Copyright Office Publishes Final Webcasting Rates 394
Ghaleon writes: "The Copyright Office just released the final rates for webcasting. Looks like the rates are lower than the CARP recomendations, though I'm no webcaster so I'm not sure if these rates are good or not ..." nbrimhall points to a bit more at soma fm as well. Update: 06/20 21:54 GMT by M : See our last story for background information. The final rates are nothing to cheer about: most webcasters will not be able to afford them. Update: 06/21 03:13 GMT by T : An anonymous reader points out the continuing coverage at kurthanson.com, including reactions from Reps. Boucher and Inslee.
Bye-bye (Score:3, Informative)
Not bye-bye, maybe (Score:3, Insightful)
The compulsory license is the maximum that will need to be paid. The real amount can be anything from zero up to it - if the broadcasters and labels properly negotiate it.
Rates... (Score:3, Insightful)
This is already hitting us... (Score:3, Informative)
We'll probably see a lot more stations go down. Underground internet radio and offshore stations will be all that's left.
Re:This is already hitting us... (Score:3, Interesting)
I just don't understand companies that try so hard to persecute their best customers. This is so sad.
Danger, Danger, Tag Robinson... (Score:2)
Danger, Tag:
The intro page is still there and has a bumper. Tag probably needs to take that down, too.
B-(
Re:This is already hitting us... (Score:3)
Tags Trance got me through the entire last school year! That station introduced me to so much more electronic music than I could have ever found or heard on my own!
What's with the complaints? (Score:2, Insightful)
While it is sad that they can't afford it, why do they deserve better rates than a traditional radio station?
Re:What's with the complaints? (Score:5, Insightful)
The biggest problem with the new rate structure is that completely non-commercial, amateur Internet broadcasts, which are entirely *legal* (unlike their radio equivalents) will be *effectively* prohibited by the fees, tracking requirements, and back royalties enforced by the FCC.
Today we see another fine example of the federal government becoming the enforcement arm for major corporate interests. This new fee system was not made to benefit consumers, or to protect the innovative world of Internet audio broadcast, but to answer the fears of the RIAA.
Big conglomerates already own something like 80% of the radio stations in this country, and this new set of regulations will give them all the bargaining chips in snapping up any popular Internet stations. So much for finding new, interesting music on the 'net...it'll be Top 40 for everyone, from here on out.
The difference (Score:2)
The difference between Internet radio and traditional radio is as the difference between just about anything on the Internet and the traditional way: barrier to entry. The costs of starting up a traditional radio startion fall into the millions and millions of dollars. The cost of starting an Internet radio startion? Well, it depends on the number of listners you want to start with (bandwith usage) but could start being as little as a few hundred a month for a commercial job, or even less if you can run one off a cable modem.
This new per-performance rate, while low and on-par with traditional radio, effectivly kills all the small, independant internet radio startions out there. Sure, huge commerical ones will continue unemcumbered, but the small time ones that played all that hard-to-fnd music will now be gone, unable to pay these fees. In other words, big money has won out again, and the small independant radio station is one again a thing of the past.
Re:What's with the complaints? (Score:5, Insightful)
The more listeners the Internet station has, the greater its bandwidth costs -- whereas with a broadcast station, more listeners in the broadcast area do not mean higher costs. That means advertisers would be willing to buy advertising on broadcast radio, giving them an income stream that Internet radio will never have, and that can be used to pay royalties.
I do think it's absurd that a 500-listener Internet station has to pay the same per-song royalty as a broadcast station that could cover an area with millions of potential listeners.
This is just another example of the media Goliaths destroying everything they don't already control.
Re:What's with the complaints? (Score:2)
To the Online radio Stations (Score:2, Insightful)
AP article (Score:3, Informative)
(comment: the author thinks this is a victory for webcasters - he must listen to Clear Channel and think it's excellent)
Rates set for royalties on Internet music broadcasts
DAVID HO, Associated Press Writer Thursday, June 20, 2002
(06-20) 14:42 PDT WASHINGTON (AP) --
In a victory for Internet music broadcasters, the government on Thursday decided that songs delivered online will be charged royalty fees at a rate that is half of what was originally proposed by an arbitration panel.
Webcasters will be charged at a rate that amounts to 70 cents per song for each one thousand listeners, the U.S. Copyright Office announced on its Web site.
Librarian of Congress James H. Billington, who oversees the Copyright Office, found that the original proposal that set a higher rate for Internet-only programs than the radio rate "was arbitrary and not supported by the record of evidence," said spokeswoman Jill Brett.
In May, Billington rejected a government panel's rate proposal -- up to $1.40 per song heard by one thousand listeners. That was double the rate for broadcasts sent out simultaneously on radio and the Internet.
"It's good news for a number of Internet webcasters who will now likely be able to stay on the air," P.J. McNealy, research director with the analyst firm, GartnerG2.
Opponents to Thursday's ruling can appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit within 30 days. The court could modify or set aside the decision if it finds the ruling was highly unreasonable.
Internet radio, either simulcasts of traditional over-the-air radio or Internet-only stations streamed through the Internet to computers, is becoming more popular as people get high-speed connections at home.
Webcasters said the rates initially proposed were too high and would cost larger Internet radio broadcasters hundreds of thousands of dollars annually, more than they get from advertising or listener contributions. Many webcasters said the fees, which would be retroactive to 1998, would force them to shut down.
The record industry had sought higher royalties, saying more was needed to compensate artists and music labels for using their songs.
Webcasters, as well as over-the-air radio stations, already pay composers and music publishers royalties for the music they play, based typically on a percentage of their revenues.
But traditional radio broadcasters have been exempt from paying the royalties for each song played -- the standard that is now being applied to webcasters. Broadcasters successfully argued before lawmakers that they already were promoting the music.
After the recording industry failed to impose those new royalties on traditional broadcasters, the industry turned to webcasters -- and a 1998 law granted the industry its wish.
Naturally (Score:3, Interesting)
guess they just cant accept that a few webcasters might be able to come up with business model that actually allows them to survive.
Re:Naturally (Score:2)
Still gonna knock most hobbyist webcasters out (Score:4, Insightful)
So either cough up 10s of thousands of dollars to pay for your theft of copyrights for the last 4 years, or take your hobby into the toilet. Doesn't matter that you only had, say, 10 listeners at a time or that the stuff you play doesn't belong to RIAA labels or that you had 0 income related to your webcasting. You still owe.
Re:Still gonna knock most hobbyist webcasters out (Score:2)
What??? Surely this is wonrg... if I record a song and webcast it for free, I don't have to pay anyone anything. Same with any other music not on a label. Correct?
Re:Still gonna knock most hobbyist webcasters out (Score:3, Insightful)
bankrupting on-air as well as webcasters (Score:3, Informative)
since the rates are relatively unchanged (completely unchanged for non-commercial), you are out of business because you racked up a debt unknowingly for those 4 years.
if you are a non-commercial station, college or community, you may have to shutdown both castings and give up.
How will they know? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:bankrupting on-air as well as webcasters (Score:2)
Re:bankrupting on-air as well as webcasters (Score:3, Informative)
I'm surprised they're this low... (Score:2, Interesting)
This is great news. (Score:4, Interesting)
This really does make me sad, though. Hopefully this will jumpstart artists to move to more independent labels.
Re:This is great news. (Score:3, Interesting)
OK, now other than working around this utterly stupid law, what else can we do? Maybe if they try to drag a thousand internet radio broadcasters to court to demand payment it would make such a stink that they'd back off? We know the RIAA hates bad publicity.
Other alternatives? How about private internet radio 'clubs' where you have to be a member to listen? Does that exempt them (I know bars don't have to pay RIAA (yet) when they play a song, nor do dance clubs). Other than civil disobediance and lobbying what can we do?
grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Re:This is great news. (Score:2)
What they'd do is label you a pirate, and then get your DSL account removed. I think that's what happened to Film88.com, but if somebody has more insight into what'd happen I'm all ears.
I am curious what'd happen if you co-located a server with music on it ready to stream, and then paid for your bandwidth in advance. They may be able to send you to jail, but they can't shut down the server... at least that makes sense with the limited knowledge I have right now.
Re:This is great news. (Score:2)
Most radio consists of playlists and filler. What we could do as a workaround is compress the playlists into a string (such as, "Mother - Pink Floyd - The Wall - 1979" etc.) and broadcast that. The "player" would then find this song in the listener's collection, and play it.
It could have a fuzzy search so if the listener didn't have that particular song, it could play one very similar ("Mother - Roger Waters - The Wall Live in Berlin - 1990" or "Mother - Tori Amos - Little Earthquakes - 1991", for a "sloppy" fuzzy).
Since the station is not broadcasting SONGS, they aren't required to pay royalty fees.
A separate company could even develop software to find and download each upcoming song from one of the search engines/P2P platforms. (Separate because of liability.)
Adding to the previous paragraph, the station would likely broadcast a playlist an hour or so in advance, to give listeners time to obtain the songs. And since there's a lot of dead space, the station can send the "filler material" (ads, interviews, humor, etc.) at a higher bitrate, since it won't need to be streamed -- it could be sent a few minutes ahead of time, taking twice the amount of time to transmit as it does to play (for example).
Who wants to start writing this?
Re:This is great news. (Score:2, Interesting)
Webcasters were hoping for a percentage rate (Score:4, Insightful)
So, even with this reduced rate, we're still going to see almost all webcasters go out of business. It's even going to be hard for the big businesses. I work for a large internet radio company, and I was just told by our exec in charge of working with the RIAA that our rates would probably go up about $500,000-600,000/yr from our current rate. He said one reason is because even if a user skips a song, it still counts as a play.
For more info, I highly suggest checking out RAIN (Radio And Internet Newsletter) [kurthanson.com].
The end result (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, I think the RIAA has just finished the job of cutting its own throat.
Let's look at the facts: These rates apply to "commonly available" music, as a default royalty system. Webcasters are free to sign contracts with content performers and bypass these rates entirely. "But there's nothing good out there!" For now, perhaps.
Thing is, broadband is spreading like wildfire, as is the potential audience for webcasters, and more people will be edging to push their way into it. I'd expect to see underground webcasting stations pushing unknown bands grow common, and then some of them (both stations and bands) will grow increasingly popular. Meanwhile the bands pushed by the big labels (and big prices) will seem more and more stale.
The end result will be the decline and fall of the record companies, which will probably drag their signed artists down with them. Oh well.
Re:The end result (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The end result (Score:5, Insightful)
I dunno.. just a thought.
Since stations get charged per connection even if you don't listen to the whole song, pick your favorite RIAA-sponsored broadcaster and whip up a script to connect/disconnect over and over and over and
:)
Out-of-band (Score:2)
Re:The end result (Score:2)
Wouldn't you have to have an agreement with whoever owns the songs' publishing, which is usually a publishing company and also the songwriter?
At least in addition to an agreement with the label?
RIAA acting the same as always... (Score:4, Insightful)
RIAA is once again ignoring the fact that Internet radio transmissions provide MORE benefit to them by being able to reach MORE people at a lower cost. I've bought music from only hearing a single on a spinner.com broadcast--I'm a heck of a lot more likely to buy a CD if I can see who is playing than if I have to guess at who it might be.
Now that I've vented, can someone please explain to me how retroactive unspecified charges can be applied? If the IRS were to say, "We're going to tax you next year, but we're not going to decide how much those taxes are going to be for a couple of years and then you'll have to pony up the dough," I would think someone would take them to court and manage to get the charges wiped. Can someone with some real background in this explain this to me? Also, what am I missing with the label "Non-Commercial Broadcaster"? Does this mean that if you weren't making ANY money off of your broadcasts, you have to pay a lower rate? (Not that having to pay despite making no money doesn't suck...)
And why the heck was Yahoo selected to negotiate on this? Sure they've got a broadcast service, but they have money to blow, unlike Joe Schmo broadcasting out of their basement...
Re:RIAA acting the same as always... (Score:2)
This (retroactive taxation) has already occurred in the USA. It was done in 1993 [heritage.org] under the Clinton administration [house.gov] .
Re:RIAA acting the same as always... (Score:2)
Unfortunately, this was set when the US Copyright Office instituted CARP to set the rates for webcasting, back in 1998. Webcasters had the choice of a) negotiating their own deal with the copyright holders (aka, the RIAA) until the price was set by the Copyright Office, or b) wait until the rate was set and then back-pay since 1998. Big media companies like Yahoo.com opted for A. For obvious reasons, most webcasters realized that the RIAA would try to set an unacceptable rate and chose B instead.
Re:The end result has yet to be seen (Score:2)
This can't be true.
Explain Britney Spears.
Re:The end result has yet to be seen (Score:2)
Okay, I'll give it a shot... Britney Spears does have talent. Not talent for singing or songwriting, perhaps, but talent for projecting an image that can be sold to pre-adolescents, resulting in CD sales and profit. With the music industry, sales are the driving factor, not the production of quality music.
Re:The end result has yet to be seen (Score:2)
Evidently there is some definition of the word "talent" with which I have not been familiar.
Re:The end result has yet to be seen (Score:3, Insightful)
> They fund the band to go into a studio and turn
> out polished music. Some people are able to turn
> out something just as polished but that is not
> going to be common.
I disagree. The cost of studio equipment has been dropping dramatically, and I'd expect the cost of studio time to go down as well. Distribution is a problem the net has solved; so has "airplay". I believe that indy will eventually be the way to go.
Besides, the recording industry exacts an enormous price for their services. See Courtney Love's speech on the subject [salon.com] for more details.
Broadband (Score:2)
Not all is lost (Score:2, Interesting)
Sigh. (Score:2, Interesting)
I just paid somafm money last week. Not that I regret it, they are a terrific station that plays music I wouldn't hear elsewhere.
It just doesn't make any sense to have the internet, which creates a worldwide marketplace and communications medium, limited by the same old forces that want to create artificial economies of scarcity because they can't see past their "today's spreadsheet," prejudged view of the world. But they're succeeding, and they'll continue to dominate what we can see and do. It may create stability in some people's minds, but it's not natural.
What about non-RIAA music? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:What about non-RIAA music? (Score:4, Interesting)
It doesn't really have anything to do with the RIAA directly. These are compulsory license terms and fees. What that means, is that these are figures that broadcasters get to forcefully impose upon copyright holders, and there is nothing the copyright holder can do about it. If he wants more money, or he doesn't want you to broadcast his music at all, you can tell him "tough shit" and do it anyway (legally), as long as you follow these rules.
Effectively, all that means is that it sets the upper bound.
Where RIAA comes in, is that they are big business and won't negotiate with you "little people", so these rates and terms aren't just the upper bound, but they're the lower bound also. This is the only offer on the table when you are broadcasting their stuff.
For non-RIAA music, such as that garage band that played at the bar last weekend and then had a few beers with you, they are probably very happy to negotiate with you and offer you other terms. So instead of you paying these rates, you'll be able to work out something better. Maybe they'll even let you play their stuff free, because they want people to hear it.
IMHO, it's pretty fair. The ball is in the musicians' court now. They need to either commit to working for the corporations (who can push them pretty hard and effectively when they want to (e.g. you have probably heard the name "Britney Spears")), or work for themselves (and offer pleasant terms to underground supporters who will push thme in a different way). Choose wisely, dudes.
INteresting Rates - existing fm stations pay more (Score:2)
And existing radio stations will pay more to replay their broadcasts too.
You Knew this was comming, most cd's tell you public performance is prohibited, now webcasting is officially public performance
Re:INteresting Rates - existing fm stations pay mo (Score:2, Interesting)
Believe it or not internet radio stations pay licensing fee's just like regular radio.
A couple grey issues... (Score:2)
Remixes: I'm a big fan of video game [vgmix.com] remixes [overclocked.org], for instance. In cases like those, there's next to no legal issues involved, and there should be no charge. Similarly though, would other types of remixes be immune, even if they extensively used clips from existing songs?
Unusual selections: If a radio station had, for instance, old audio commercials, which although possibly copywritten, would generally raise no major issues over lost income for the owners, would those follow similar charges? How about theme songs, or approved short song clips?
On a related note, would station creators be responsible for metering just what was being played at all times, and to how many people? The sheer processor use and disk space required to keep such a log alone would bankrupt most online radio stations, I'd think.
Ryan Fenton
Re:A couple grey issues... (Score:2)
:^)
Ryan Fenton
Unsigned artists (Score:2, Interesting)
Actually, I kinda like that idea...
Tag's Trance Trip off the air (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know how it will affect DI, but if anyone was listening to Tag's Trance Trip, he shut off just before 3pm Pacific Time.
He was in tears thanking everyone.
Last song on the air was "Days go by" by Dirty Vegas
The anarchy of the net can prevail though. As streams drop off the air (every shoutcast stream may be affected), we must trade the files via FTP and P2P networks if we are to stop the music cartels. Blank cds are cheap, hand out cds full of mp3s with information about what has been done to our beloved streams.
As the streams are shut off, open up the archives and distribute them. Show them how much worse it will get when they block off one avenue of our expression.
Our culture should not be locked away from us and sold back to us.
------------------
The ideas contained herein are free to republish by anyone not affiliated in any way shape or form with the RIAA and MPAA
Re:Tag's Trance Trip off the air (Score:2)
I think the RIAA and MPAA's entire scheme is making what they produce "our culture". The worst thing you can do is not want what they produce...
I haven't been able to talk with friends re: TV for the last 2 years, because I haven't bothered to hook it up. And, IMHO, I haven't missed anything.
BBK
Shipping ... (Score:2)
Civil disobedience (Score:5, Interesting)
It's time for someone to setup a streaming radio app that works similar to P2P. Something that can't be shut down.
This is total bullshit. Commercial stations don't pay $500 per day. Why should Somafm?
I know the guy running Soma watches Slashdot. What can we do to help, short of giving in and paying these mobsters? I'll do what I can for you, but I'm not sure what to do aside from continuing to sign online petitions and send letters. I sent one to my rep in congress on this subject. Received a worthless form letter in reply that refused to take a position on either side. The punk.
I have 1Mbps of upstream bandwidth. Maybe it's time to put my private 15GB MP3 collection up on the various P2P networks? So far, I don't let anyone but my family access it, but I'm thinking it's time to reconsider...
I know at least some of you bastards in the industry are reading this. Get a clue: The public won't stand for this greed. Swapping music on the Internet is only going to increase because of this. You people need to change your attitude, and fast - you can't prosecute us all.
Re:Civil disobedience (Score:2)
Re:Civil disobedience (Score:4, Interesting)
Suppose you set up a p2p system where each node streams 1/nth of a 'channel' or 'station'. n could be about 16 (16 'subchannels') which would bring down the load on each peer to 128/16 kbps, well within the means of every cable modem.
Peers could be easily written in Java and spend their time discovering other peers. Your XMMS/winamp/whatever client connects to your local java client which requests and assembles n 'subchannels' into a stream. Peers do not reveal *their* sources, only other peers. That way, the true source is obscured, but more importantly, more nodes are brought in.
Broadcasters stream to many nodes with a special arrangement/agreement. (push) Everything else is pull.
Your java client requests a channel/subchannel from some known server or requests a node where to get a channel/subchannel . They stream to you.
The underlying protocol would be based upon sending files, not a true music stream. These could be caputured by the local client if wanted. Information could describe overlap of two music files, messages, artist info, etc.
1) low bandwidth for nodes ==> many nodes.
2) dynamic hierarchy. Loose a node and the system will be able to adapt.
3) difficult to find the true source.
4) access to the files streamed.
5) Of course it would stream Ogg! ; )
What do you think?
Cheers,
-b
Re:Civil disobedience (Score:2)
If one subchannel is lagging, get another source.
Nodes will have to be aggressive with keeping good sources of subchannels because there are so many to handle.
I have no idea about royalties. I hope the artists get their fair share.
-b
Re:Civil disobedience (Score:2)
A node could carry a named but empty subchannel. It would carry all the metadata like song titles, but not the actual music. It should be able to go 'live' quickly. That way all nodes could 'carry' many 'dark' channels with insignificant data being sent.
A node could request a subchannel, and could try-before-buy. So the bad subchannel is dropped if the prospective subchannel is faster/better. This could be seamless. (+/-) Agressiveness would be very important with that many streams.
2) I think it is possible to avoid supernodes. These should be viewed as liabilities given the legal situation.
I think that a naming scheme that partitions properly could solve the namespace.
Music catagories, arbitrary city names for servers or longitude and latitude plus a big random number.
Where this could break down is if you had a hostile set of nodes. I haven't thought about that..
Discovery is a big issue, but if nodes are willing to share info, then it could be overcome...
Cheers,
-b
Re:Civil disobedience (Score:4, Interesting)
It's time for someone to setup a streaming radio app that works similar to P2P. Something that can't be shut down.
Not just another P2P app, but let's start seeing more P2P devices and infrastructure as well, like wireless multi-hop networks. That way even the physical network will be tough to regulate or shut down.
It might only work for densely populated local areas at first, but if you can get around the security issues this is the logical next step in the evolution of the internet.
The technology and the demand for streaming content is out there, if the RIAA and MPAA etc. kept shooting themselves in the foot, inventors and consumers will find another way to get what they want.
Re:The Crapper (Score:2)
To top it all of Hillary Rosen attempts to play the victim to it all stating "What can I do" as if she's being held hostage by the indies. "That's just the way it is" she says while she circumvents the letter of the law. The radio stations pretend that they aren't doing anything wrong, the indies just laugh while they rake in 500,000 here and 600,000 there. It's a nice tidy little cycle that the webcasters won't be included in. Can you see any of the indies going after webcasters? They work for the record companies and the record companies already have all the channels of distribution that they want, therefore there's no need for indies to go out on a limb and provide a service that noone wants to pay for. To top it off that means that the webcasters won't make the same capital that the radio stations will and therefore won't be able to come up with the cash to pay "royalties" easily.
It's a sad sad suck-ass system when the record companies can so easily play the victim in all this.
Re:Civil disobedience (Score:4, Informative)
Civil disobedience? I'm supposed to think it's worth risking prison so I can listen to major label music?
Maybe some of you are out in the middle of nowhere, but here near San Francisco I can find all sorts of shows, unsigned artists selling their CDs for what it cost to make them, and DJs spinning tunes off indie labels that would be thrilled to have people stream their stuff over the net.
I've stopped buying CDs from any RIAA member; hell, I basically don't buy CDs. On the one hand you clamor against the RIAA, but on the other hand you can't wean yourself from their product? Why are you encouraging artists to limit access to their work by signing with these people?
Civil disobedience? Hmm, rather than go to jail, how about I listen to Free Music. Check out somesongs.com and songfight.com for starters.
Re:Civil disobedience (Score:2)
Now there is the mark of a true American! Let the government decide what is right for you - Uncle Sam knows best!
</sarcasm>
I, for one, do not need the government wiping my ass for me, thank you very much.
Sideshow Bob Strikes Back (Score:2)
Brockman: [on air] And as my final newscast draws to a close, I'm reminded of a few of the events that brought me closer to you: the collapse of the Soviet Union, premium ice cream price wars, dogs that were mistakenly issued major credit cards, and others who weren't so lucky. And so, farewell. Uh, and don't forget to look for my new column in PC World magazine.
Sideshow Bob: Success! They're giving in. Blast! I should've made more demands. Some decent local marmalade for one. Oh well, next time.
Do we really want to live in a world without TV? (Score:2)
not ignorance... (Score:2, Informative)
Webcasters and broadcasters asked that the Librarian reject the CARP's approach and provide them with an option to pay a rate based on a percentage of their revenues, rather than a per-performance rate.
...
Finally, the CARP noted that because many webcasters are currently generating very little revenue, a percentage of revenue rate would require copyright owners to allow extensive use of their property with little or no compensation.
the only options (Score:5, Informative)
2. Don't host in the US, use overseas servers. The riaa will probably try and make their laws apply to other contries (stupid), but I doubt it will work on all countries.
Re:the only options (Score:3, Informative)
every day at work, and I love it. I even started saving streams, worried that it would shut down. I would even pay a subscription if it would keep them in business. Thou at 7 cents a song, about a buck an hour is quite steep, more than my cable bill a month.
Note this is only a maximum rate (Score:5, Insightful)
But all players are free to negotiate any other terms, including lower terms, and including free for bands that want to get more play for their music and don't want the revenue.
This is a maximum because if they ask for more than the .07 or .02 cents, an internet radio station can just invoke the compulsory license and pay that lower amount.
Think this through again. The norm for copyright law is you can't perform somebody else's copyrighted work without permission. This ruling (common in the music industry but not elsewhere) says that you don't have to ask permission, you can just pay this fixed fee. If you go get permission you can arrange any fee both parties want. This ruling came down because people could not agree on fees.
In the end, this might mean that independent labels, which can now band together and declare lower fees for their music, dominate the airplay on internet radio stations. They might even declare free airplay for their stuff. This could mean independent labels begin to dominate the big labels on the internet.
Already projects like the Creative Commons are defining ways for works that want to allow free play to encode it right in the file.
Frankly, I don't think the government should be setting the price of music at all, however.
Its the terms that are the killer (Score:2)
Here are the terms of the licence [cornell.edu], which have lots of vague clauses about DRM type stuff that look as if they were deliberately written to be only settleable in court at great cost:
(v) the transmitting entity cooperates to prevent, to the extent feasible without imposing substantial costs or burdens, a transmission recipient or any other person or entity from automatically scanning the transmitting entity's transmissions alone or together with transmissions by other transmitting entities in order to select a particular sound recording to be transmitted to the transmission recipient, except that the requirement of this clause shall not apply to a satellite digital audio service that is in operation, or that is licensed by the Federal Communications Commission, on or before July 31, 1998;
Is this an Anti-TiVo clause?
(vi) the transmitting entity takes no affirmative steps to cause or induce the making of a phonorecord by the transmission recipient, and if the technology used by the transmitting entity enables the transmitting entity to limit the making by the transmission recipient of phonorecords of the transmission directly in a digital format, the transmitting entity sets such technology to limit such making of phonorecords to the extent permitted by such technology;
viii) the transmitting entity accommodates and does not interfere with the transmission of technical measures that are widely used by sound recording copyright owners to identify or protect copyrighted works, and that are technically feasible of being transmitted by the transmitting entity without imposing substantial costs on the transmitting entity or resulting in perceptible aural or visual degradation of the digital signal, except that the requirement of this clause shall not apply to a satellite digital audio service that is in operation, or that is licensed under the authority of the Federal Communications Commission, on or before July 31, 1998, to the extent that such service has designed, developed, or made commitments to procure equipment or technology that is not compatible with such technical measures before such technical measures are widely adopted by sound recording copyright owners;
The logic of record companies of paying thousands to get airplay on the radio, but trying extract thousands for wireplay on the net escapes me still.
(cross-posted from my weblog [blogspot.com])
Sounds like XM to me. (Score:2)
Is this an Anti-TiVo clause?
Sounds like it's anti XM Radio.
I think I know what they're concerned about. (Score:2)
They're afraid that if you broadcast digitally your listeners will record digitally and obtain a perfect copy of the material.
Off-the-analog-radio-air recording has not been a big problem, but digital is a new world and they're scared.
CNN calls it a "victory" (Score:4, Informative)
Some victory... instead of cutting off both arms, you get to keep one. :(
Re:CNN calls it a "victory" (Score:2)
No, they both get cut off at the elbow: cut in half.
Re:CNN calls it a "victory" (Score:3, Insightful)
Not a big surprise when it's all put in perspective, eh?
What we need... (Score:3, Funny)
GCL (Score:2)
Does anyone think this would be a bad idea for recording artists to implement? Would consumers still pay for full albums on CD with all the extras or would they just swap freely without honoring the artists financially at all?
Any thoughts.
So what does USL owe? (Score:2)
So... where does that leave them? $500, certainly, and I'd imagine that Live365 is about to go under, leaving them without a bandwidth provider. I'm thinking about offering to step in if they take care of the licensing.
A few questions - *can* they play music from, say, MP3.com, with authorization? (Heck, I play guitar and sing - if I walked into their studio, could I play an original composition without having them have to pay?) And second - what is their fee scale?
Y'know - it seems really stupid that they are charged for broadcasting their own material. Does this mean that CU-C-ME or Pow-Wow chats (or whatever they are nowadays - I haven't used Internet speech chat in many years) are now under this fee schedual? They are broadcasting voice... ??
--
Evan
This is horable, we should organize (Score:2)
We need to organize to fight this. Laws can be changed.
And, I'm not just saying "hey guys, lets send out our angry little emails, or start an online petition," that stuff rarely yields results since it is never picked up by main stream media channels. It'd be awesome if we could organize some positive rallies in California. It would be hard to keep a bunch of marching middle class, riaa hating, suburbanites out of the news.
I'm probably going to send in this story into the guardian, the nation, as well as projectcensored.org This will be picked up an ranted about by the indi media for sure.
The RIAA's Response? Feed us more!! (Score:4, Interesting)
Who's up for burning RIAA at the stake?
This is bullshit! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:This is bullshit! (Score:2)
Next thing ya know, people will start putting pianos back into their parlors, and buying sheet music again. One wonders if the recording industry has really thought things through and are fighting a last ditch rear-guard action to squeeze everyone while they've got a chance, or if they're still in denial...
So lets get some live internet music... (Score:5, Insightful)
The point of all this (Score:2)
However, the RIAA owns the music, and they can do whatever they want with it. That's how capitalism works. The only legal recourse we have is to go elsewhere for music. Listen to bands outside the RIAA stranglehold. Support the webcasters who locate these bands and stream their music. If you're a musician, avoid RIAA-controlled distribution channels and go really indie.
It will hurt losing the stuff we already like that's locked up by the RIAA. But shit happens. Move on and make things better for the future.
What will happen... (Score:5, Insightful)
Here is what will happen:
Internet Radio continues to grow/develop, outside of the United States.
The number of US-based listeners continues to grow.
Non-US based Internet Radio stations begin to generate revenue.
US-based groups and industries begin to realize that they are missing out on a large stream of revenue/listerners, and begin to look for changes.
Sometime in the (near) future, new laws are passed that open up the United States market for Internet Radio.
So while I'm disgusted by the Copyright Office's decision, I have to say that I'm cautiously optimistic. Optimistic that sometime in the future people will realize what a big mistake this was.
For those interested in the math (Score:2, Insightful)
While it's a lot better than the proposed rate would have been ($184 per listener-year PLUS $1000 per year in ephemeral licenses [the recommendation was for $500 in E.L., but if you dig deeply you'll discover that an ephemeral license only permitted retaining a digital copy for a period of six months...]), it's still pretty terrible.
Alternative Sources of Music (Score:3, Informative)
A second source of music is your local library. Virtually every town of over 3000 people in the US has a library with a collection of CDs. Usually, there is a large selection of classical CDs, which are hard to find on the internet. Your taxes have purchased them, so make yourself some backup copies.
A third source of music is your local free performances. Your local university and high school will often have free recitals. Also, most major metropolitan areas have symphonies. Go ahead and check them out. Remember, if you have to pay for the performance, probably none of the money goes to the RIAA.
A fourth source is free internet archives of various sorts. This is most common classical and folk as opposed to pop. One site I'd recommend for folk is Roger McGuinn's Folk Den at http://www.ibiblio.org/jimmy/folkden/ . McGuinn posts a new song, freely downloadable, every month since November of 95. Also, he testified on behalf of file sharing during the Senate hearings.
While not a free source of income, a good thing to do is to contact your favorite independet artists. Tell them about the problems with webcasting, and the chances they have to be widely heard. Tell them to band together. Send them the adresses of your favorite webcasters. Get the word out that they can make deals with these stations. I promise to email some of my favorite indie artists, and I would encourage you to do the same.
Appeal is still possible (Score:2, Interesting)
I just mailed CNN about their (AP) story (Score:2, Interesting)
I realize that you are not responsible for the contents of AP stories that appear on your website, but I think that you ought to (at least) read the story before featuring a link to it on your home page (www.cnn.com).
The 'Victory for Internet Radio' is a victory like the 'victory' that America had at Pearl Harbor in WWII. On the face of it, this was a disaster for the US Pacific Fleet, however it galvanized the US into action which led to the defeat of Japan -- a true Victory for the US.
I suggest that the final CARP rate setting deterimination has already caused Internet broadcasters to stop broadcasting, and more will follow over the next few weeks.
However, unless this determination gets overturned by the courts (probably unlikely given that it is people without money (internet radio) fighting people with money (RIAA)) I predict that alternative internet radio business models will arise. These models will be based on independant artists licensing their creative works at zero cost to internet radio stations (via an independant licensing agency) in return for airplay. This airplay will generate CD sales and thus the artist gets paid.
Where does this leave the RIAA? In bed with the small number of commercial AM/FM broadcasters who see their market share dwindling.
I know where I would invest my dollars. Do you?
I don't understand this (Score:2)
Okay, now doesn't somafm mostly not play RIAA owned music? If so, then why would he have to pay RIAA. Also, if I make some music, I own the copyright, so I tell somafm that they can play it for free. They wouldn't need to pay the RIAA for that. And if a month from now, I sell it to RIAA then somafm would have to stop playing it, and it's not like they could make somafm pay for the time that they didn't even own the copyright.
Seems funny that all these webcasters claim to be playing independent music. Seems to me that if they're so scared of these fees then they must be playing RIAA music without permission. And any way you slice it, that's illegal, even before CARP fees.
Government. (Score:2)
what is a performace? (Score:3, Funny)
(per performance)
If by performace they mean per song, then we are going to be hearing a lot of "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" by webcasters.
An internet broadcaster's opinion (Score:5, Informative)
Some thoughts, based on what I've read here:
Terrestrial radio stations with webcasts are as unhappy with these rates as internet broadcasters are, and they'll be lobbying against this as well.
Some people have said that these rates won't apply to stations which only play non-RIAA material. While common sense would suggest that, it has not been proven yet, and common sense doesn't seem to apply to anything involving the RIAA and U.S. Congress.
Ephemeral recordings are "temporary" recordings made solely for broadcast purposes. In the case of internet radio, they're referring to MP3s. In practice, its an excuse to add another 8.8% fee on top of the per listener per song $0.0007.
Moving outside the U.S. won't save internet radio. U.S. based Broadcasters can be tracked through ISP's and billing relationships with hosting companies. Also, other countries have licensing bodies which are just as rapacious as the RIAA. In Canada, SOCAN is pushing Tariff 22, which imposes a $0.25 per unique listener per month fee. This adds up to more than the RIAA + BMI/ASCAP/SESAC fees, and forces listener tracking/subscriptions for auditing purposes. See the Stop Tariff 22 [rantradio.com] website for the details.
The battle isn't lost yet. On the Shoutcast list, we're working on our response to this. In the meantine, check out Save Internet Radio [saveinternetradio.org] and the Radio and Internet Newsletter [kurthanson.com]. Finally, write your reps in Congress, and include your snail mail addresss so they know you're a constituent.
what about multicasting? (Score:3)
R.I.P. (Score:3, Insightful)
Their website reads: "SomaFM: killed by the RIAA. June 20, 2002. With CARP royalties of $500 a DAY, SomaFM cannot continue broadcasting."
This just in from the Conspiracy Theory Dept.... (Score:3, Interesting)
(For that matter, over in the Unintended Consequences Dept., look for changes to webcasting software to force the streams to start on song boundaries and do something--maybe pop-up windows à la NetZero--to make sure there's a human at the other end actually listening. Once the per-listener/per-song fees are in place, webcasters will really not like you if you forget and leave XMMS running while you're on your two-week trip to Australia...)
Re:There is a silver lining (Score:2)
To borrow a paraphrase from the Good Doctor (Asimov), that is much like unto the excrement of the male bovine. The larger stations that can afford the fees (and are those insane record keeping requirements still in place?) will be the ones that churn out the same mind-numbing bilge that commercial radio already provides.
Sigh. It was great while it lasted...
Re:Grab shoutcast while you can... (Score:2)
Re:RIAA/MPAA will burn themselves out (Score:2)
If consumers somehow manage to develop a spine, the RIAA won't even *have* money for payoffs. That's the beauty of the market - no matter how much the RIAA screams and throws a fit, no matter now many bribes pass under (or over) the table - in the form of campaign contributions, of course - the fed still can't force anyone to buy the crap they call music.