Net Radio Wins Partial Reprieve 96
Joren writes "Just a few hours after our last discussion on this topic, Wired News is reporting that Internet radio broadcasters have won a temporary reprieve from the new rates. Apparently the details are still being worked out. 'A coalition of webcasters have worked out a deal with the recording industry that could temporarily stave off a portion of crippling net radio royalties set to take effect Sunday, according to people familiar with the negotiations ... For now, the parties involved in what's described as ongoing negotiations have agreed to waive at least temporarily the minimum charge of $6,000 per channel required under a scheme created by the Copyright Royalty Board, or CRB. The deal, brokered late Thursday, is not final and could change. One person involved in the talks described the situation as a reprieve, and said that internet radio won't be saved until a workable royalty rate is set.'"
Would you really trust the Recording Industry (Score:5, Insightful)
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This isn't a reprive-its a feint (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This isn't a reprive-its a feint (Score:4, Insightful)
No, it's subtrifuge. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a blatant attempt to quash the issue through confusion. Most people don't know about the Copyright Review Board or what a bad deal it's just created for everyone. What they are hearing is a mixed signal. What people need to hear is, "Streaming music from your computer is about to be expensive and/or illegal for the benefit of big publishers." Corporate media, even Slashdot, are blaring out "Internet Radio Royalty Hikes Delayed" as if the RIAA had force of law and this temporary reprieve had any meaning.
They might as well have that. The whole thing is so unAmerican, most have a hard time believing it when they do learn. That a group of unelected could make such a fundamental decision boggles the mind. How is it that legislation has to be passed to keep an arm of government from creating an all encompassing monster like SoundExchange?
The end game is the destruction of Internet Radio and the internet itself. They want to go back to 1911 where you and me were not part of popular culture.
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As I recall, the SoundExchange system means you have to only pay royalties to SoundExchange if you play any music that you don't have a separate license for. If the indie labels, en blo
Re: This isn't a reprieve-its a feint (Score:2)
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SoundExchange will be "collecting royalties" for all artists, even the indies and the unsigned who are not part of the music cartel
Not quite true. If you play any songs for which you don't have a specific contract, then SoundExchange will collect royalties for all songs you play. If, however, you only play songs that you have a specific license for, then you do not have to pay anything to SoundExchange. If you run an indie-only station, you don't have to interact with SoundExchange at all, but if you run a mixed station then they will take their cut for everything. No, I can't see how it's legal either.
Ars Technica has a nice write up. (Score:2)
Linked here [slashdot.org]. They called it a "stay of execution" but underestimated the $6000 per channel fee as $500. The deal stinks no matter how much it costs because it forces participation and creates a government privileged middleman.
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Can't they just all use servers in Belize or Tonga?
Why indeed? Justify the harm. (Score:2)
Can't they just all use servers in Belize or Tonga?
Why should I go to Belize just so I can broadcast legal and free music over the internet? Why should the RIAA be allowed to charge people for internet use that has nothing to do with them? I don't have to justify my freedom, you have to justify taking it away.
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Here's all the justification I need. BANG! BANG! Who wants it next? There, your freedom is gone. Waddya gonna do about "justification" that comes out the end of a gun while the rest of the animals in the slaughterhouse stand by and watch you bleed to death?
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SoundExchange changed its mind? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:SoundExchange changed its mind? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:SoundExchange changed its mind? (Score:4, Insightful)
Instead, they are using what I have heard called the "Soviet negotiation model," in which you make an unreasonable first demand; Then it seems a lot more reasonable when you lower it a little. It works quite well, especially when you have the upperhand to begin with.
When soundexchange halves their demands, they'll look like heroes to congress and the public, and still be making a lot more money. Genius...
Net radio will just offshore. (Score:2)
Granted some businesses will fail but in the end the record companies will learn yet again that they are SOL.
The record companies only think they have an upper hand. They'll be broke soon enough.
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No, that is the basis of their existence. (Score:2)
They are poor businessmen if they think the way to get the most profits is to scare everyone out of the business with ridiculous fees.
The industry is based on the once high costs of recording, broadcast and physical distribution. Now that all of those things are cheap, they have to create expenses to maintain their position. In a free market, the value of recorded music will fall below that of a performance - in other words, you will be able to get it for a song. Perpetual copyright laws to control t
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Let's see, they are making money hand over fist providing a service that is no longer needed, and at the same time have managed to cultivate an image of tragic victims of scary Internet Piracy while their profits are rising.
I'd say they know what they are doing.
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Really? heard a saying a numbetr of years ago, which I shall paraphrase: "Never underestimate the power of a human being to stare at reality full on and yet still ignore it". I dont' believe for one minute that the people who pull the strings for SoundExchange see the internet as anything but a threat, which they either need to eliminate or control. The reality of internet music distribution may have been explained to them ad nau
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I have to sort of agree here. If it is not this than it is a publicity stunt to not seem as harsh or to force some other compromise that favors Sound Exchange.
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First, consider SoundExchange's (SE) position. They represent the mainstream creators (MSC). Now while there are many layers between SE and the MSC, ultimately SE does represent the MSC. Their concern with the streaming is that they consider it an easy way for listeners to capture, digitally, the audio that is being streamed. It can then easily be moved onto a dig
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I'm very curious as to why you see terrestrial and satellite radio as different? Particularly satellite. Both provide service worldwide. Both provide "digital broadcast" - the justification originally given for charging performance royalties for internet radio whe
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The webcasters reached a deal with the recording industry to get some temporary relief.
What?
If the Copyright Royalty Board set a new rate, how in t
Saved? (Score:1)
no surprise there (Score:2, Interesting)
I can actually see this dragging out longer. Can you imagine the amount of paperwork they're burried in?
Re:Respones: (Score:5, Informative)
Free to you maybe, but the internet radio stations have always payed a licensing fee. The big change here is that in the past internet radio had the same basic fee structure as a traditional broadcast radio station, in which the station paid a flat rate for a blanket license to play music from the RIAA's catalog (don't remember, but I think it may have been a small per song charge). The change is that they want to go to a payment system that charges not only per song, but per listener, which will grossly inflate the fees these stations will need to pay. Never mind the technical feasibility of tracking the number of unique listeners to any given station, but simply multiplying the .8 cent fee per song by even a thousand listeners brings the cost per song to 8 dollars, and there's no way these small broadcasters can recoup that cost in advertising fees. The RIAA actually knows this, but they don't care, they want control of the whole thing, so they've set it up where only a few companies can actually afford to provide internet radio, and they're just fine with that, less chance for anyone not already under the RIAA's thumb to get any sort of air time.
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You already have them [wikipedia.org]... In spades.
The goal IS to eliminate internet radio (Score:4, Insightful)
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or revolt and open warfare on the encrypted and onion routed P2P networks...they cannot track down and bust every last one of us after all.
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Music is a lot older than technology or corporations. I somehow doubt that the choice would EVER be reduced to RIAA crap or silence, but more RIAA crap or that local dude who is really into his work.
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Adversity Leads to Innovation (Score:2, Insightful)
Consumers want to hear streaming music on the internet without annoying commercials. If there exists no legal, cost-effective way to do it, then the black market will find a way. It's time for the industry to wake up and realize that alienating the consumer base does not equal more profits.
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Consumers want stuff for free. That does not justify any means of getting it.
If you want to try to stop the RIAA from silencing non-RIAA music, that is great. But once you tie it to rationalizing copyright violation, nobody will take you seriously.
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Raising the rates of internet streams above that of traditional radio in order to change consumer habits will not work. My point is that by ignoring what the customers want, the RIAA is in effect creating another Napster. This is almost just like the way the music i
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I don't blame the RIAA for fighting illegal behavior that hurts their business. I blame people for their illegal behavior. If everybody refused to buy their music for even 2 years, that would be the end of the RIAA. But you'd rather continue
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Because there is no other option, the RIAA can force the standard for what types of music are popular, and on what formats it is available. In the case of Napster the consumer wanted an easy way to download individual songs they liked from CDs, without having to go to
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People want something (free access to RIAA controlled music) that they have no inherent right to. That doesn't mean it is okay for you to (illegally) give it to them. Nor does it mean that it isn't okay for the RIAA to go after people who are illegally violating their copyrights (so long as they do it legally, which is a completely separate issue).
The RIAA has chosen their business model. If you don't like it, don't buy from them. But you don'
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Of course not, but morality sometimes has nothing to do with the free market.
A realist will look at things like prohibition, piracy, and the war on drugs and go "Hey, the reason why there is so much crime and a hideous black market was because the market wants those things regardless of morality!"
People want music and they want it as cheap and convenient as possible. Sometimes this means free, but often more than not it just means
the EFF or such... (Score:3, Interesting)
hell, I'd almost like to start some such thing myself. Might be more effective if I just give someone else money to do it though. There's certainly enough people who want such a thing...there's a market for it (if even just 1% of the anti-RIAA chickenhawks on
And as someone who has played in clubs for years because I love playing, and has turned down a couple contracts because I didn't want that sort of life - yes, damnit, there are musicians that would give their songs away for free, or close to free. That's precisely what happened to almost all music for the history of mankind until just a few decades ago.
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Have you never participated in an OSS project? Set it up the same way. If Xfree goes nuts, we could replace it too, right? Oh yeah, we already did that, ala X.org.
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They're just wearing us down (Score:2)
This is just a stall tactic. There will be several more edge-of-the-brink reprieves until the congress/general public are totally confused and the regular new outlets stop reporting. Then it will be as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced, but only one person will have heard it.
Blood from a stone? (Score:2, Informative)
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It is a net loss for ALMOST everyone, but not quite everyone. The RIAA is losing out to more and more people going to independent labels and independent distribution. This is part of a larger concerted effort to gain legal "control" over, than shut down, any distribution of music that isn't theirs. It's not about money, its about information and access.
Internet radio in particular espouses a lot of anti-RIAA sentiment and supports a lot of "indy" music forms not otherwise supported in
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It's funny that you say that because the first thing that came to mind after seeing this article was the line from The Empire Strikes Back:
"I've just made a deal that will keep the Empire out of here forever." - Lando Calrissian
The mafiaa is about as trustworthy as the Empire...
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Not much chance of that happening. Webcasters would be thrilled if they were subject to the same fee structure as FM. That's the major problem - webcasters are being subjected to a fee structure that would bankrupt any broadcaster. I've been googling for the source and can't find it, but I remember seeing an article saying that if the new royalty structure was applied to ter
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http://www.idobi.com/news/?p=25408 [idobi.com]
A stupid law is a stupid law (Score:2)
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Why not just.. (Score:2)
Let them know their artists aren't so special and that even without them we'll get along with our music needs just fine.
Sure probably every one likes at least one artist they've got their stupid hands on, but there's tons of other people who have nothing to do with the RIAA waiting to take their place.
Acting like we need them is what gives them any power at all. If I make a radio station of a bunch of local bands, surel
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You have to pay SoundExchange a yearly membership as an artist/label to receive money they do collect and they don't say what they do with the money they collect for artists that have no label and dont sign up for membership, apparently this is free money for their coffers.
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That doesn't mean SoundExchange won't necessarily harass you if you (as an internet radio station) play such music though, just that theoretically you don't legally owe them anything.
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Remembering from previous reading on this, the licensing agency has wording that all music has to pay. Independents who want their cut of the fees have to join the licensing org. and pay the full membership fee.
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This is a really good point, but let's not forget that royalties still need to be fairly paid to other (non-RIAA) artists. All of the artists working hard and putting out music on indie labels do still deserve their royalties. So if your idea were to work then internet radio stations would need to work out deals with those independents, or with an organization like the a2im ( http://a2im.org/ [a2im.org]), which is similar in function to the RIAA but working for smaller labels and without the thin coating of slime.
W
Why a rate at all? (Score:2)
After all it's just free advertising for them.
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They can't control the consumer (and there's a BIG distinction there- they view us all that way, much like a Vampire views the living as cattle, to be fed off of...) and his access to the performers. They make their money via making an artificial, but extreme, scarcity of available content for us to listen to and watch for entertainment purposes. With Internet Radio, they DO NOT have a good way to control it like they do current Radio,
US only (Score:5, Insightful)
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I pray for the end of the RIAA and it's affiliates.
What is the big deal? (Score:2)
This whole thing boils down to two interacting business groups, each of whom wants to maximize their profits. The music industry would like to be paid a massive amount of money in royalties. Clearly that isn't going to happen. The broadcasters would like to have zero royalties, or better yet be paid by the RIAA for playing the music. That's not going to happen either.
While the RIAA has temporary gotten a high royalty rate, the broa
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The RIAA is not about profiting from internet radio. The RIAA is about pr
Like I said yesterday (Score:2)
DON'T FEED THE MACHINE IN ANY WAY!
Tell your friends.
Support independent artists.
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yet another attempt (Score:1)
Correction on the per channel minimum (Score:1)
For now, the parties involved in what's described as ongoing negotiations have agreed to waive at least temporarily the minimum charge of $6,000 per channel required under a scheme created by the Copyright Royalty Board, or CRB.
Ahm, thats $500/per channel. Now with the lack of definition of "what is a channel" from the CRB, an individual station / site could end up paying $6000 or MORE (ie: Pandora with it's 7 channels per user could end up paying BILLIONS).
Shane (General Manager, of the internet radio station Big Blue Swing.com)
Don't Jump the Gun Quite Yet (Score:2)
By Anne Broache
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: July 13, 2007, 2:32 PDT
http://news.com.com/FAQ+Net+radios+mixed+signals/
SoundExchange Fueled By Coke, How Else To Explain? (Score:2)
If I'm not mistaken, the only income that internet radio is generating - if any - is via click-through ads. The revenue per click has been dropping for years, and unlike OTA radio, an i-station should be able to readily document just what the total listenership is. I think it's pretty clear that it ain't much on eith