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Music Media

Webcasting and the DMCA 184

Posted by michael from the hot-and-cold-running-music dept.
nknouf writes: "A recent article on Salon talks about how college radio stations that webcast could face fee increases from $623/year to $10,000 to $20,000 per year. What's more interesting is information that Congress is considering a bill called the Music On-Line Competition Act, co-sponsored by Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah and Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va. The bill aims to "break the hammerlock the recording industry has over music distribution." My favorite quote, from Rep. Cannon: Napster is "one of the coolest inventions of modern times.""
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Webcasting and the DMCA More

Webcasting and the DMCA

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  • Finally, they picked on a user-base large enough to pick back...

    I sincerly hope this signals the beginning of the end...

  • HR 2724 link (Score:4, Informative)

    by Oily Tuna ( 542581 ) on Saturday December 15, 2001 @01:15AM (#2707253) Homepage Journal
    More permanent link to the Music Online Competition Act

    HR 2724 [theorator.com].

  • Links to the bill (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SuuSt ( 151462 ) on Saturday December 15, 2001 @01:19AM (#2707264) Homepage Journal
    Since the link to the bill is dead, here are some links to pdf copies of it:

    Digimedia.org pdf [digmedia.org]

    house.gov pdf [house.gov]

    A summary of the bill here [house.gov] at house.gov

    And the google cached version here [google.com]

    There if you can Slashdot all of those, we deserve a collective cookie.

  • The link is already broken. (Score:3, Informative)

    by Enigma2175 ( 179646 ) on Saturday December 15, 2001 @01:19AM (#2707266) Homepage Journal
    Too bad the link to the bill is already broken, I would have liked to have read it.

    OK I did a search and found a PDF copy of the bill HERE [house.gov]. Also found a site [rice.edu] to organize support for the bill, it has a form to send your representative an email. Since Cannon is mine, I guess I'm already OK on that one. However, I have been pretty unhappy on his stance on several issues in the past, hopefully he won't drop the ball on this one under the intense politial pressure of the RIAA.

  • Great work guys (Score:1, Redundant)

    by Stary ( 151493 )
    Great... one dead link, the other one links to page 2 of the article. Have you /. editors ever considered checking your links before posting a story?

  • But it's only fair. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by b.foster ( 543648 ) on Saturday December 15, 2001 @01:22AM (#2707281)
    I hate the RIAA and their supporters just as much as the next guy, but this policy is really only common sense. The fees are outrageous, but contrary to popular belief, there's no reason why webcasters should be able to reach an enormous new audience on the internet and get away without paying any additional fees. And if they feel that the fees are unfair, our free market system will let them make the conscious decision to just stop webcasting and not have to pay another dime.

    For instance, consider the following scenario: radio stations N and L, located in New York and L.A., are owned by the same person. N webcasts their content (for free, under the old regulations), and L rebroadcasts it. Why wouldn't L get to rebroadcast it for free, considering that everybody in L.A. already has access to it? ASCAP is there for a reason: the more you distribute the music, the higher the price, because: the more you distribute the music, the more you can charge your advertisers.

    There is a time and a place to bash the RIAA but let's choose our battles a little more wisely, okay?

    Bill

    • On the other hand... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Saturday December 15, 2001 @01:29AM (#2707299)
      How many people could these webcasters REALLY reach? If everyone in LA listens to a station at once that's fine, and you have millions of listeners - but since the practical reality of many webcasts is one of limited bandwith, perhaps pricing (if any) should be reflected based on how many simultaneous users could really listen at once.

      The other thing to consider is how many of the artists a station is playing are really going to get a piece of that ASCAP pie. If all you're playing is experiminetal stuff, why should ASCAP get anything from you? How about a pool composed of exactly the artists played, that seems a lot more fair.

    • Re:But it's only fair. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ywwg ( 20925 )
      "our free market system will let them"

      The free market is not a conscious entity. If ever there was an underlying philosophy to the US in general, it's this odd idea that The Market is somehow this all-knowing, all-seeing entity that does What Is Best For Everyone. I don't have the proper background to expound expertly, but it seems to me that relying on The Market to decide everything inevitably benefits those who benefit most from capitalism -- the rich. Ok, so having the government decide what is best for everyone doesn't have a great record in history. For one thing, its motive is profit, nothing more. Is profit really the best measure of a society?

      Closer to this example, it bears pointing out that the recording industry has a monopoly on music distribution anyway, and they prices they charge and the restrictions they impose are not those of a natural system. When the artists themselves are restrained from distributing their music how they see fit, is the Great Free Market really fulfilling its function?
      • What is also in suspense is the applicability of classical economic theory to dubious "goods" such as the right to reproduce a musical work and other inventions of intellectual property law. Unlike the case with real goods, which are alienable and subject to immediate defense, intellectual "property" requires draconian intervention into the everyday lives and the normal community patterns of people far afield from either producer or "owner."

      • I think that a lot of what you said was right, but there are somethings that you're missing. One is that the american economic system is not a free market. The RIAA has the power it does simply because it has passed the nessecary laws that restrict the market to thier own advantage. If this was a free market, thier monopoly could not exist because of the multitutes of alternatives that have come into being. However, the RIAA has labeled this alternatives as "illegal" instead of "competition" and therefore can sustain its monopoly. Yes there was a lot of copyright theft taking place on napster, but it was also a legitamate alternative distribution method. In effect, they have increased the barriers of entry, which are essentially the cost of duplication, to price out most competition.

    • Well who buys less music b/c of streaming mp3? Personally, I buy more. Streaming audio allows me to buy products which I would not otherwise be exposed to. The RIAA knows this but these increased sales are far outweighed if they could monopolize web streaming just like they (and their ilk) monopolized radio. Make no mistake: the RIAA's goal is to charge monopoly rents for web streaming, and have the entire web captive to their own record sales channels. Those that do not have to pay fees (like, say....Sony) and mainstream "Oops I did it again" licenced sites will be the only ones left streaming if they are successful.
      Whether or not this is a winnable battle, I don't know, but it is very important for all online music listeners.
      I like to code to somaFM. (Guess the URL!) I doubt if they would survive if this continues.
    • If you think of it this way, RIAA [riaa.org] is hurting the economy.. So is ASCAP [ascap.com] and BMI [bmi.com] Webcasters let music be heard that may not have a venue elsewhere,be heard. In turn the listeners are interesed in the band, they go out and buy the CD(which pays BMI and ASCAP), In turn the bands have to play more shows... In turn they buy new musical equipment, to play more shows where more people are coming,In turn the clubs make more money and continue to have live bands. If webcasters are charged outrageous fees, then we can't play the music, thereby shutting us down, the bands don't sell any CD's the clubs don't make any money, the music stores don't sell equipment. Pretty vicious circle... my site www.nw-radio.com [nw-radio.com] doesn't sell records, we let people hear music that they may not have any idea is out there ... So Why should I have to pay RIAA or BMI or ASCAP for helping THEM ?

    • Fair my ass... (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      This isn't just about fees, it's about performer fees, as opposed to songwriter fees that are already paid.

      Under long-standing U.S. copyright law, broadcasters pay a coalition of songwriters' groups to air music over the Internet and the airwaves. But until the DMCA, performers and record companies did not have the rights to royalties when stations played their music. As part of the 1998 law, Congress allowed performers and record companies to start collecting fees on songs sent over the web, said Joel Willer, a mass communications professor at the University of Louisiana at Monroe. There are still no performer fees for regular airwave broadcasts.

      If airwave broadcasters don't have to pay, why should webcasters? How many people do you know are converting their audio stream to mp3s?

      The RIAA wants as much as they can grab with both hands, and if we could pass some decent campaign finance reform, maybe some of the corporate suck-ups in Washington would have the balls to stand up to them.
    • Fuck that. Did you read the entire article? College and community radio stations -- the stations least likely to reach an "enormous" audience under any circumstances -- will be the first ones forced off the air by these fees (which you admit are outrageous). Not only that, but the RIAA is demanding fees from webcasters that over-the-air radio broadcasters don't have to pay. Where is the fairness there?

      Yes, these stations could make "the conscious decision to just stop webcasting," but who would benefit then? All we'd be left with is an Internet filled with the same Clear Channel and Infinity stations that have glutted the airwaves with crap. And there's no reason for them to webcast, because they all sound pretty much alike anyway. (Which, incidentally, is why your N and L example makes no sense.)

      This is precisely the time and place to bash the RIAA. I hope this time they get their heads handed to them.

    • our free market system

      The second you introduce intellectual property laws into the mix, you no longer have a completely free market in any useful sense of the word. IP laws create some of the most artificial and arbitrary situations one could think of in economics.

      Course I don't believe in the old maxim that "free market will solve all problems" anyway -- but the point is that if one doesn't even have a free market to begin with, then all cries that we should just leave business alone are moot.

  • College radio stations must stay. (Score:3, Informative)

    by GeorgieBoy ( 6120 ) on Saturday December 15, 2001 @01:29AM (#2707300) Homepage
    Some of my favorite stations have been college radio stations. My personal example is WSOU, Seton Hall University's station in NJ. There's no way I can hear them w/o webcasting anymore because I've moved across the country.

    Poor record companies - no one sympathizes with their "dilemma". The Internet has revolutionized music and it's about time they realized that the more they make access to music difficult, the less people want to buy their music, and the more people will find other ways to get it.

    Some of the more interesting music I've heard has been on college radio. Treat an academic institution's radio station like an enterprise is beyond disgusting. The best part of college stations is that their playlists are often less strict, and much of what gets played wouldn't fit into the "mainstream", or even a format, for that matter. It's way better than having a radio station pump their "Heavy rotation" down my throat.
    • From WSOU's website [wsou.net] :
      • The decision to change WSOU's format was submitted to WSOU from the executive cabinet of Seton Hall University in the form of a letter. The letter stated that the administration of Seton Hall desired the current "hard rock" format be dissolved by January 1st. This decision was by no means decided by the WSOU staff. Meetings are currently being held as to the future of WSOU. We will keep you posted on any new events. Thank you for your continued support of Seton Hall's Pirate radio.
      Looks like WSOU's playlist just got a LOT stricter.

  • bye karma (Score:1, Insightful)

    by mliu ( 85608 )
    God damn, I'm so tired of this. Please, take my karma, I don't care.

    2001-12-14 16:50:32 dmca and college radio stations (articles,news) (rejected)

    This is like the 3rd or 4th damn time this has happened to me. In the beginning I submitted stories because I loved the site and what they'd done with it and wanted to help them. And then that feeling faded away, and I submitted stories because I cared about helping make sure that important news was seen by all the like-minded people who come here. Now I wonder what I even bother anymore at all, cause they'll just reject whatever I submit anyways.

    From the interesting stories I have submitted and had shot down, I realize there must be so many great stories out there just waiting to be told, and the only thing holding us back is that we have no way of getting them to the audience because the powers that be decide that Bozo the wonder toaster powered by Linux is more interesting than people getting arrested for the first time in the world for using File Sharing clients (in Japan, look it up) or anti-cancer molecules which self-reproduce. Pisses me off.

    I wish there were someway I could read through the submissions directly, and cut those worthless editors, with their inane, poorly-written comments, right out of the process since I could really give a damn about those little biased blurbs they throw on the end of each post. What would be really great would be to see the same moderation applied to comments applied to articles, or to see each rejection or acceptance by an editor labeled with a numerical value that he decides, and we can choose the level at which we want to browse articles, just like we can do with comments. Of course, for them to implement either of these might require them to take time out of their busy schedule of randomly picking marbles out of hat while blindfolded to choose which stories they post........

    • Re:bye karma (Score:1, Offtopic)

      by dangermouse ( 2242 )
      Kuro5hin [kuro5hin.org] is the place you oughtta be. When it comes back up (there was a catastrophic hardware failure), check it out.

      • Re:bye karma (Score:1, Offtopic)

        by dangermouse ( 2242 )
        So, just because I'm curious and have the karma to burn... how exactly is my previous post offtopic? The poster of the parent was clearly pining for a user-edited discussion site, and I pointed him to one he might like. I was all over his topic.

        Ah well.

    • new horizons (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Alien54 ( 180860 )
      Well, there is always IndyMedia.org, which is is a true open publishing solution. they are starting to run into the problems of scalability in a community, since the signal noise ratio is starting to drop.

      or you could try to help build other sites like RadioFreeNation.net or GlobalFreePress.com, or AlternateNews.com, or SmirkingChimp.com, etc etc etc

      The point being is that maybe one percent of people reading will even post a comment, and a lot less will submit a story. so when there are hundreds of submissions, there is a plenty good chance that someone will post it before you. It is again a scalibilty issue

      Then you have to see if one of the editors will like your write-up or not. Or if it confuses them, or does it entertain them enough, etc.

    • You're clearly doing something wrong, pal (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I've had four stories posted out of five submitted. It's all about the writing. The all-lowercase title does not bode well for the writing style of your submission. You might want to work on that.

      A lifetime of trolling has honed my writing skills to a fine edge. In fact, I believe that at any given time I could get a story posted on the front page withing 12 hours of deciding to try. So, quit whining and learn to write.

      Oh, it also helps if you don't submit the same fucking things everybody else is submitting.
    • I wish there were someway I could read through the submissions directly, and cut those worthless editors, with their inane, poorly-written comments, right out of the process since I could really give a damn about those little biased blurbs they throw on the end of each post.

      That would be Usenet. Get a newsreader, head on back.

  • College Radio? A partial answer... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SnakeStu ( 60546 ) on Saturday December 15, 2001 @01:34AM (#2707310) Homepage

    ...is to recognize the nature of their audience and the utility of the Open Audio License [eff.org]. All of the colleges I am aware of have a significant population of aspiring musicians eager to be heard, as well as many young, fresh minds open to listening to something other than what "Mom and Dad" listened to at home. So you have willing producers and open consumers, and the Open Audio License allows the college radio stations a way without fees to bring them together.

    In such an environment, a college radio station should actively promote the Open Audio License and encourage student musicians to release their work under it -- and then give it plenty of airplay (it costs them nothing). Open Audio might not work well in some markets (i.e., those where listeners expect to be given what the music industry convinces them to listen to via advertising), but I can imagine no market more prime than college radio.

  • Music On-Line Competition Act (Score:5, Insightful)

    by FFFish ( 7567 ) on Saturday December 15, 2001 @01:39AM (#2707328) Homepage
    Hell with that.

    We need a "Music Competition Act." On-line, off-line, on-air, whatever: the problem is that the music mafia -- let's start calling them by their true name -- have their greasy, pudgy fingers wrapped around the throat of every artist, choking the life out of them.

    Y'ever notice how many artists set up independent studios and private record labels? It's because they want ownership of the music they create, control over the production process, and aren't willing to whore themselves out to the mob any longer.

    The only ones who stick with the bigname labels seem to be the ones that are just manufactured puppet bands: the boy/girl bands that pump out mindless pap for the gullible teenage market. Without a mobster's hand up their ass, making them perform their puppet moves, these glam-bands wouldn't be able to make a living wage, so they're forced to stick with their masters.

    But there are legitimate artists who have been strung up by the puppeteers. Binding contracts that guarantee their whoredom for many years, loss of ownership of image and name, mounting debt because the mafia loaned them the money to become successful and demand payment back.

    We need a Music Competition Act that cuts the hands off the music mafia. It's currently not plausible, if not completely impossible, to break into the music market without sponsorship of the mafiasio. Let's change that. Let's make it so that artists don't have to whore themselves to make a buck.

    • Contradiction (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Oily Tuna ( 542581 )
      greasy, pudgy fingers wrapped around the throat of every artist, choking the life out of them.

      Y'ever notice how many artists set up independent studios and private record labels

      Which is it?

      IMO, it's closer to the former; there may be plenty of independent studios and labels producing excellent music but something is preventing them from getting wider exposure. It isn't lack of quality, so is it unfair competition from the bignames?
      • IMO, it's closer to the former; there may be plenty of independent studios and labels producing excellent music but something is preventing them from getting wider exposure. It isn't lack of quality, so is it unfair competition from the bignames?

        Well, let's be honest; there is a tremendous amount of really bad music in the independent music scene. The vast majority of independent bands aren't signed not because the music companies "don't get it" or "can't appreciate great music", but because they aren't that good.

        As for competition, yes, that's why most bands don't get any exposure. But it's not because the record industries are preventing it somehow. How many people do you know in a band? How many want to do it for a living? Now multiply that by a hundred thousand, and that's how many bands there are fighting to be heard in this country. Even the smallest record store will have thousands of different musicians across a broad variety of genres; the market is just oversaturated to an extent that doesn't exist in any other industry.

  • What a minute (Score:4, Funny)

    by flacco ( 324089 ) on Saturday December 15, 2001 @01:53AM (#2707364)
    My favorite quote, from Rep. Cannon: Napster is "one of the coolest inventions of modern times."

    What, have teens started voting or something?

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • I know Cannon personally, and I never thought I'd hear him say this. He lives in a big house in a very small town in Utah, and is typical republican, and didn't even respond to my anti-DMCA emails (although Orrin Hatch did). I was resigned to vote against him next election, but if he follows this comment up with more sustained actions, I will reconsider.
  • Um, I hate to say this, but could somebody translate this bill into english for me?
  • ...to spite their face. Most commercially successful records are first played by college stations. Also, many niche genres get their start on college radio! Those stations, mostly independent and with no commercial axe to grind benefit the record companies much more then I think they truly realize. To bite the hand that feeds you is pure stupidity! But then again when I see the arrogance of Hilary Rosen and her ilk I'm not surprised at all.
    • And why do you think the RIAA is going after them? Because they don't want you listening to "niche genres" or "independent radio." They want you to listen to what they tell you to listen to.... otherwise, there's a chance you might buy an album from an artist that isn't a member of the RIAA. And we can't have that, now can we?

      If the RIAA had their way, there would be no independent radio.

      InigoMontoya(tm)

  • Suck my cock, RIAA (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Legion303 ( 97901 ) on Saturday December 15, 2001 @02:02AM (#2707393) Homepage
    Isn't it about time the college radio stations said, "Piss off, RIAA, we're only playing non mafia-sponsored music from now on"? "KBBL: RIAA free and damned proud of it." The first radio station that has the balls to do this will get as much donation money as I can afford. -Legion
    • Unfortuately, the majority of people that think like slashdot that want to say "Suck my cock, RIAA" are poor college students with about 2 pesos to rub together for spare change, while vocal, we are not a threat...though I wish that wasn't so.

      Once non RIAA music gets played on MTV or VH-1 _then_ can the strangle hold be broken.
  • The link provided by the esteemed Slashdot authors [loc.gov] gave me the following:

    Please resubmit your search

    Search results are only retained for a limited amount of time.Your search results have either been deleted, or the file has been updated with new information.

    • No, that's just the way the Library of Congress system works. The search engine is a front end to Congress' IBM mainframe system. It generates web pages when you make a query and puts them on the web server, deleting them in about an hour. It's a bit clunky, but the legislation database is more secure that way. Several major U.S. Government sites work that way.

      Go to the main legislative search page [loc.gov] and put "HR2724" in the search box.

  • Better Salon Link (Score:3, Informative)

    by Alien54 ( 180860 ) on Saturday December 15, 2001 @02:08AM (#2707401) Journal
    You can bypass those nasty ads on Salon if you link to the printer friendly version of the story:

    http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/12/13/colle ge_webcast/print.html [salon.com]

    And it is a bit easier to read as well.

    • Re:Better Salon Link (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Yeah, we sure wouldn't want Salon to make any *money* or anything.. maybe we could all make a donation to help pay for their bandwidth costs..
      • It's not my problem how or if Salon makes money. What is my problem is that I can't abide advertisements. I've got reasonably heavy filtering set up to block them out, because I don't have to look at 'em, I don't have to respond to 'em, I don't have to waste my bandwidth, memory or CPU cycles on 'em, and I sure as hell don't have to put up with 'em.

        If they go out of business, then they go out of business. Maybe they shouldn't've relied so heavily on such a lousy way of making money.

        I don't have to subsidize stupid business plans with annoying implementations. Who says I do?

  • RIAA is putting down "non-signed" bands... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by g00z ( 81380 ) on Saturday December 15, 2001 @02:12AM (#2707410) Homepage
    I recently ran into this snag about 2 months ago. My band was playing live on a community radio station in St. Louis (www.kdhx.org) and of course I wanted our fans and friends of mine to listen in, so I sent them I link to the radio station. I remembered the radio station had a live web stream and figured listing online was the easiest thing to do.

    As I came to find out, the radio station recently (Like 2 weeks before hand) was forced to shut down their web-stream (a shoutcast server) because the RIAA had threatened to sue them unless the station paid the RIAA some obscene amount of cash (around 500K) to comply with this new charge thanks to the DMCA.

    So let's think about this for a second -- My band (unsigned) cannot be heard by our fans because the RIAA thinks they should be getting money from music streams over the internet, in turn, my band playing (not signed to an RIAA partnered label).

    What pisses me off the most is comments about the artist deserving the cash, yadda yadda yadda, so the RIAA somehow deserves this cash. That's a bunch of horseshit. I'm obviously not receiving any of this cash for my records being played on the radio, nor my live performances on a station.

    In case you didn't know, the RIAA's been screwing the independent musician for DECADES. Take recording for an example: most independent musicians use small 4-track cassette based recorders to put record their music to sell at shows, give to stations, etc. But did you know, ALL blank cassette tapes have a RIAA tax attached to them? So when I buy a blank tape, not to copy a RIAA CD, but to record myself, I give the RIAA around 10%-30% of what I paid for the tape! To record *MY* music. Now they want to start taxing CD-R's, and hardrives. Go to hell guys.

    Listen, I'm pleading with all of you -- if this stuff makes you angry, don't just boycott RIAA bands, support non-signed/non-RIAA bands! You don't even have to buy stuff, just go to shows, download free mp3's, anything -- just give the underdogs a chance. It's the last thing the RIAA wants. It's not about controlling their copyrighted materials, it's about controlling music -- who hears it, and what they hear.

    • Which is why theyr're so much more then regular CD roms. The radio station I work for uses audio CD's for archiving shows and commercials... The commercials have NO copyrighted music on them (we pay big bucks for our own custom created musical content for commercials) and any music that gets recorded is already covered by the station's blanket copyright (5% of GROSS revenues)yet we get taxed TWICE.... The music industry IS a CARTEL...who has managed to bribe congress into doing whatever they WANT them to do!
    • Well, as another St. Louisan, I can say that KDHX does a pretty decent job.

      Now, what I can't figure out about all of this is how the RIAA has _any_ say in this whatsoever. The sub-$1000 fees mentioned in the Salon article are paid to ASCAP and BMI, the major groups which represent music composers. A college or community radio station only pays these reduced royalties to ASCAP and BMI for a 'performance license' to broadcast a composition. The RIAA has no say whatsoever in what you broadcast, and don't get any money from the station. How they're able to suddenly extort cash simply because you're streaming audio over the net as well is beyond me.

  • Jamie Zawinski on Webcasting (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ewhac ( 5844 ) on Saturday December 15, 2001 @02:22AM (#2707424) Homepage Journal

    Jamie Zawinski [jwz.org] wrote a most informative rant on the labyrinthine regulations and pitfalls [dnalounge.com] that potentially face anyone wishing to Webcast. As he owns and operates the DNA Lounge [dnalounge.com] nightclub in San Francisco, which does its own share of Webcasting, the man has definitely done his homework. Definitely worth a read.

    Schwab


    • What is DaDa?
      Here's what some of the artists themselves said:

      * "DaDa is beautiful like the night, who cradles the young day in her arms." - Hans Arp
      * "DADA speaks with you, it is everything, it envelopes everything, it belongs to every religion, can be neither victory or defeat, it lives in space and not in time." - Francis Picabia
      * "Dada is the sun, Dada is the egg. Dada is the Police of the Police." - Richard Huelsenbeck

  • Music Online Competition Act (Score:5, Insightful)

    by thumbtack ( 445103 ) <thumbtack AT juno DOT com> on Saturday December 15, 2001 @02:29AM (#2707432)
    I live in VA. Rick Bouchers home state and have spoken with him about MOCA. While the RIAA and the recording labels spend millions to buy the congress, one thing has been emerging.

    Your Congressperson and Senators need your vote MORE than they need the RIAA cash. Washington is about maintaining power, without the votes there is no cash, no lunches, no trips, no chance to make a difference. Make it clear to your congressperson that you support MOCA and as a consitutant of his you expect him to vote accordingly, not that of special interest groups such as the RIAA.

    The text of the Music Online Competition Act can be Found Here [boycott-riaa.com]. The MOCA is a even handed piece of legislation the strives to fix some of the roadblocks brought about by the DMCA, but faces a uphill battle. Congress is reading their e-mail these days, write, specify the topic in the subject line Music Online Competition Act, and as much as it pains you be nice. You catch a lot more flies with honey than vinegar.
  • I would hate for this to happen, I mean college(and university) radio is about the only decent channels on the radio. Although I do like some top 40 radio but I usally find it to chatty and repatitive*cough*nickelback*cough*.

    Plus most college radio stations are already working on what preety much amounts to a shoe string budget. Combine this with the low power transmiters most of them have(which means sometimes webcasting is the only way to get it if you don't live on campus) this could be a deathblow.

  • This is a perfect example of why... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jesser ( 77961 ) on Saturday December 15, 2001 @03:10AM (#2707499) Homepage Journal
    you should read your diffs before posting them.

    EXEMPTION.--Section 110(7) of title 17, United States Code, is amended--
    (1) by striking "(7)" and inserting "(7)(A)"
    (2) by striking "by a vending establishment" and inserting "or of a sound recording by digital audio transmission, by or in a physical vending establishment"...

    How is a congressman supposed to review this? Do you expect them to look up the context around every change? Legislators have many patches (excuse me, bills) to review, so you should help them out by using a --context or --unified switch in your diff command.

    If your bill is unreadable, the reviewer is less likely to catch bugs, accidental loopholes, or unintentional stray changes from another bill you were working on in the same tree. Of course, if the bill contains "accidental" loopholes and "unintentional" stray changes (note scare quotes), I suppose it makes sense to try obfuscate your bill, but don't whine when the reviewer says "please attach a unified diff".

    • How is a congressman supposed to review this? Do you expect them to look up the context around every change? Legislators have many patches (excuse me, bills) to review, so you should help them out by using a --context or --unified switch in your diff command.

      Ever heard of a diff visualization tool? Those tools take a tree and a patch and line up the before and after versions side-by-side, highlighting the differences. How do you know your congresscritter isn't using one?

    • I imagine they do it like everyone else does it -- they pull down a copy of a book like the USCA, or call up the same material online, and compare the two.

      Visualizing the complete law is not the hard part; determining the outcome is.

  • Jet grind radioooooooo! (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    if you like internet radio, take a look at this. Damn sweet:

    http://www.beosradio.com/tunetracker/

    The version 2 is in devellopment and should be released soon.

  • Peer-to-Peer webcasting? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Jeremi ( 14640 ) on Saturday December 15, 2001 @04:17AM (#2707647) Homepage
    That article got me thinking. Perhaps the nifty peer-to-peer technology behind Gnutella, Swarmcast, FreeNet, and etc. can be used to do for audio streaming the same things that it does for file sharing?


    In particular, I'm thinking of a system where anyone can broadcast audio (or even video) streams semi-anonymously. Listening nodes automatically forward the stream packets to each other, meaning that only the nodes directly adjacent to the source know who/where it is, and only those nodes use any of its bandwidth.


    Such a system could be as scalable as "real" radio, since the bandwidth available increases with the number of people listening, and it could be lawyer-resistant enough that the RIAA couldn't stop it (similar to how they haven't been able to stop mp3 file trading).


    Time to start coding I guess :^)

    • A program could be written that just do the mixing with the dj's voice.

      Let me explain the idea:

      Given that many dj's have a repertoire of songs they play usually, and play them many times, what about caching the mp3s in your harddrive, and only get the dj's voice and mixing instructions from the webcast, only saving the mp3s the first time you listen to them.

      This would save a lot of bandwith, _and_ you end up with all the music you have been listening to cached on your hard drive.

      And it has got one more advantage. If you already have all the songs, you are getting only the dj's voice and _no_ music is exchanged, so no royalties can be asked for!
      • But then you have to listen to the one or two songs that you hate aswell, plus, it will create jobs for more people to talk about shit all day, don't encourage them :)
      • Great idea, but I can see one big problem to overcome with a setup like this.

        How would you identify MP3's on your computer as matching the mixing instructions? ID3? Hah. I have somewhere in the vicinity of 1200 MP3s, and hardly any of them have correctly completed ID3 info (missing fields, incorrect information, etc). What about ID3v1 vs. ID3v2? Etc etc etc. It sounds good in theory, I'm not knocking your idea, but I can't see a very easy way to make it practical. Most likely you'd just end up with a bunch of MP3 duplicates, wasting bandwidth and hard drive space.

        Also, some people (like me) are picky about the bitrate of thier mp3's. I can't stand anything less than 192 kbps. Some folk might have higher tolerances. The only way you'd be able to serve content and appease the people would be to have very high quality MP3's on your server (320 kbps?), and cut down the bitrate for those who are willing to sacrifice quality for speed. I haven't used shoutcast or its bretheren much, so I don't know if this issue has already been worked out or not. It just seems to me that compressing (so to speak) the bitrate for speedy downloading would sure be processor intensive for the server.

  • Huge (Score:1)

    by JaBean ( 528906 )
    Huge... only in that someone representing us is actually representing us!

  • Although on peripherally relevant to the story (it is to do with the DMCA) I'm a little surprised that this has not had a story of it's own on slashdot yet.

    It's on The Register [theregister.co.uk]
  • From the bill summary:

    (2) for the owner of a phonorecord lawfully acquired by digital phonorecord delivery, or a copy lawfully acquired by digital transmission of a literary work embodied in that phonorecord, to make another phonorecord or copy of such works, if such new phonorecord or copy is for archival purposes only and that all archival phonorecords or copies are destroyed in the event that continued possession of the phonorecord or copy should cease to be rightful.

    Does anyone else find it disturbing that we have to pass more laws to protect established rights like fair use? Shouldn't fair use be able to defend itself? As a programmer, I believe in writing the minimal efficient code to achieve the objective. Why don't lawyers feel the same way?

    IMHO: because more laws means you need to pay more lawyers to understand your rights and duties. They're preserving and expanding the clan.
    • Because 1) this isn't fair use. Fair use is well-defined, both in its original judicial form, and its more recent legislative embodiment, and doesn't cover this. And 2) because they are being efficient; something like fair use applies all across the board. Here they only want to carve out an exception for a particular class of works. Archival copies of books, for example, wouldn't be protected here.

      Law is really not all that complicated -- it's just that there's TONS of it. There need to be.

      Heck, I'm a law student, so let me ask you a question as a programmer: why don't we have OSes that can fit in a kilobyte of memory and be clear and plainly understandable, while not sacrificing any of the features or ease of use we want? Or are we stuck with it just having to be larger than that in order to get what we want out of it?
      • this isn't fair use. Fair use is well-defined, both in its original judicial form, and its more recent legislative embodiment, and doesn't cover this.

        Good info, I was not aware that fair use did not cover archival copies. Thank you.

        why don't we have OSes that can fit in a kilobyte of memory and be clear and plainly understandable, while not sacrificing any of the features or ease of use we want?

        Computer programs are written to be executed on computer processors. Laws are written to be executed in human powered courts. Computer processors cannot make intelligent interpretations of intent, so programs must exactly specify their full intent in advance. Laws are supposed to be guides whose intent is interpreted at runtime by the society in which they exist.

        The attempt to fully anticipate a computer users needs is difficult and rarely approaches 100% success. It is also unfortunately necessary, as most of us cannot reasonably afford a human secretary (the role typically filled by a computer). Computer programmers would love to leave exception handling to intelligent interpreters. This is the reason that the field of artificial intelligence is so heavily researched.

        Law has courts to handle exceptions. Those courts are comprised of legal experts and in some cases societal representatives (peers). Therefore, laws do not need to be as explicit as computer programs.

        I wrote this rather quickly and hope it is sufficiently clear. If not, feel free to contact me on bob at traxel dot com and I will explain in more detail.
        • Ideally, it would be great if the legislatures could pass broad laws and the courts could refine them. In practice it doesn't work all that well. Don't get me wrong: I love having a common law system, and I'm happy about the courts' role as interpretors.

          Nevertheless, if Congress has some specific intent in mind, they need to include that in their law, or at least make the legislative intent known in the Congressional Record. For example, the courts have found that mp3.com's music locker service was illegal because even if users can make their own mp3s, that doesn't allow other people to make the mp3s for them.

          If some Congressmen see this ruling, and say, that's not the idea at all, it's up to them to clarify their position for the benefit of the courts. Sort of a GIGO principle.

          Additionally, the courts are capable of arriving at inconsistant rulings, they're not really composed of technical experts (can you imagine hammering out zoning regulations and building codes solely in court?) and they are capable of, and often do, arrive at conclusions that aren't considered acceptable. (e.g. the common law prohibits survial tort claims)

          Both sides can be plenty boneheaded, and there's a real danger in over-legislating and constraining the courts. But in something like copyright, there are relatively few judicial exceptions carved out. Typically this lies with Congress.

          Believe me, people are very capable of acting like computer programs, and looking at the letter of a law, and not the spirit. When you've got something at stake, you just adopt the best argument you can, really. If one happens to be the correct one, it helps to know. Judges can't read the minds of Congress.

  • Big deal.... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by filtersweep ( 415712 ) on Saturday December 15, 2001 @11:41AM (#2708218) Homepage Journal
    "College Radio" ?? How many RIAA major label acts ARE there on "college radio" anyway?

    An artist on a truly indie label or an artist with self-released material receives no compensation for radio play anyway (and much of college radio consists of this type of material).

    The most ironic aspect of all is that we EASILY have the technology to track and pay the actual performers for either broadcast or webcast WITHOUT pooling the money the way the present system operates. We can arguably track even the number of LISTENERS of webcasts.

    Perhaps this scenario will further a movement to create truly independent mechanisms for distributing and compensating artists/labels for material... that an alternative system will develop (that isn't ASCAP, BMI, RIAA, etc...). I doubt major label artists would feel much pain by NOT being included in college radio.
  • I worked for him on his campaigns in the late 80s/early 90s when I was in college [ehc.edu]. An excellent being as humans go, and really, really up on tech issues for a Beltway guy. Always has a firm grasp of the people side of issues as well as the numbers and ideologies.
  • The proposed bill doesn't real help anyone, and it's not changing the way the fees are done, but the RIAA and DiMA still have a problem with it. The reason why is fairly simple - Cannon's proposal is more limited than than the current language. It signifgently changes what they are going to be able to claim as a "vending establishment."

    Ten or twenty years from now, when some new method of music transfer becomes popular, the RIAA is going to have to get new legislation passed before they can get thier claws on it. Their opposition to this bill is effectively saying "Come on, just give us the control NOW, ok?"
  • As a hamateur radio person and SWL (short-wave listener), I have mixed feelings about webcasting. Sure, it's a great way to let those who don't have an appropriate HF receiver and long-wire antenna pick up the distant stations, but (as others have pointed out) there are bandwidth considerations to think about.

    I've listened to more than a couple of canned webcasts from npr.org. Even with a high-bandwidth connection (DSL with 512K down), during the middle of the day on a summer weekend or near midnight in the middle of the week, I still got a lot of dropouts and pauses.

    In the end, the result was little different from tuning into live BBC broadcasts on one of my HF receivers. Worse, in fact, because I found that I couldn't really do much else with my bandwidth while the stream was downloading (in all fairness, I get the same effect when I'm downloading big files).

    I guess what I'm asking is: Would anyone really miss webcasting if it got reduced in scope, or even went away altogether? If the college stations mentioned still want to reach a larger audience, is there not some way for them to, perhaps, share the existing HF broadcast frequencies with our overseas neighbors?

    Just a thought. Might not even be worth much, but I thought I'd ramble a bit...

    • Well, I have DSL with 1024K down, and I can listen to streams quite effectively: although I usually have to pick something rather a bit smaller than the size of my pipe would suggest, due to router distance. For example, I usually listen to Tag's Trance somewhere around 128K or so.

      I would be very upset if I had to give it up. Fortunately, all the college radio stations I listen to are Canadian, but if Tag's Trance went offline I would be unamused.

    • The bandwidth needed for webcasting will be irrelevent once IPv6 (i.e. mandatory multicasting support) becomes mainstream.

      IPv6. Bug your ISP for it today.

  • Check out "`SEC. 117. LIMITATIONS ON EXCLUSIVE RIGHTS: COMPUTER PROGRAMS AND DIGITAL COPIES.'"

    Specifically subsection d and e, it is making explicitly legal to use MP3 playback devices, and to make a backup copy of any music you purchase. This sounds like intelligent legislation. Did SETI find something?
  • Since 1998 or so, I've been developing a website where people can buy downloads of Christian music. Up until now, I could only use independent, 'unsigned' bands and get their permission directly, and negotiate payments with them directly. Will this new law allow me to finally pay Word ten cents or so of royalties and charge users .25 per download of Michael W Smith and Amy Grant songs? That would be cool. Basically, I am unclear as to whether this law includes statutory licensing for sales of downloads, or if it's only for 'performances' (webcasting). If there's no statutory license for duplication, then it won't really help much, as the record companies will NEVER voluntarily grant one. Can anyone clear this up for me?

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