Copyright Board Lawyer Responds On Pandora's End 174
mattnyc99 writes "A month ago we talked about the impending death of streaming music site Pandora thanks to a very backwards fight over royalties. PopMech follows up with an article that, besides noting how insane it is that Pandora has to pay record labels for the bad songs that users skip, also gets the (three-member) Copyright Royalty Board to try and defend itself about why the government is determining royalty rates for the music industry. Quoting: 'It was uninvited,' says Richard Strasser, senior attorney for the Copyright Royalty Board. 'I don't think anybody was jumping up and down with joy in the government that they have this responsibility, but the former systems just weren't working out.'" No one seems to be trying to defend or explain why Internet radio is being hit so much harder than satellite or broadcast.
There's No Explanation For A Good Reason (Score:5, Interesting)
They are just waiting for the net radio enthusiasts to postulate. Then, they label net radio advocates as "extreme and uncooperative" as the excuse for not saying or doing anything.
It's important to remember the RIAA members control distribution. Letting net radio operate at a discount or even the same rates as broadcast is a non-starter. RIAA says, "net radio is cheaper, so give me more money. Well, actually, just give me more money..." And broadcasters are quite happy with that too.
Best stance is to let the lack of an explanation rest as is and use the FOIA, if possible, to get at communications about the issue.
The ISPs are hitting internet radio too (Score:5, Interesting)
The ISPs are hitting internet radio too with their monthly bandwidth quotas. Once you start to pile up usage, every bit counts:
31 days * 24 hours * 60 minutes * 60 seconds * 128 kbps (16000 bytes) = 42854400000 bytes per month. That's nearly 40 GiB of data, only for radio.
Even if you get real and cut it back to working hours and assume 8 hours of radio per day on weekends, that's still a whopping 13.3 GiB of data only for radio.
Remember this, too... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's important to remember the RIAA members control distribution. Letting net radio operate at a discount or even the same rates as broadcast is a non-starter.
It's also important to remember that the RIAA members also own most of the radio stations. The internet is their competition for earlobes, which they could otherwise sell to advertisers.
Re:Pity (Score:4, Interesting)
You wouldn't be alone. I stopped buying CDs in the early 90s; just had no source of inspiration for finding new music anymore. Someone recently showed my Pandora, and that was actually my first thought: find new music and start collecting again. Oh well, I'm older now, and wine is actually quite enjoyable to collect (& eventually consume) even though it's more expensive ;-)
Re:Why internet radio is hit harder (Score:5, Interesting)
It was sarcasm.
It's just as possible. For some reason, though, the internet is the one that scares content providers. Maybe it's the democratic nature of the web, as you point out, but I suspect a lot of it's just illogical fear.
Re:Well, hell (Score:5, Interesting)
Because the demand for indie music is dwarfed by the demand for big-label music. I know I'd stop listening to Pandora most of the time if they stopped offering music from the 70s and 80s that I listen to the most.
Please explain exactly how the RIAA could be prosecuted under RICO. I don't mean to pick on you, but I often see remarks that the RIAA should be prosecuted under RICO, and I have yet to see a clear analysis of how exactly they violate RICO laws. And as for payola, this is the opposite of payola. The big labels are not paying for airtime.
What I'd like to see is an anti-trust suit against SoundExchange. We won't see one, of course, because it'd be political suicide to take on the RIAA when they own the political system.
What I'd really like to see is a retreat from fascism (call it corporatism if you like), but that sure as hell isn't happening any time soon.
Radio... meh (Score:2, Interesting)
Seriously, the only thing I've chosen to listen to on the radio was the Mark and Lard show on Radio 1 when I was about 14.
Picture this proposal:
"How about you flip on your radio and we'll play you music that you may or may not like, followed by advertisements, bullshit interviews, more advertisements, and more music that you may or may not like. How's that?"
Compared to:
"Fire up your MP3 player/ocremix.org/shoutcast/last.fm/google with "index of" "parent directory" thingiwannalistento.mp3/whatever else and you can hear whatever YOU WANT TO HEAR ad free, bullshit free etc."
The very definition of a no brainer.
I understand that the last one of my suggestions in the second proposal is effectively illegal since no money ends up in the relavent shitface's pocket, but still, how hard is that question to answer?
Jesus, even before the internet I didn't listen to radio music because I had no control over it.
Why should I?
Re:Why internet radio is hit harder (Score:5, Interesting)
It was sarcasm.
It's just as possible. For some reason, though, the internet is the one that scares content providers. Maybe it's the democratic nature of the web, as you point out, but I suspect a lot of it's just illogical fear.
Maybe, but one argument against mere "illogical fear" can be seen if you read Lawrence Lessig's Free Culture [free-culture.cc], where he describes his experience in trying to pass the Public Domain Enhancement Act [wikipedia.org].
The act proposed one small change to current copyright law: that after 50 years, a copyright holder would have to pay $1.00 for each ten years of it's existing copyright protection to maintain copyright protection, otherwise the work goes into the public domain. This would allow old commercially nonviable works to go into public domain after a reasonable period, yet imposes only the most trivial burden on maintaining protect for the tiny minority of works that are still commercially valuable after that period. However, the industry fought the bill tooth-and-nail and defeated it, for stated reasons you can see at the Wikipedia link which sound pretty disingenuous to me.
I tend to favor Lessig's argument, as summarized by WP:
"Proponents, however, have suggested that the real threat this poses to copyright holders is that a huge wave of previously unseen, unused, and forgotten works would spill into the public domain, free for anyone to tamper with. The PDEA would not compromise currently used copyrighted works like Mickey Mouse. Content that is being used, or even content whose owner is aware they 'own' it can be protected for a minimal fee. They suggest there is no reason to oppose it other than the fear of competition from the influx of new content."
And *that* is what I think they really fear about internet radio, not that people will steal their content, but rather *compete* with it.
Re:simple explanation (Score:4, Interesting)
I believe it is trying to destroy all of internet Radio. As has been pointed out, as late as 2005, Sony BMG was fined millions for payola to radio stations, "encouraging" them to play what THEY wanted played. http://www.globalethics.org/newsline/2005/08/01/sony-bmg-fined-for-payola-to-the-tune-of-10-million/ [globalethics.org]
Pandora offers the individual listener the potential of having music served to them that their algorithm determines should be a good match. Pandora listeners have the option of tweaking that selection with an "I like" or an "I don't like" vote. However, a Pandora listener can just as easily populate their playlist with only specific songs that THEY want to listen to.
Traditional radio/satellite radio offers all listeners the same songs. The only choices are to change the station and hope for the best, or turn the radio off. You have to accept what you are handed. Radio stations create rotations... Pop, Heavy, Medium, Light...etc. Songs in the POPular rotation get played the most often, over and over, until they get relegated to the Heavy rotation. Songs in the heavy rotation get played more often than those in medium rotation, and those in medium... well you get the picture. What I think should be in Heavy rotation does not necessarily match what you think should be in heavy rotation. But here's a little insight for you, from my 4 years as an FM DJ. The songs in the different rotations, get their rotation designation from the music director of the station, based on what HE thinks the rotation should be. He bases his decision on things like Bilboard top 100, requests, and even his or her personal preference. Which brings us back to Traditional radio/Satellite radio is a controlled medium, where someone is deciding what is popular and what is not, and passing that info down to you.
What is the connection to the music Industry trying to destroy all of internet radio? Are you familiar with the popular media player called VLC? http://www.videolan.org/ [videolan.org] and give it a try. Did you know that it keeps a list of internet radio stations that you can pick and choose from? If you downloaded it (or already have it), start it up. From the top menu, hit view, and open the playlist. From the Playlist, hit Manage, and look at Services Directory. We are only interested in Shoutcast Radio Listings. There are currently 397 internet radio stations in that list. The number will vary as some are very amateur, and some are essential commercial. All are considered internet radio. The Music industry cannot exert a controlling influence over all of them to make them play what they would wish. When all you need is add a plugin to your Winamp player to turn your music collection into a Shoutcast Radio station, how can the music industry exert control over you? What they can do, is track you down by your IP address (just like a movie thief), contact you through your ISP, and have you fined for not paying for the music you play... until you make the choice THEY want, which is you see that it costs you more than you get out of having your own radio station.
The music industry not only wants their dollar. They want the old days back where they decided what was hot and what was not, and they want to get back to those days of serving up their choices in music to the public.
Re:Pity (Score:3, Interesting)
Which would you suggest?
One possibility is buying "carbon offsets." For every $10 you give to an RIAA label, give another $10 to the EFF or a similar organization that stands up for consumer rights.