New Royalty Rates Could Kill Internet Radio 273
FlatCatInASlatVat writes "Kurt Hanson's Radio Internet Newsletter has an analysis of the new royalty rates for Internet Radio announced by the US Copyright Office. The decision is likely to put most internet radio stations out of business by making the cost of broadcasting much higher than revenues. From the article: 'The Copyright Royalty Board is rejecting all of the arguments made by Webcasters and instead adopting the "per play" rate proposal put forth by SoundExchange (a digital music fee collection body created by the RIAA)...[The] math suggests that the royalty rate decision — for the performance alone, not even including composers' royalties! — is in the in the ballpark of 100% or more of total revenues.'"
surprised??? never... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:surprised??? never... (Score:4, Insightful)
The only reason the RIAA keeps getting away with this shit is because nobody is willing to stand up to them. If the radio stations banded together for one day of action to draw attention to the issue, maybe something will change, but it's gotta be done very soon, as I believe they only have two weeks to appeal.
The only stations I listen to are independent and have no RIAA music, but I really don't want to see the option go away. If it does, what are we left with? Your local Clear Channel owned station, and other "genre of the week" stations that satisfy nobody.
Re:surprised??? never... (Score:5, Interesting)
A person is more likely to listen more than 30 seconds of the important message if there is some payoff (more music) and a station is more willing to do something like that than lose all or most of their audience to a competitor who isn't doing the blackout thing.
Re:surprised??? never... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:surprised??? never... (Score:5, Insightful)
Dred,
you have hit on the ultimate solution to all idiotic intellectual property laws. In some years, it will have been a good thing that the Internet caused the end of IP as we know it. Stories like this one, showing how little the "gatekeepers" of recorded music really understand about how people use their product, are starting to pop up at such an alarming rate that the crash must be near.
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> members of the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works.
None of them implement the American extra royalties for internet radio, and most of them have copyrights expiring after 50 years. E.g. in Canada and the UK, everything Elvis did to the end of 1956 is already public domain. That means *ABSOLUTELY NO ROYALTIES WHATSOEVER* on
- from 1955
That's All Right/Blue Moon of Kentucky
Baby Le
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> still be required to pay it, even if their servers were in Canada?
I'd assume the worst. Witness stuff like...
a) the Lucent-Microsoft patent lawsuit over sales outside the US of stuff covered by an American patent
b) the arrests of foreign internet-gambling executives as they made connecting flights via the USA
c) the lawsuit, in the USA, against Spamhaus, which is based in England
Just to be on the safe side, it would have to be a tota
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Please support them, if you haven't already done so. If these rates stand, they are retroactive to back to the beginning of 2006. Radio Paradise will receive a bill for last year that is in the six figures.
Re:surprised??? never... (Score:5, Interesting)
The first problem with the current setup is that it's put under industry administration (whose interests are vastly divergent with both most musicians and the public, witness the current example), when in fact it's a tax and should be under government administration. That way it'd be subject to the same constraints as other taxation forms; is it reasonably equitably collected, do we get our money's worth from the spending (ie, does it finance as many artists and creators as possible for the money we're willing to spend?), is this a reasonable level of expenditure? What's more, we could actually measure the number of new works and how they change depending on the level of spending so we could finally get real data rather than imaginary numbers made up to support organized con men.
The second problem is that the RIAA corps are excluded. If we need an incentive for creative endeavors, _any_ revenue generating activity using 'copyrighted' material should be subject to the same taxation, wether plays on the radio, sales over the internet or the printing of CD's. Remove the 'copy' aspect of 'copyright' and replace it with a generalized non-transferrable 'incentiveright'. Allow free copying, printing and distribution of materials, let anyone from your local supermarket to online shops freely copy the material, as long as they pay a percentage of any revenue as 'incentive tax'/'royalty', and make sure the incentive actually goes to the creators. And make sure it goes to them in appropriate portions to maximise creativity.
Imagine the possibilities; you could go to the local supermarket and print a CD with whatever tracks you want on it. You could buy an USB disk of the nights music at a club. You could get a complete recording of the show when you exit a concert. Without copyright but with a simple levy on the revenue, whole hosts of new business and value opportunities would open up, while still maintaining a (more measurable) incentive for creativity.
Re:surprised??? never... (Score:4, Insightful)
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I get this point, but one thing to consider is that it is already in the hands of the government as they make the laws which give copyright teeth in the first place. This is not a free market game here.
all the best,
drew
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Huh? Are you going for a world record for the least logical non-sequitur here? Since when did placing the government in charge of collecting revenue automatically lead to censorship?
Ok, name one single instance in which the current U
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Did you, as a creative artist who is critical of the current administration, want to be collecting some of that revenue?
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Since when did placing the government in charge of collecting revenue automatically lead to censorship?
The issue is not so much who does the collecting as who does the distributing.
Ok, name one single instance in which the current UK government has attempted to have "evil" music genres banned, or one single instance in which the current UK government has attempted to have music critical of it banned. Or, come to that, one single other act on its part that leads you to believe that giving it the authority to collect revenues from compulsorary licensing would inevitably lead to censorship.
Individual MPs -- and indeed groups of MPs -- in the UK, in the Netherlands and in France, have called for restrictions on Rap. They have not succeeded yet, but it's enough to make me nervous. And the licensing act of 2003 has, as predicted by the Musicians Union, caused the widespread closure of folk clubs and live music sessions (just follow the sad litany of closures on uk.rec.music.folk). A lot of us on the folk scene suspec
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Yes. And, that is the system that is in effect now. I haven't seen the government give copyright to Disney and deny it for the Dixie Chicks, so you are an insane raver about the evils of the government. Perhaps you should stick with actual wrongs (that list is long enough) rather than imagined ones that are contradictory to what's actually occurring now. The monopoly of copyright is under government control, and they don't abuse it
Re:surprised??? never... (Score:5, Insightful)
Whatever you think is the answer is irrelevant, because the point is that a huge number of people will disagree with you. Whatever answer is legislated, a lot of people are going to be upset when, in their opinion, they're spending money incentivising the wrong thing. And what if I don't listen to music? Am I exempt, or is funding the pleasures of others a reasonable thing to be required of me?
I don't know why having some sort of committee deciding what artists should be paid seems appealing, and that is what it would ultimately come down to. The free market _can_ work here, it just doesn't because we have stupid copyright laws, and a cartel that no one seems willing to take on. That doesn't make a nonsensical socialist program the answer.
Socialised music? (Score:2, Offtopic)
Yeah, sounds great. Especially that part where my money is taken by force and funneled into some coffer to be doled out to an industry I despise and religions I disdain.
Clear Channel loses big, too (Score:5, Interesting)
Have you considered who will be paying the most? This year, every Clear Channel station in the top 100 markets will be simulcast streaming. That's on the order of 1,300 stations, +/- 100 or so. Since I've already done the math, I'll clue you in.
Using an average of one song per four minutes, each station will be playing 131,400 songs per year. That's $144.54 per station per listener. TFA quotes 500 listeners as average; that works out to:
100 listeners: $14,454 --- 500 listeners: $72,270 --- 1,000 listeners: $144,540
At 1,300 stations or so, that means this ruling will cost Clear Channel:
100/station: $18.8m --- 500/station: $94m --- 1,000/station: $188m
I can tell you firsthand they are not making that kind of revenue on their streaming side. Clear Channel stands to lose on the order of $100m this year. Ad revenue might help offset it next year, but we're still looking in the range of $100m or so for 2008 as well. CC most definately did not sign up to lose $150-300m in the next two years; it's really not a good time.
On a side note: If you want to hear something new on a Clear Channel station, call in or email the PD (production director). Tell him or her you want to hear it. Ask them to check CCADS ('seecads'). If it's not available, tell them to request it from Bobby Leach. Offer to lend them your cd, if it's safe for radio play. Call in or email your favorite jock; tell them to bug their PD about getting the track. Get your friends to request it. If you know people in other major cities, ask them to do the same. If you're not asking the impossible, they will listen and your favorite track will get played. As a bonus, if it gets into the system, anyone can request it in any city and they won't have as much hassle.
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There are some talk/news stations, and listener base is much lower during the overnight shift.
Even so, slashing the losses in half (way more than enough to account for the discrepancy) leaves an obligation of at least $50m yearly. That's assuming none of these stations get particularly popular.
--Zero
Re:surprised??? never... (Score:5, Interesting)
I am a shoutcast fiend. I scan the top stations every day or two. Hardly any of the stations (even the popular ones) play RIAA music.
Why would it make any difference what they charge if it doesn't get played? They should be paying people to get their shit out there to get it on the air. If they don't (and they won't) then something else will be.
I would say that I welcome the coming revolution, except that it's so far underway that I'd be missing the boat. Their content is shit, and everyone except the marketing guys recognize it...
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Does that make a difference? I'm an indie musician, and to my understanding any time a song gets played, a royalty should be paid to a collection agency like BMI or ASCAP. (Possibly based on a reasonable survey technique.) And that money comes back to the writer, publishing rights holder, etc., regardless of whether it's RIAA or not.
Can someone please correct this information if I'm wrong? (A small number of internet stations that have pla
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So unless you're talking about bands that are unsigned, or bands that own their own labels, the band/artist is not
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It's not RIAA music. It's any copyrighted music. (Score:3, Interesting)
In many cases, the artist doesn't own the copyrights, the record label (small, medium or large!) has been assigned the copyrights as part of the record deal made with the artist.
Internet station can survive if they go out and get permission from the copyright holders for every track they play. This is tedious and time consuming, but still economically better than paying
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It's not about what music is related to the RIAA, it's about who has to pay SoundExchange either way. Looking the top-20 station list on Shoutcast right now, these are the stations that either do or should be paying fees to broadcast in the United States:
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We little people are just consumers, 'go out and consume and pay us'.
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First, yep, the way the industry looks at it, you have to license against POTENTIAL audience. If you play copyrighted material in an auditorium that holds 1,000 people, you pay the same fixed rate, even if only 20-30 show up. Likewise in broadcasting: we pay the same price whether we're top rated or in the Arbitron basement. They go by market size, not by what you play or how many people might actually be listening. So,
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What they want and what will happen is not the same. What will change is the format of the stations. Many will go to talk radio. Many others will go to Creative Commons and other inde content and ban any music with high cost. Not all stations will go home when the owner of the base ball says I'm taking my ball and going home. The game just changes to football or basketball.
Fine by me (Score:3, Insightful)
Need? (Score:2)
But, that lack of 'need' didnt stop the *AA's from becoming some of the most powerful entities on the planet.
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The only way for the weak ("us") to beat the strong is to leverage their own responses against them. Their reflex reaction to distribution they do not like is more and more onerous restriction.
I welcome this. The few people who break their DRM will provoke even more obnoxious DRM. DRM does not generally restrict anything I care about, so making it less convenient to obtain things I wouldn't obtain in the first place bothers me not.
Another bene
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See the nice thing (for the RIAA cartel) is that, they dont care about *your* music taste because it is only a tiny statistical anomaly. The "famous" artists you see and hear about everywhere are the artist that the "average American" likes to play. Referring about the other poster who made the letter for the RIAA, he states that the only thing that plays on the radio are songs that he does not buy. But then again, that is because his listening tastes comprise a statistical anomaly in the eyes
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Shouldn't the title be.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually it should be: (Score:3, Insightful)
Video killed the radio star (Score:4, Funny)
Pandora's marketing data alone is worth millions (Score:4, Interesting)
If they cannot find a way to monitize the living daylights out of that, then they need to hire some better mathematicians...
Re:Pandora's marketing data alone is worth million (Score:2)
Broadening the spectrum of the music you listen to can definitely benefit your spirit. Pandora doesn't...
Opportunity (Score:5, Interesting)
When will they learn....? (Score:5, Insightful)
-Robert Heinlein "Lifeline"
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Only here to help the... artists (Score:2, Insightful)
"Hey Bob, you hear my youngest started playing the recorder in Kindergarten today? I filled out another WTF1337 form today and we should start seeing the revenues next month.
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OK...That's solved by not playing RIAA music. (Score:5, Insightful)
Streaming audio isn't a crime.
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But... but... that would be un-american! You're not one of them terrists are you?
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it will be if they have it mandated that it must be wrapped in DRM cruft with crap like broadcast flags set to prevent recording it and you can only receive it using player software that respects the broadcast flags running on tpm certified OS... Microsoft's wet dream, to get Linux made illegal
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http://ipaction.org/action/perform/ [ipaction.org]
OK, doesn't actually mandate TPM OS's, but it's a slippery slope from there...
Why can't I comment on what I just read (Score:2)
Divide it up any way you like there are only two or three outcomes.
What would this mean for places like... (Score:2)
What's really wrong with this (Score:5, Insightful)
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Chances are you'll love it!
Genuine solution is actually really easy (Score:5, Interesting)
What needs to happen is for Internet radio stations to turn to independent labels. Consumers will buy the music they hear. If Internet radio stations commit to changing the majority of their playlist to artists on non-RIAA labels then the majority of profits will be diverted from the RIAA - they don't get per play royalties and they don't get royalties on purchases. It's a double-whammy. If you look at something like eMusic today, which doesn't carry the RIAA labels, you will quickly find that a little digging turns up more great music than you might actually expect. And it's not just Internet stations that should make the change - everyone can benefit from getting out of this monopoly stranglehold. The RIAA might eventually have to propose competitive terms to survive, artists will be better compensated, and labels which are smaller today will be able to grow faster not only because they will see a greater percentage of royalties, but because the best artists will be less drawn to the RIAA labels in the first place.
Perhaps, though, the RIAA is already starting to feel some bite, and this is why their proposed fees are so high. If you're paying 100% of your revenues to the RIAA, you aren't paying anything to the indie's.
Re:Genuine solution is actually really easy (Score:5, Interesting)
One of the other arguments that is often offered in the case for independent labels is that the music is more authentic, creative, and less 'manufactured'. However, to truly displace the RIAA we should realize that it is necessary to cater to the mass markets that they currently serve. It is difficult to instantly change the listening habits and genre preference of millions of people, therefor an effective program would rely on enough mainstream pop, rap, hip-hop, etc. music to be produced by independents and marketed in a way which reaches younger generations and begins to draw their attention from traditional RIAA artists.
Never in our history have we been so prepared and capable to tackle this problem. Modern music technology and tools in combination with the Internet helps to level the playing field, at least somewhat, such that professional sound is in reach of the amateur through virtual instruments and production software that can be purchased for only hundreds of dollars, while co-ordinated marketing across popular sites contributing to the cause could compete with major budgeting spends by big labels.
If there were enough contributors to undertake such a concerted movement it might be interesting to set up something akin to sourceforge, e.g. a "musicforge", where independent artists collaborated to produce substitutes for mainstream media and served them to Internet radio stations, at least as a beginning, to help drive the change. If mainstream music is really as formulaic as we often claim it to be, in theory reproducing it to a reasonable standard should not be impossible or even very difficult.
Just some thoughts
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What is needed is a grassroot opposition that takes back power from corporations for the common good.
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Fine, but I will go you one further. They should only play Free music on which no royalties are due. Then they should turn around and pay out the same amount in royalties. Say half to the copyright holders of the music they played and half to fund the creation of new Free music.
If they just play traditional ARR music from "indies" the big boys will just buy out the rights and the stati
clueless (Score:3)
Dude, you're clueless. emusic is laden with RIAA labels. Being an "indie" does NOT mean "not RIAA affiliated." I even signed up for their "25 free" promo to check out just how many RIAA labels there are on emusic - there's thousands listed on emusic, and you can bet thousands of those are RIAA affiliates. They carry cocteau twins and breeders (for example) who are on 4ad. And who owns 4ad? Beggars Banquet - and BB is an RIAA a
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Boycott? (Score:2)
No, but you can pirate, instead
Payola? (Score:3, Interesting)
So, in some cases they'll pay a station to play their music, other times they want to be paid to for the priviledge/right(if given) of playing their music. If you go by the logic of payola : exposure=more popularity tranlates to more sales. However, in this case, they want their exposure diminished for what exactly?
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So, in some cases they'll pay a station to play their music, other times they want to be paid to for the priviledge/right(if given) of playing their music. If you go by the logic of payola : exposure=more popularity tranlates to more sales. However, in this case, they want their exposure diminished for what exactly?
On the contrary, the two fit together perfectly. With payola, they get control over the output of most/all of the big commercial radio stations (w
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So that they can arbitrarily enforce copyright violations when they feel like it. Sheesh don't you get this MAFIAA mentality yet?
"Tony, haven't I given you everything over the years? Haven't I been like a brother to you, and a Godfather to your children? All I expected was your loyalty to the family. I'm sorry Tony, but I have no choice now... (to the FBI) Take him away, boys..."
The simple solution (Score:2, Insightful)
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My email to the RIAA (Score:5, Insightful)
That's kinda the point (Score:2)
And is it better for them to have new types of music (rap or grunge, for instance) popping up, or to have music that all sounds the same? Considering that it's difficult to select the next hot-selling group or musician if i
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Let's be fair (Score:2, Insightful)
Question (Score:2)
Do Some Work (Score:2)
Lobby for laws to get "equal time" in the end (Score:2, Insightful)
that would otherwise get turned down by the dispensing recording industry,
never see the light of day - and be a great way for indies to get on the air
to a large audience without having to compete with the established artists for
time.
As soon as they see their "mind-share" eroded by people outside their
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payola [wikipedia.org] payola system the recoding industry will turn around
and offer payola or even demand to be put
Greed is going to kill the RIAA (Score:4, Interesting)
And the problem is...? (Score:2)
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This is just another notch in the ever-tightening belt that the RIAA has around the consumers neck.
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The US Internet broadcasters...
Here's an example where all the big players agree (Score:2)
The mafiaa for obvious reasons. The radio stations simply because this will pretty much kill the freelancing opposition. And the government 'cause it's easier to keep some business oriented and cash dependent radio networks "in line" than a couple thousand renegade stations that broadcast whatever they would like, not so much what is along some arbitrary "rules" or reg
Didn't they try this back in 2001 as well? (Score:2)
Local talk shows in Toronto, Canada (Score:3, Interesting)
(640toronto.com) are the two stations that carry really great talk show hosts. Anyone can call onto the stations and express their point of view about the subject at hand.
Most of the time the subjects are local to Toronto or Ontario or Canada, but sometimes we have world wide subjects as well and it is not all politics, it can be anything, from RIAA and DRM to health care to municipal/provincial/federal politicians to climate issues, class sizes, you name it, we have had it discussed on radio.
These are AM radio stations of-course (that's why I will never have an iPod or something like it, because it has no AM radio.)
So for me good radio is about discussions of local/global issues with ability to express a personal point of view. Oh, and we have about equal number of conservative/liberal talk show hosts and though I may not agree with all of their views, they are still interesting to listen to.
These stations provide their own internet streams and since their content is original (talk shows, weather, traffic, news, commercials) RIAA can't force any royalties. Of-course it's different for FM music channels, but I don't care, those are not essential. By the way in Canada AM radio is federally regulated. Is it very different in the US?
Good. (Score:2)
There are many incredible bands that produce excellent music but don't get offered contracts because some bureaucrat like Simon Cowell with no musical ability and a very one-dimensional taste decides their image isn't right or whatever. Hopefully this will mean that internet radio will now only play
Why is this a bad thing? (Score:4, Interesting)
I've been thinking about the impact a lot since reading it, and it seems to me that there are two groups of radio stations to consider:
1. Online pirate stations who are broadcasting the music illegally. While I don't think they should be pirating the music, the fact is that if they are pirating it now, making the royalty rates higher are not going to stop them from pirating the music and playing it. To misquote Terry Pratchett, "they're PIRATES - they don't care about the law." So, no real impact there.
2. Online stations that are playing the music legitimately. This will have quite an impact on them, and most likely a positive one all round. Well, I should say, for everybody except the labels represented by the RIAA, who just got themselves priced out of the market.
It seems to me that online radio isn't going to disappear, but will do something else - the broadcasters will vote with their feet. SoundExchange and the RIAA will have a very difficult time proving that retroactive royalties are due in any court of law, and the larger stations should be large enough to defend themselves, so I doubt that the RIAA will press too hard on that one (after all, if the RIAA tried to collect from AOL, you'd have a battle royale that would take years to sort out, and my money would be on AOL). But, with the royalty rates so high, no radio station will be able to play music from an RIAA label, and the broadcasters will be very hungry for new material.
So where do they find this new material? Independent artists. With the online broadcasters desperate for material, it will be a seller's market for independent recording artists, in the process giving that section of the market just the sort of boost it needs. This will raise the profile of the independent music scene, while at the same time allowing the independent artists to negotiate a reasonable royalty situation with the broadcasters. So, the listeners who get exposed to new (and less corporate) material win, the independent artists win, and the broadcasters get out from under the RIAA thumb, so they win.
Come to think of it, the only people who lose are the RIAA, who just got shot in the foot and lost a market...
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Because very few people actually donate money to open source projects?
Re:Why not donate instead? (Score:4, Insightful)
You get what you pay for.
By the way "Utopian Socialist", I have an outdoor structure I need built. Come on over and build it and I will give you some writing in exchange.
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I noticed you haven't subscribed to slashdot...
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Re:Well, (Score:4, Insightful)
With copyrights lasting 50 years after an author's death (in the US) it makes no difference to those who are in the grave. And for those who are still alive, they have no incentive to create new works, which was the original intent of copyright law.
Re:Well, (Score:5, Insightful)
And in any event, the purpose of copyright law is to serve the public interest, where the public interest is tripartite, and consists of 1) wanting more original works created and published; 2) wanting more derivative works created and published, and; 3) wanting no or minimal (in scope and length) copyright laws.
Which brings us to the life+70 term (which is what it actually is in the US, at least for some works). For the vast, vast majority of creative works, they'll never make money at all. For the tiny minority of works that will ever make money at all, the vast, vast majority of them will make virtually all of the money they'll ever make within a year or two of release in a given medium. For example, let's take movies: When a movie comes out the opening weekend is absolutely critical. It'll make a lot of money that weekend, less the following week, even less the week after that. After a few weeks, it'll be gone from first-run theaters. After a couple of months, it'll be gone from pretty much all theaters. Whatever money it made from the box office during that period is basically all it will ever get in the theatrical medium. Then it comes out on pay-per-view. I have no idea who actually uses ppv, but apparently someone does, and again, when it first comes out, that's when it makes most of the money it will make from ppv. As the weeks drag on, it pulls in less and less. Eventually it drops off of ppv. Then come the sales to movie rental shops and the public, in the form of DVDs. The first week that the DVD is out is when most of the people who have been wanting to buy a copy of the movie will get it; people who have wanted to rent it (rather than use ppv) will get it then too, resulting in most of the rental store orders to have been placed early. But again, as the weeks drag on, sales drop off. A little bit more money can be squeezed from licensing the movie to the cable movie channels, and after that, to regular tv channels. And you can go through the same cycle in the foreign markets. But then, that's basically it. You have gotten 99.44% of all the money you will ever make from this movie. Most of that (box office, ppv, dvd sales) took place in the first three months or so. (Newspapers and some tv shows have the shortest periods, while books probably have the longest, but even for books, it's a couple of years)
So the issue is, if all that the remaining years are worth is the paltry 0.56% remaining money to be wrung out of it, which is true for the vast, vast majority of movies that ever make any money at all, since so very few ever have the lasting popularity to keep making a significant amount of money over the long run, is it important that the copyright lasts so much longer?
If Alice will paint Bob's house when Bob offers to pay her a million dollars, then that certainly has an incentivizing effect, but it is rather costly. If Alice will paint Bob's house when Bob offers to pay a thousand dollars, then that has incentivized her just as much, but in a much more cost-effective manner!
Well, for creative works, we need to provide the least amount of incentive we can in order to get the most works we can -- basically we're looking for how to get the most bang for our buck. If a five year copyright would get nearly as many movies made as a 95 year copyright (the term length most commonly applicable in the US for movies), then surely the five year term is a better bargain. Adding more incentives -- by lengthening the term -- might get a handful of extra films made, but are they worth the cost to the public of having to endure such long copyrights? Probably not. So don't just look at the incentivizing effect, look also at whether or not it is worth it, and just how much of an effect there actually is.
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Whether or not the people who make it need to make money from it has nothing to do with its artistic value. A number of artists made money though other means (they had day jobs; they were supported by others; they were already rich; they had become rich enough from their previous
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Also, I think we should split the right to copy from the right to produce derivative works. Direct copies, with minimal changes to the content should be preserved for 20+ years. However, we could
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They're just following the example of their president. In Corporate America, everything is legal so long as it screws the little guy. Welcome to the New World Order.
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You claim that the broadcast radio business model is the same as internet radio. It's very easy to disprove that, but more importantly, if y
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A radio station playing music is advertising the product.
Are the stories published in a newspaper or magazine merely advertising for the writers? What about talk radio Is that content merely advertising for the commentators? What are they selling? Are journalists and writers getting rich by touring the world and performing at stadiums? Are sports broadcasts merely advertising for the sports teams?
Content draws listeners, and the station must pay for conten
It will only kill those who try to stay legal. (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course, you can just say, screw it, and not pay, and hope you're not noticed. It's actually worked very well for lots of stations out there.
Net radio didn't cry wolf, it sounded the alarm. And only through the listeners and supporters who wrote and called their congress people was the small webcasters act passed.
We are going to have to act again to preserve the state of internet radio as it is. Only this time we should get right to the cause, and act to get the provisions of the DRPA and DMCA that removed the fair use exemptions that over-the-air broadcast radio has from these royalty requirements.