listening to over the air radio.

Re: So, it's okay for every other broadcaster...

[Overzeetop]

If they could figure out a way to determine the number of active receivers and charge per receiver to radio stations, you can bet they would!

Re: So, it's okay for every other broadcaster...

[Anonymous Coward]

There is an entire industry built around figuring out how many actual listeners there are to a radio show or watching an over the air tv broadcast. They might not know EXACTLY, the way they do with the interwebs, but they have a pretty good idea.

Re: So, it's okay for every other broadcaster...

[Anonymous Coward]

You've got it backwards... Pandora pays more, which is why they are buying the radio station, to lower their cost per play. ASCAP is pissed because they will lose money.

ASCAP has always been the mafia of public music performance, and their poor treatment of their artists is what caused musicians to start BMI.

Re: So, it's okay for every other broadcaster...

[PRMan]

So a "play" for a single person doesn't correspond to a "play" for 1 million people? Wow. Really? I had no idea.

Re: So, it's okay for every other broadcaster...

[slew]

AFAIK, the basic ASCAP license fee formula is revenue based, not 'play' based***

Although in the past, the revenue rate has been as high as 3%, recently the radio licensing revenue rate has been rolled back to is approximatly 1.7% (because radio stations are going broke). The current situation for internet streaming services is that they can be assessed on a scale starting from 1.85%. To make matters worse, radio stations get to exempt up to 25% of their revenue from license fees when streaming over the internet. Why should Pandora pay a higher percentage of their revenue just because they are only streaming over the internet?

***there is a license option to weight license fees by programming timeslots (under the theory that income derived from say talk-shows and songs played in the dead of night shouldn't count as much).

A major selling point!

[intermodal]

if ASCAP is against it, it must be a good idea!

Wait

[Anonymous Coward]

But the sort-of-famous musicians said that terrestrial radio paid more...

If buying a terrestrial radio station would mean that Pandora paid less, then they lied. Why would the musicians do such a thing?

Re:Wait

[Overzeetop]

Terrestrial radio is not required to pay musicians anything, and never has. Clear Channel has cut a deal to pay them something - no doubt very little, but just enough to keep them from lobbying to get legislation which would force CC to pay a fixed rate.

IIRC, internet radio pays something like 3-10x what terrestrial radio pays to the writers.

Re:Wait

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Its more complicated than that, from what I understand as a casual observer of the situation. Believe what I write at your own risk, this info is complied from bits of different stories covering the matter, and I may have forgotten parts, or not integrated it correctly together.

The terrestrial radio rates are higher, but they are paid out to less artists. They pay based on sampling a station during a time period, if an artists song was played, they get paid. If they were not played during the sampling time, but heavily played every other time, they wouldn't get a dime.

Pandora and the similar internet based streamers pay a lower rate per song play, but keep track of each song they pay. So they pay the lower rate, but to more people. Thus they end up paying more money, but less to popular artists.

Re:Wait

[CohibaVancouver]

Terrestrial radio is not required to pay musicians anything, and never has

In fact, back in the day, it was the opposite - The artists' labels directed payola at the radio stations to get their vinyl played.

If a song was in heavy rotation on radio in a major market it would translate into increased sales.

Re:Wait

[Anonymous Coward]

Freaking Red Hot Chili Peppers must be richer than God by now, as frequently as my local ClearChannel station plays them.

Re:Wait

[Overzeetop]

Yeah, until the legislators realized that this was skewing the game, and made it illegal. So now Clear Channel has bought all the stations up and does it internally for fun and profit, but legally.

Re:Wait

[omnichad]

Terrestrial radio is required to pay musicians. It's copyrighted material and can't be broadcast without some sort of license agreement. This is usually brokered through an agency like ASCAP/BMI. Clear Channel may have a special agreement with one of those agencies, but they aren't the only ones required to pay.

If a small TV station airs a Ford commercial with copyrighted music in the background, they have to track how many times they air that commercial and pay royalties on that song. It's no different with TV, radio, or Internet. The royalties are just higher for Internet performances.

Re:Wait

[omnichad]

I will add that some record labels will pay a radio station to air their music. And theoretically they could give them a free pass to air it without a license. But the radio station STILL has to pay royalties on those songs, since their agreement with ASCAP/BMI/SESAC still requires it.

Re:Wait

[omnichad]

That's definitely outdated. Radio stations have tracking systems to keep track of individual plays of songs now.

Re:Wait

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the same these days. They've just added another middleman to limit liability. The label pays a guy to get radio play (most likely on the artist's tab), and that guy pays the radio station to play the song. OF course, the label has 'no idea' that this is going on *wink wink nudge nudge*

Re:Wait

[Anonymous Coward]

Terrestrial radio is not required to pay musicians anything, and never has.

Err why is this nonsense modded up? It's not true.

Re:Wait

[Anonymous Coward]

That doesn't go to the musicians. That goes to the songwriters (as noted, via ASCAP, BMI or SESAC).

In the US the musicians don't get anything for public reproductions/performances. In other countries they may or may not depending on national law.

Re:Wait

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Right they obviously have that down to a T. But, the question is, do they pay royalties based on that information?

Based on ASCAP's info, I think the answer is no.

http://www.ascap.com/members/payment/keepingtrack.aspx

ASCAP only periodically (not continuously) polls radio stations. Then pays artists only if their songs were paid.

Re:Wait

[omnichad]

That's just bizarre:
http://www.ascap.com/members/payment/surveys.aspx

Radio is basically the only thing that works that way - and I'm guessing it's only for ASCAP. But that's the songwriter's royalty. I believe they pay royalties based on complete count for the recording to SoundExchange (the license for the actual recording for the song instead of the writing credits). And probably all other songwriters exchanges too (BMI/SESAC/etc). It's ridiculous that they're not just requiring something that the radio stations already have to do for SoundExchange. They really need to get with the times.

Re:Wait

[Anonymous Coward]

The payola itself wasn't skewing the game, it was the astroturf that accompanied it.

Radio stations can, do, and will continue to sell airtime to whomever wants to pay for it. But to have a DJ go on the air and say "this is my new favorite song!", then do it again the next day about a different song (lather, rinse, repeat) is dishonest. It's a misuse of the public airwaves, which the FCC oversees. But, to say "this song is the one we're being paid to play for you today" is completely honest and legal. Payola is just advertising for the music that the public is tuning in to listen to anyway. Illegal payola is astroturfing that advertising using the on-air personalities from the local area.

Now, the only concern is the limit on commercial time vs. programming time, which can easily be sidestepped by pointing out the obvious: that the "programming" is an advertisement in and of itself, and thus nothing needs to change.

Re: Wait

[Anonymous Coward]

Try google- they'll tell you that terrestrial analog radio is currently exempt from the need to license sound recording copyrights. Thus ASCAP- not exempt from musical composition rights

Regulatory capitalism

[TsuruchiBrian]

You basically can't do anything in this country without stumbling into the web weaved by some bullshit lobbying group. I'm not a big Ayn Rand fan, but we really are a society of producers and moochers.

Re:Regulatory capitalism

[PRMan]

Well, people with absolutely zero talent have to feed their families somehow, right? (J/K, for the record, I am a producer of software.)

Re:Regulatory capitalism

[TsuruchiBrian]

Hopefully just being a human being means that you possess talents, however unremarkable they may be.

That said, I think people like lobbyists, lawyers, and accountants are all probably very smart (maybe even smarter than most producers), but their talents are used for redistributing wealth to themselves and their patrons rather than creating wealth. I don;t think they are bad people. I just think we should be focusing on collectively making the pie bigger rather than fighting for a larger slice at the expense of others (i.e. redistribution). Ideally our system would be set up so that the path of least resistance is to create wealth rather than acquiring it from others, but sadly this is too frequently not the case.

Whether you are a socialist or a capitalist, it makes more sense to focus on producing. If nothing gets produced, then there is nothing to redistribute.

Asshat

[dramaley]

Am i the only one who initially read the title as "Asshat Petitions FCC To Deny Pandora's Purchase of Radio Station"?

Re:Asshat

[halexists]

Did reading it differently change the meaning in any way?

Isn't the allegation irrelevant?

[mark-t]

"ASCAP also alleges that Pandora has no intention of operating KXMZ to serve the public interest, but is rather only interested in obtaining lower royalty rates"

Even if true (and I actually have little doubt that it is), does it even matter? If owning and operating a radio station gives them lower royalty rates, as long as they are actually carry out operating such a station, what difference does their incentive make?

Re:Isn't the allegation irrelevant?

[evilviper]

what difference does their incentive make?

When you use the public airwaves, you have to follow the government's rules. Always part of those rules is your service fulfilling some form of public interest. With TV, this means a certain number of hours of children programming, regular news programming, and some emergency news and emergency alert capabilities.

If you don't like the rules, you don't get to use the radio spectrum for free, and can purchase some spectrum from the FCC yourself, at very high rates like the cell phone companies do, and then you can broadcast, to whoever has your proprietary receiver, whatever you want...

Clear Channel got in trouble a while back because their highly automated operations meant no-one was around to answer the phone at a local radio station, so they didn't broadcast the alert the local police wanted to get out to the public, until many hours later. That's the kind of thing that gets broadcasters shut down. That's the kind of thing ASCAP is accusing Pandora *will* do in the future.

If Pandora does a good job running the radio station, more power to them. But they DO have many obligations to the public that they need to fulfill to be licensed by the FCC.

Re: Isn't the allegation irrelevant?

[Anonymous Coward]

KTRU listeners tried to block the sale of that license- if I remember right, the FCC essentially said 'we will not block sale of a license based on general allegations of future behavior by the proposed transferee.' I'd expect the same here

Re:Isn't the allegation irrelevant?

[sjames]

Still, 'in the public interest' is pretty watered down as a legal term in the U.S. Supposedly, all corporate charters are required to be 'in the public interest' as well.

Does ASCAP mean that they have some substantial reason to believe Pandora will not correctly handle emergency alerts?

Other than a few very specific FCC rules, 'in the public interest' is essentially a meaningless phrase these days. I'm fairly sure that even a large man farting out (literally) classic tuba tunes 24/7 could manage to make the cut (as it were) so long as they give their station ID on time, stay within their operating limits, and respond to emergency alerts promptly.

Re:Isn't the allegation irrelevant?

[evilviper]

Does ASCAP mean that they have some substantial reason to believe Pandora will not correctly handle emergency alerts?

I thought it went without saying that ASCAP is an evil rotting pit of darkness and stench, and that their accusations are surely a steaming pile of shit intended to screw over the world for their own benefit... My mistake.

Yes ASCAP is saying that because Pandora is mainly interested in the radio station to help securing lower royalties on their internet streams, they apparently must not be interested in running a radio station properly, and in the public's best interest. Of course ASCAP itself has less than zero interest in the public in a couple little cities in South Dakota, and would burn the place to the ground if it meant Pandora had to keep paying them as much money as they do now, so it makes absolutely no sense for ASCAP to object on behalf of the residents of those cities...

Clear Channel is the one who really stands to lose. CC has favorable licensing terms for their "iheartradio" service because they're a traditional broadcaster as well. Pandora just wants in on that sweetheart of a deal, rather than the leeches at ASCAP and their sister organization bleeding off the majority of Pandora's income, and causing Pandora listeners to tolerate far more ads, and having higher monthly fees than they should need by any rights.

Re:Isn't the allegation irrelevant?

[sjames]

Sure. The question was largely rhetorical. Of course they have nothing but wild conjecture and wishful thinking on their part to tell them how Pandora will run the station. That, naturally means their objection should go directly to the round file.

Re:Isn't the allegation irrelevant?

[mark-t]

"....and respond to emergency alerts promptly."

What sort of time range would be considered "promptly" in this context?

Re:Isn't the allegation irrelevant?

[sjames]

You'll have to ask the FCC.

Re:Isn't the allegation irrelevant?

[Firethorn]

When you use the public airwaves, you have to follow the government's rules. Always part of those rules is your service fulfilling some form of public interest. With TV, this means a certain number of hours of children programming, regular news programming, and some emergency news and emergency alert capabilities.

True, but that's government requirements, which you need to meet irregardless of the reason why you own the station. Indeed, motivation for radio stations remains the same - profit, not some 'public interest' bull.

Now you want a different reason? Due to new restrictions on lobbying the NRA was looking at buying a radio station in order to make themselves a 'news organization' and allow them to publish their advertising as 'news'. The restrictions ended up being shot down by the courts(free speech, you know?) so the NRA didn't go through with it, but they were looking into it.

Clear Channel got in trouble a while back because their highly automated operations meant no-one was around to answer the phone at a local radio station, so they didn't broadcast the alert the local police wanted to get out to the public, until many hours later. That's the kind of thing that gets broadcasters shut down. That's the kind of thing ASCAP is accusing Pandora *will* do in the future.

I'd argue that, logically speaking, Pandora's radio station would actually be a lot LESS automated by default. The reason being that, owning only ONE radio station, it makes sense to have a local team operating it. That would make them far more responsive than clear channel, which entirely automated a number of stations.

Wha...?

[jdharm]

ASCAP also alleges that Pandora has no intention of operating KXMZ to serve the public interest, but is rather only interested in obtaining lower royalty rates.

A company wants to operate a radio station to make money?! Holy sh*t, this MUST be stopped!

No, not you Clear Channel.

Didn't mean you Entercom.

Of course not you, CBS.

You're fine, Cumulus.

...

Re:Wha...?

[unitron]

Are you saying they're exempt from being stopped from running a station to make money?

Or that it doesn't matter because they already aren't making any money from those stations?

Considering the stories I see at radiodiscussions.com (formerly radio-info) about staff cutbacks in many markets, I'm guessing the latter.

Correct

[Anonymous Coward]

Artist (Songwriter, performer, recording engineers and the like) = Producer

Person who wants the product of the above for free = Moocher

Re:Correct

[Anonymous Coward]

Corporation that takes the product of the above for a pittance while making bucketloads = Moocher

FTFY.

Re:Correct

[Anonymous Coward]

The "pittances" and "bucketloads" in question are merely variables in an equation (Royalty collected - ASCAP Rake = amount to artist). The equation is still valid, albeit unfair, regardless of whether you agree with the values of the variables.

Folks here on slashdot would label ASCAP as a moocher for any correct solution of that equation where ASCAP rake is > 0. Heck, most of the asshats here on slashdot have a problem when the Royalty value is > 0. They think artists should do what they do for free and give it to them out of the goodness of their hearts.

As a producer of software, video content and literature, FUCK THAT. I have bills to pay. If you want to access the creations of my imagination, pay up fuckers. Don't want to pay? Don't bother me.

OK, so I just read the brief...

[intermodal]

The claim seems to hinge upon the assertion by ASCAP that if Pandora is able to acquire a brick-and-mortar airwave radio station, it will cause "significant economic harm on ASCAP." The fundamental flaw with that argument is that ASCAP is not entitled to have a bad business model protected by the laws or courts. Nor is ASCAP entitled to block anybody from making moves that give them an improved position from which to bargain.

The best comparison I can think of comes from the airline business.

This reminds me of American Airlines trying to sue Southwest out of Love Field in the early 1970s with claims that allowing Southwest to operate out of Love would hurt the newly-opened DFW International Airport (indeed, trying to force Southwest into the agreement between all the other airlines of the day to abandon Love and move to DFW, Southwest's service not having existed when the agreement was forged), and the much more recent United opposing Southwest's plans to go international from Houston Hobby on the grounds that it would adversely affect United's bottom line. Thankfully, the latter was basically shot down by the City of Houston, but the American Airlines fight against Southwest's operation at Love raged on for decades, with Congress getting involved more than once.

Re:OK, so I just read the brief...

[Anonymous Coward]

The fundamental flaw with that argument is that ASCAP is not entitled to have a bad business model protected by the laws or courts.

Sure they are. They have more money. That entitles them to whatever they want. You really think the U.S. Government has ever been to serve the peons over the mega-wealthy and the corporations? How cute...

Re:OK, so I just read the brief...

[intermodal]

Since when is Pandora anything but wealthy, paying $600 million just to get lower prices on songs? We're looking at a fight between two juggernauts here, not a little guy and a behemoth.

Re:OK, so I just read the brief...

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when is Pandora anything but wealthy

No clue. You seem to have invented that out of whole cloth as I made no mention of Pandora directly or indirectly. Either way, Pandora is chump change vs ASCAP in political clout and industry backing.

Re:OK, so I just read the brief...

[Anonymous Coward]

Thousand not Million.

Re:OK, so I just read the brief...

[Lunix Nutcase]

$600 million?

Pandora reached a deal to buy KXMZ from Connoisseur Media for $600,000 earlier this year

Fail much?

Re:OK, so I just read the brief...

[intermodal]

Right you are. I did indeed manage to cross that up in my head.

Re:OK, so I just read the brief...

[Anonymous Coward]

You are forgetting about the quasi-governmental bodies that up and decide that the airport where you already invested and built your entire business up in a city is no longer going to allow 50% of your market out of that airport (international flights). You are forced to invest millions and move into their newly built international airport, allowing a smaller competitor to swoop in and take advantage. This in and of itself would be okay, but that competitor should in the very least be made to obey the same rules that forced everybody else to move out. Instead, they lobby to have this "unfair" rule changed because it is favoring the big bad airlines over the little guy (the reality is that there is no "little guy" in the commercial airline business).

You are simply fan-waving one corporation's lobbyists over the other's and Southwest has repeatedly used this predatory tactic that is predatory and an abuse of government.

Re:OK, so I just read the brief...

[intermodal]

I'm amused that you think a startup airline was abusive in using an existing airport and its facilities to *gasp* fly airplanes!

You have to realize that the airlines operating out of Love prior to DFW were party to an agreement which they signed. Southwest was not present, nor were they party to, that agreement. It wasn't until years later that the Wright Amendment was put into law, later repealed in 2006.

Not sure why ASCAP is the bad guy here.

[Rougement]

Of all the people with their hands out, making money from music, the performers and writers are the ones creating the content and getting the shaft when it comes to getting paid for their work. Pandora and other streaming services are doing nothing except preserving this status quo.

Re:Not sure why ASCAP is the bad guy here.

[intermodal]

Why are you assuming any reasonable amount of this money ends up in the pockets of the performers and writers?

Re:Not sure why ASCAP is the bad guy here.

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I have nothing against the creators, but when one broadcast format gets preferential treatment over another, I don't see how that serves anyone.

Re:Not sure why ASCAP is the bad guy here.

[Anonymous Coward]

ASCAP doesn't represent the interests of the performers and writers.

Re:Not sure why ASCAP is the bad guy here.

[Overzeetop]

ASCAP doesn't give a rat's ass about the performers - those are just monkeys making sounds. They're concerned about the big-hit, blockbuster songwriters almost exclusively. I say big-hit songwriters and not all songwriters because the pay scale for royalties is unfairly skewed to only those on the top of the radio playlists.

In a "perfect" world, everybody would get paid per play (or not at all, depending on your point of view), not based on a formula made up by the biggest names to only work in their favor. There needed to be a formula back when the accounting necessary to compensate everyone was too cumbersome; with computers and computerized play lists it isn't.

Re:Not sure why ASCAP is the bad guy here.

[Anonymous Coward]

Because ASCAP sucks ass, or to put it another way, ASCAP != performers and songwriters.

Your ignorance is excusable, because what you think ASCAP is -- and what they want you to think it is -- is a clearinghouse that helps artists and performers get paid for public perfomances (live or radio) of their works. And that may be what ASCAP and its brethren (BMI, SESAC) were back in the 1920s or 30s.

What ascap really is nowadays, is a conduit of funds to 1) ASCAP, and 2) Paul McCartney, Madonna, Lady Gaga. Maybe Hootie and the Blowfish on a good day.

If you were building ASCAP today, you'd map out the problems and solutions. You'd quickly come to the conclusion that all the heavy lifting will in gathering a good and large data stream of live and recorded perfomances of copyrighted works, and in developing an elegant method for the continual micropayments to the artists.

Both these problems (the dataset and the micropayment) are mostly solved. You or I could spend a week on github and come up with an alpha version. 3 months later and we have a fairly working solution.

So what is ASCAP's algorithm? Do they have an api where radio stations self-report playlists? Do they tie into shazamm to hear what songs people are querying? Do they say, if more than 3 people are querying the same live-sounding audio bit from the same gps location, and it sounds like "Harvest Moon" but faster, we drop $.007 into Neil Young's bucket, because it appears that some band is covering his tune?

No, they do none of these obvious methods. They (I am not kidding here, you can google this shit) lock a couple interns in a room for a week in NYC once a year. The interns listen to ONE godawful top-40 station and manually write down the playlist for a week.

And that playlist is meant to represent the TOTALITY of all radio and live music performance in the US of A.

But don't think that ASCAP are total slouches though. They do have lots of innovations. Cutting edge techniques. Problem is, all their innovation is on the revenue side. Pull a permit to install an elevator at your house, or file a d/b/a in your local newspaper as "Anonomous Coward's Caffe" and see how long it takes for an ASCAP representative to come knocking. In my last 2 businesses, the lag was about 30 days.

When I had a college radio show, this kind of shit killed me. When I owned a nightclub, this kind of shit REALLY killed me.

I have no problem with copyright (except to the degree it stifles innovation). I have no problem with artists getting paid for performances of their work. The problem is the reverse-robin-hood here, and the fact that ASCAP has absolutely zero incentive to change its practices.

Re: Not sure why ASCAP is the bad guy here.

[Anonymous Coward]

The intern story may be true, but it's not all they do. If you're a relevant indie station in a relevant market (say 50kW KTRU in 8M metro Houston) you absolutely fill out your own 72-hour sampling survey of composers. I personally did that at least 3 times, and I can also tell you the DJ's deliberately tried to play underplayed composers to make up for all the big-name stuff

Re:Not sure why ASCAP is the bad guy here.

[sjames]

Perform exclusively your own original songs in your own venue (say a pub) and ASCAP will still come knocking demanding payment. If you protest that it's your own material, they'll invite you to pay them an annual fee to collect your portion of the royalties they will collect from you on your behalf minus 'administrative costs'.or don't pay the fee and they'll just give the royalties to Justin Bieber. Of course, since the royalties due to you (as they calculate) will be less than the annual fee for their service.

Re:Not sure why ASCAP is the bad guy here.

[Rougement]

1) they would demand payment from the venue, not the musician. 2) There is no annual fee, it's a one-time $50 membership. Another $50 if you also want a publisher membership.

Re:Not sure why ASCAP is the bad guy here.

[sjames]

From the venue that you, the artist own, as I said. So they collect money from you to play your own songs in your own pub.

Since your songs will never show up in a survey as long as you're playing them only in your pub for the amusement of your paying customers, you'll be getting a big fat $0.

Re:Not sure why ASCAP is the bad guy here.

[Rougement]

That's how PROs work the world over. If you want to have music in your venue, you need to register and pay for that so that artists can get paid for their work. Certainly, the system isn't perfect but what would you suggest as an alternative? Venues pay nothing and get to use the music (which attracts customers and makes them money) for free?

Re:Not sure why ASCAP is the bad guy here.

[multimediavt]

Of all the people with their hands out, making money from music, the performers and writers are the ones creating the content and getting the shaft when it comes to getting paid for their work. Pandora and other streaming services are doing nothing except preserving this status quo.

What idiot would be against the writers and performers? We're not at all. ASCAP is NOT the writers and performers, they are greedy lawyers. The writers and performers can find other lawyers to protect their work. They don't need a cog in the RIAA engine to represent them. That also goes for Harry Fox and his cronies.

Re:Not sure why ASCAP is the bad guy here.

[Rougement]

You have a choice in the US: ASCAP or BMI. It's not about lawyers, it's about an organization that can collect and distribute royalties on behalf of the artists because there's really no other way to do it. Composers can't track down every usage and demand payment, they wouldn't have any time to write music. If you have a better idea, let's hear it. I'm still unsure as to why ASCAP is getting a beating here.

Re:Not sure why ASCAP is the bad guy here.

[sjames]

You must not have read that carefully. Why should I pay anyone for the right to perform my own original work in my own venue

I would suggest that they make sure they don't try to bill people who don't owe them anything and that they don't attempt to collect for someone who has not freely made them an agent for that purpose. It's the difference between a business and a racket.

Re:Not sure why ASCAP is the bad guy here.

[Rougement]

So they're supposed to accept that you're only going to play your own songs in your own venue? How is that workable? Are they just supposed to trust you?

Re:Not sure why ASCAP is the bad guy here.

[sjames]

Yes, they are. If they would care to PROVE otherwise, fine. Why should I just give them money because they say so? It's not my responsibility to prove to every kook with his hand out that I won't use his IP. Furthermore, if they collect money on my behalf without my authority to do so, they are guilty of fraud.

Otherwise, you better send me $100, You don't expect me to just accept that you will never use my IP do you?

Re:Not sure why ASCAP is the bad guy here.

[blackraven14250]

ASCAP shouldn't be able to act on behalf of artists who refuse membership to ASCAP, and forcibly insert themselves as middlemen whenever they feel like it. It's that simple.

Re:Not sure why ASCAP is the bad guy here.

[blackraven14250]

It's not my responsibility to prove to every kook with his hand out that I won't use his IP.

So true. People seem to get the burden of proof mixed up here when it comes to ASCAP. It's their burden to prove you're playing songs contained under their umbrella without their permission, not yours - at least in a logical world.

Re:Not sure why ASCAP is the bad guy here.

[unitron]

American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers.

See the word Artists in there anywhere?

Actually it's all about who owns the publishing rights to a song. That's who gets the money.

In this case publishing means not just sheet music but copies of recordings of performances as well, and the playing of those copies.

Re:Not sure why ASCAP is the bad guy here.

[blackraven14250]

You think the artist mentioned in the bar can't be a member of ASCAP? The moment an artist writes a single song, composes a single song, or distributes a single song, they fall under one of those labels. In a huge majority of cases, an artist is going to fall under one of those labels, and it's guaranteed they will for an original work, including the example this thread is based on (i.e. bar owner who performs his own original works at the bar).

Re:Not sure why ASCAP is the bad guy here.

[unitron]

They won't be a member as an artist.

Although some might well be members as composers.

And in most cases they don't distribute, a record company does it.

If somebody else wrote the song, and somebody else owns the publishing, and all the artist does is go into the studio and sing or play an instrument, ASCAP doesn't represent them or work for them or look out for their interests.

Equal pay for equal performance

[Roger W Moore]

Nothing more parasitic than a songwriter getting paid for the public performance of their work... shame on those people... shame.

That's not the issue - the issue is that they should get the same payment regardless of the broadcast medium. Why should an artist get more (or less) money when I listen to their work over an EM transmission through the air as opposed to through a cable? This makes as much sense as basing the royalty rate on the transmission frequency of the radio station.

Re:Equal pay for equal performance

[dywolf]

Because it's not the artist that's getting the royalty most of the time.
First we eliminate the MAFIAA middleman...and then there is no secondly because that would go a long way to fixing the situation.

Imagine...

In a world with no MAFIAA to contrive to make the ARtist owe them, such that they never need to get paid...

And no MAFIAA to lobby to change/extend the copyrights...
And no MAFIAA to demand and lobby for ridiculous royalties owed them that the Artists will never see...
And Artists with a reasonable copyright protection, yet not exclusive and infinite...

Re:Equal pay for equal performance

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you see the movie 'Searching for Sugar Man'? The record labels took in millions of dollars, and didn't make the *slightest effort* to find the artist to give him his share. They were happy to keep it all.

So ASCAP and the labels' claim that they are doing this, or anything else, for the artist is an absolute lie.

The other way around?

[samjam]

Maybe Pandora will "give" the radio station the money to buy a Pandora.
Pandora will of course have a long term licensing agreement with a new corp. Meta-Pandora and most of the money will get funnelled to Meta-Pandora.

Re:Republicans and Free Market

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never heard the claim that ASCAP is a Republican-led institution before.
Aren't the Democrats the ones in bed with the entertainment corps?

Turnabout

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure someone could come up with a similar opposition to ASCAP's far-reaching licensing agreements, arguing that they have little interest in actually promoting songwriting as an industry or economically sustainable profession, that their interests run contrary to the public good, and that their leadership has not conclusively proven their US citizenship (seriously, show us some tax documentation).

Royalties

[Anonymous Coward]

Half right- radio pays songwriters, not recording artists. Thus ASCAP's interest here: they administer the rights to the musical composition, as anyone who has DJ'ed on an "ASCAP weekend" can tell you. They sample the composers to allocate their overall pie. As to the sound recording copyright, you're correct that radio pays no royalties.

Re:Royalties

[Anonymous Coward]

Flat out incorrect. There is a very precise allocation to everyone involved (and I do mean everyone).

Source: I worked for well over a year as a consultant to one of the major agencies in New York which does music licensing for public broadcast. My company was helping build a major upgrade to the system which handles the workflow for all the payments. I've seen the original contracts. The names listed run into the dozens for many of these contracts, everyone getting their bit of the pie, and those names were categorized by role - songwriter, recording artist, etc.

Re:Royalties

[unitron]

Well, I only worked at actual radio stations, and what we had to report was title and composer(s).

Which meant reporting the same thing whether we played, for example, Twist and Shout by The Isley Brothers, or by The Beatles.

Of course this was between '77 and '94, when it was all played off of phonograph records or, later, cd's, and had to be logged by hand.

Fotunately it was only required for 7 days out of the year.

Re: Royalties

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope you see this later to realize you're wrong- try google on "terrestrial analog radio exempt sound recording copyright". Thanks for your contract experience, but it has no bearing on federal law

You got to love

[Anonymous Coward]

ASCAP showing they are butt hurt.

Why should Pandora pay higher rates?

[Karmashock]

Pandora is basically on demand internet radio. Why should they pay a higher rate?

The only thing I find irritating here is that so many companies and groups charge wildly different rates to different customers despite the nature and terms of their use are very similar. Just set a reasonable price you can charge everyone and leave it alone.

Does that mean pandora will likely pay a lower rate? Yes... but then how much money is pandora making right now anyway? Just about nothing. So what exactly are you trying to do here asshats? You're trying to get blood out of a rock.

What format is the station going to run?

[FauxReal]

It would be awesome if they ran a digital version of the Radio Free Hawaii format... it was a 90s station in Hawaii that let listeners vote via ballot boxes. They had amazing music.