Canadian Media Companies Target CBC's Free Music Site 215
silentbrad writes, with bits and pieces from the Globe and Mail: "A number of Canadian media companies have joined forces to try to shut down a free music website recently launched by the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., claiming it threatens to ruin the music business for all of them. The group, which includes Quebecor Inc., Stingray Digital, Cogeco Cable Inc., the Jim Pattison Group and Golden West Radio, believes that CBCmusic.ca will siphon away listeners from their own services, including private radio stations and competing websites that sell streaming music for a fee. The coalition is expected to expand soon to include Rogers Communications Inc. and Corus Entertainment Inc., two of the largest owners of radio stations in Canada. It intends to file a formal complaint with the CRTC, arguing that the broadcaster has no right under its mandate to compete with the private broadcasters in the online music space. ... 'The only music that you can hear for free is when the birds sing,' said Stingray CEO Eric Boyko, whose company runs the Galaxie music app that charges users $4.99 a month for unlimited listening. 'There is a cost to everything, yet CBC does not seem to think that is true.' ... The companies argue they must charge customers to offset royalty costs which are triggered every time a song is played, while the CBC gets around the pay-per-click problem because it is considered a non-profit corporation. ... Media executives aren't the only ones who have expressed concern. When the CBC service was launched in February, the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers said that when it set a flat fees for the more than 100,000 music publishers it represents, it never envisioned a constant stream of free music flooding the Internet."
CBC are munchkining (Score:2, Informative)
they are using non-profit status to gain a competitive advantage over the rest of the market.
FTA they pay lower royalties and get other concessions for having this status. This is out of the spirit of non-profit and in this case the industry does have a reason to be upset
Canadian Content (Score:4, Informative)
“These actions further distances the corporation from its mandate, while placing it directly on a collision course with private broadcasters who can only rely on advertising and subscription revenues to sustain their services,”
Isn't one of the mandate of the CBC to promote Canadian art and culture? The CBC does a lot more to promote quality Canadian content then any other broadcaster on that list.
"The only music that you can hear for free is when the birds sing." That guy has probably never been on the internet before... You know, the place where a bunch of bands are releasing their music for free because they love what they do?
Re:Just protecting their assets (Score:5, Informative)
Proposing things to and supporting politicians with same views as you is not bribery. If they were bribing the police to bust you, then you would have a case. But it's not the same, and also, you are allowed to do the same.
Actually, in Canada it is bribery. Our Elections act is quite clear on that point [elections.ca]. It's illegal for a candidate or party to accept funding from an entity who is not a citizen of the country (and unlike the US, corporations are not citizens). Additionally, there is a limit to how much an individual can give [elections.ca], per year, to a given candidate/party.
Violating the elections act can get a candidate's election results invalidated, and carries significant fines, in the case of a corporation giving money to a candidate. Lest you think that they'll find some way to hide the funding, their finances must be submitted to the elections officer [elections.ca], there is a limit to how much can be spent on elections [elections.ca], and their financial returns are a matter of public record, and can be searched by anybody [elections.ca].
You're cure (Score:5, Informative)
And yet the Conservatives (Currently in power in Canada) have been found 3 times to have breached these exact same laws (and fudging the elections finance submissions) and nothing has happened (barely even made a blip on the News).
Unfortunately, there are MANY ways around these rules and way too many ways to bend them, thus neutering those laws.
Re:Just protecting their assets (Score:5, Informative)
They also provide financing for new musicians,
As somebody who was involved in the underground music scene in Saint John's, I can say that the record labels are useless to new musicians. The best way for new musicians to finance themselves is to play all-ages shows, sell merchandise, and apply for (small) grants from the government. All the labels do is engage a high-risk high-return advertising machine, and work the musicians to the bone.
Re:Just protecting their assets (Score:5, Informative)
You don't? You mean you don't see how the CBC is cutting and gutting into new business startups, that they're exceeding their funding mandate by doing this either? Libraries are far different from what the CBC is pulling.
Almost EVERY single radio station is owned by Chorus/Rogers or is planned to be owned by Chorus/Rogers. Even the college radio stations are being bought. In my mind, all CBC is doing is modernizing. Price is not the only thing to compete on... what about News/Traffic humorous enjoyable adverts, morning shows and proper exclusive programming?!? I remember turning on the radio at a certain time to hear the on-going history of new music or could change the station during commercials or news... since Chrous/Rogers has been buying all the stations Canadian radio has gone to the shitter and they have every right to be scared that they will no longer be able to synchronize the commercials on every radio station at the same time and playing almost the same content commercials programs and morning shows.
Chorus / Rogers are complaining because free streaming by CBC threatens them by giving listeners options, something they figured they could work around by buying everything.
Re:Just protecting their assets (Score:5, Informative)
So, every thing provided by the government then?
No, only the things that citizens believe should be so provided.
In Canada, apparently, this includes streaming music.
Re:Just protecting their assets (Score:5, Informative)
I was a worker for many years, now I am a co-owner of a very small business. Do you know what my current windfall from the "ownership of capital" is? It's negative, "red" as they say in accounting. And it is supposed to remain so for at least a few years. Many startups fail, thus never recovering the invested money. I'm hoping for a positive return, but I'm taking large risks with my money, and I may never see it again. Are you willing to mortgage your house, for example, to invest into your own startup? If not then you are a worker.
Something to keep in mind is that small business owners like you are not capitalists in Marxist classification - they are "petit bourgeoisie". The difference is that the means of production - capital - owned by the owner of a small business is, generally speaking, not generating sufficient wealth for rapid expansion.
Simply put, you're a capitalist if your capital is large enough that you can hire a manager and retire, living entirely off the proceeds without having to work yourself - purely on the "rent" extracted from others.
The USSR model artfully combines the worst aspects of communism, socialism and capitalism. The factories are not yours, so you never get any dividends on your investment - nor you can make those investments. You only get the salary; but since the state is the only capitalist in town, the state gets to dictate how much you are going to eat today. Socialism is simply capitalism with only one capitalist; one big company town from which there is no escape.
That's precisely why a lot of Marxists argue that USSR was never socialist, except perhaps for a few years early on when it truly had factories run by their workers, but rather a degenerate form of state capitalism. As you note, the factories in the USSR were not really owned by people working in them - they were owned by the state, which exploited the workers just the same, and paid out part of what it extracted from them as salary. Soviet apologists generally claim that the state was democratic, and therefore workers were able to influence how much they were payed; but it was a sham democracy in practice with no real choices.
And there were no socialist (or self-proclaimed socialist) states that were based on any model other than the Soviet one - of all the early socialist revolutions that happened, Soviet was the only one that succeeded, and all further socialist states were backed by USSR, and, by necessity, picked up its ideology - sometimes diverging from it later, like China or Yugoslavia, but the roots were always there. So we don't really know what a "real socialism" would be like, and whether it could have worked out better.