Pandora Wants Radio Stations To Pay For Music, Too 253
suraj.sun sends along an Ars writeup of the lobbying Pandora is doing now that it has secured its future, royalties-wise. Some might think it odd that Pandora is weighing in on the side of the record labels in their fight to get radio stations to pay more for the music they broadcast. "US radio stations don't pay performers and producers for the music they play, but the recording industry hopes to change that with a new performance rights bill in Congress. Webcaster Pandora has jumped into the fray on the side of the artists and labels, asking why radio gets a free ride when Pandora does not. ... With revenues from recorded music sales declining, rights-holders have turned their eyes in recent years to commercial US radio, which currently pays songwriters (but not performers or record labels)... With its own future secure for the next few years, Pandora is now turning its attention to the public performance debate here in the US, saying that the issue is a simple matter of fairness: why should webcasters have to pay more for music than traditional radio does? ... [But] the 'fairness' argument could clearly go either way. Radio might start paying a performance right; on the other hand, perhaps webcasters and satellite radio companies should simply stop paying one, relying on the old argument about promotion."
Greed (Score:2)
Pure greed when the industry turns in on itself to make a buck.
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Subterfuge (Score:5, Insightful)
Im surprised by how many are upset over this. Think about it for a minute, the vast majority are still clueless when it comes to the actions of the Music Industry, Pandora no doubt sees this as an opportunity to bring awareness to the masses of an archaic system thats time has passed.
Re:Subterfuge (Score:5, Insightful)
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Pandora is looking after Pandora's interests. I'd barely heard of this pithy organisation before last week and now they're all over the news. Just get back in your box. We don't want or need you.
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...I see that you have never actually *used* their service in the past? It's truly a pity, they had a really nice library of tunes and a decent interface.
When i was younger (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:When i was younger (Score:5, Insightful)
There are different people in charge now.
People that would rather make a buck today than ten bucks next week.
People that would collapse an entire industry so they could retire nicely, despite the fact that they were all but guaranteed a nice retirement anyway.
There are artists that don't believe in art, musicians who don't believe in music, and there are for-profit corporations that don't believe in sustainable profit. It's a sad, sad world.
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Hmm... depends on how you see it. I say, let's use this exact situation, and make the most of it. Profit from it *because* it is that way. ^^
They can't do sustainable profit? Well, be the only one that is. And soon you will rule them all.
Believe in your art, and people will believe in it to (that is in fact, how fashion, fads, trends, and all that works).
Lure them with the dream of the quick buck, bleed them dry, and then let them go down fast and hard.
I call it natural selection at work. If you are wiser,
They also made payola illegal. (Score:2)
People that would rather make a buck today than ten bucks next week.
Well, to be fair, the record company execs that bought airtime were arguably more greedy and more manipulative than the ones are today, and it was also easier with local radio. Back in the day, if you had a local radio station, to get airplay, an exec might go and just bribe the DJ at the station to put something on. In those days DJs had more creative control but that also made it easier for them to take bribes. As a result, the studio
Pandora trying to move radio to their side? (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps Pandora hopes to have radio come to the aid of internet radio - "We'll drag you down with us if you don't step up!".
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I'm all for it (Score:2, Funny)
And if you hear someone humming a song, turn them in to the ASPCA ASAP
ASPCA or ASCAP? (Score:5, Funny)
ASPCA
Did you mean ASCAP, or did a subtle joke about animal cruelty just fly over my head?
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I suppose that would depend on the song.
People still listen to music radio? (Score:2)
I thought that went the way of the dodo. You can't get FM on the iPod, and who doesn't have a CD player or mp3 jack in their car? Who gives a crap about shitty-sounding distorted 'loud' FM pop music?
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You can't get FM on the iPod, and who doesn't have a CD player or mp3 jack in their car?
Not one of the cars that I regularly ride in has a 3.5mm stereo audio input; they're all either older or low-end. They might have tape or CD, but for a playlist longer than 80 minutes or so, the only sort of "mp3 jack" that works in every car is an FM transmitter on an unused frequency.
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Not one of the cars that I regularly ride in has a 3.5mm stereo audio input; they're all either older or low-end.
I had the same problem on a 2003 Mazda 6 and yeah, the FM transmitters are a pain in the butt. Not to mention you can't simply plug in a different stereo without buying a new dash panel!
After far too much searching I found this [car-cd-changer.net] for about a hundred bucks on ebay. Sorry to sound like an ad but I'm pretty happy with it for the price. It mimics the CD player so it uses the existing CD changer controls while playing back off a USB stick or an SD card. It also has an auxiliary input 3.5mm jack. It's far f
New Model - Bill everyone (Score:5, Insightful)
Bill the artists for making it and everytime it's played.
Bill the distributor and packaging plant.
Bill the radio stations for playing it.
Bill the store for selling it.
Bill the Moving Picture Experts Group when it's moved digitally.
Bill your mom.
Bill the listener for liking it.
Bill them if they don't like it.
Bill Microsoft and Al Gore for bringing the internet.
Bill Apple and the beatles.
Bill Linux just cause.
This Greed - It's becoming bloody disgusting.
---
"Don't be too troubled. He'll be all right now. He left a packet for you.
There it is!"
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Why only once?
Bill them on the media.
Bill them on the Internet connection.
Bill them on the computer.
Bill them on the downloads.
Bill the uploaders.
Bill the downloaders.
Bill the network providers.
Bill the sites hosting directories.
Bill them on the concerts.
Bill them on the tickets.
Bill the artists.
Bill the organizer.
Bill them all trough a special tax.
And sue them anyway!
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It's just as bad in the States with ASCAP and BMI, both of whom wish to extort money from any public establishment with any music whatsoever, whether performed live or from a legitimately-purchased recording.
This was done in Australia (Score:5, Informative)
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From a news segment I saw here recently in Canada virtually the entire world with the exception of the USA requires radio stations to pay artists.
To me I don't see why you would pay songwriters but not the musicians.
Radio Stations are already fighting this. (Score:5, Informative)
One of the radio stations I depend on for traffic reports is already fighting this. They run several advertisements predicting the free music you listen to is at risk of being eliminated by congress with new fees on the music they play. Call your congressman right away to stop this legislation that will end free music on radio.
The NAB, National Association of Broadcasters is leading the charge to oppose the bill.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ct-radio3-2009jul03,0,6937549.story/ [latimes.com]
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Somehow, the old radio laws have been thrown out, and Clear Channel has been allowed to gain a near monopoly on the radio market in America. Now regular radio is worse than ever.
However, the most innovative radio companies must pay royalties. Sirius/XM must pay royalties, Web Radio must pay royalties, therefore regular radio must pay royalties too. When regular radio implodes, it will be clear to everyone that the whole system needs to change. And another good side effect is getting rid of another near mono
NAB deserves to lose this round (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the first victims of their stupidity were the NAB member stations that were streaming on the Internet. Previously, they hadn't had to pay, either - which was a good thing for them, considering that most streams had their advertising removed from the stream, and weren't generally profitable on their own.
Their arguments as to why they shouldn't have to pay are outdated. They claim that they're giving free promotion to music, but how many terrestrial stations are actually giving exposure to new music? Seriously - how many stations in your town are currently recycling everyone's favorite hits from the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s? Radio knows that new music doesn't draw listeners - it's easier to take the free ride and give audiences the music they already know and love.
Radio should have to pay. Given NAB's size, it shouldn't be difficult to negotiate with SoundExchange for a lower rate.
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NAB should have stood up for Pandora which is really just another form of broadcasting, but they didn't. They made their bed, time to sleep in it.
Declining? (Score:5, Interesting)
The free dutch newspaper "De pers" had an intresting article about music sales yesterday. Or rather not about music sales at all which is probably why the copier (oops sorry journalist) failed to make the connection.
The story? A pension fund was reporting they made 8% profit last year, when the entire economy had collapsed, on their music portfolio. The article told that music rights are big business with a steady reliable revenue stream and that after 10 years you have made enough profit to have paid for the purchase of the rights and from then on its pure profits.
But yeah, music sales are declining.
How can music be an extremely reliable investment for pension funds when the sales are going down? The only similar reliable investment is in things like supermarkets because people always got to eat.
How can you tell someone from the content industry is lying? They got their mouth open.
All For It (Score:5, Interesting)
I find it ironic that not too long ago payola was a serious problem, and now we have this. These are the death throws of the recording industry, and I think that is a great thing.
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Reverse Payola? (Score:2)
Only a few months ago, it was charged in the US Congress that record companies have been paying radio stations (again, like in the fifties) to play their records.
Now they want the stations to pay them?
Playing a recording on the air is better than advertising it, and the record companies know it.
This effort is bound to fail, if not ignite laughter.
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Gotta agree here (Score:5, Insightful)
If online radio has to pay, and satellite has to pay (for those of you who didn't know that, they do), then broadcast radio should also have to pay.
Broadcast radio keeps insisting what they want is a level playing field. Well, it ain't level if they don't have to pay.
No in between bullshit, all commercial broadcasters should be treated the same, regardless of the actual method of broadcast...either charge no one, or charge everyone.
A little joy for the dance music community. (Score:4, Informative)
Warning: I work with EDM-variety music producers.
This is actually fantastic news. When we provide ala carte downloads for our tracks, they usually get shunned and our systems spend hours each month uploading to Rhapsody and the like... for $6 royalty statements.
The net result?
An hour block of unadvertised, "live mix" content wherein the latest music gets performed and no one pays a red cent to Harry Fox. It works thusly:
1. DJ in our roster wishes to promote.
2. Under US tax code, any music said DJ has paid for is a business expense as an appropriation of requisite tools to perform said job.
3. DJ plays promotional mix set, commercial free, and it's released to the blogs under fair use.
5. Profit. DJ sees more bookings as a result for live-performance gigs. The hottest tracks have already been promoted to BBC Radio One and artists see more BDS numbers as a result. People buy more hardcopies as a result of extended exposure.
6. You missed there wasn't a step 4, and there is no "... Profit?" meme.
It would take a bit of renegade work, but there isn't any reason why bands can't be promoted in the same way. It's more on the radio DJ's taking the responsibility for ownership instead of the studio for the tracks performed, but that would effectively shut down payola in most cases. With the advent of the Internet, it means these streams can be put out royalty-free and can survive for public enjoyment, while increasing artist exposure and cutting the middleman out. How would the site maintain itself? Through rabid fans. Just look at DogsOnAcid for an example.
An anti-RIAA-SoundExchange copyright licence (Score:5, Interesting)
The imminent death of Internet radio has led me to think of ways of modifying the Creative Commons share and share-alike non-commercial license. I wish to release some music I have composed, but before I do this, I would like to craft a variant of the creative commons licence under which SoundExchange, the RIAA and their legal representatives would be subject to a $10,000,000 fine if they listen to my music, create derivative works based on it, or if they attempt enforce my rights under the copyright act.
Specifically, the license I would like should impose a crippling fine on SoundExchange in case it attempts to collect royalties on my behalf paid by services making ephemeral phonorecords or digital audio transmissions of sound recordings, or both, under the statutory licenses set forth in 17 U.S.C. 112 and 17 U.S.C. 114 or if it attempts to distribute the collected royalties to me pursuant to 17 U.S.C. 114(g)(2). The license should go beyond merely threatening the possibilityof a lawsuit--it should stipulate an RIAA-level fine against SoundExchange and its legal representatives.
If such a license could be crafted with sufficient care, and if sufficiently many musicians were to release music under this license, in time it could effectively criminalize SoundExchange, the RIAA and its lawyers.
Re:An anti-RIAA-SoundExchange copyright licence (Score:4, Insightful)
A license like that is only as strong as the amount of money you have in the bank to fund the lawyers needed to enforce it.
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Thank you for your contribution to the cause.
We'll get Stallman on it right away.
Obvious to anyone other than me? (Score:3, Interesting)
so let's get this straight (Score:2)
MTV doesn't play music. Radio stations will stop playing music now too. Services like last.fm and Pandora only suggest music you already know about anyway. Live music sounds like crap (hey mr. indy band ever heard of an eq?). And I don't even care, because the industry quit making music long ago, it's just taken awhile for everyone to catch up.
Death to the Sound Thieves! (Score:5, Funny)
I think what they've found here is right. The Radio Format has been getting a free ride and so have all those brigands listening to it in their cars. All the people in the world are a bunch of no-good sound thieves, Hell, they even have large fleshy scoops on the side of their heads just sucking up and stealing all the free sounds they can get close to. If only we could have those things permanently blocked so the only sounds that come through them are properly paid and licensed by the source.
I should start going to sleep at night with earmuffs on so some ghetto-blasting kid in a donk doesn't come cruising down the street blasting hip-hop and turning me into a music pirate. Then I'd have no choice but to turn myself in for participating in an illegal public listening of a song I didn't pay for.
Pandora's Box (Score:2)
you're brilliant music industry (Score:2, Insightful)
now that everyone has abandoned traditional radio for iPods, Pandora, and last.fm for 10 years now, its perfect timing to swoop in and milk radio dry
they've waited 90 years for the perfect time to do this
and you're next satellite radio... as soon as you declare bankruptcy!
how fucking pathetic. what, ran out of grandmothers and college kids to sue?
Please. (Score:2)
I have an answer for you. Because you decided that you wanted to give in to the record labels and screw the small broadcasters in the process and now you you want other radio stations to feel your pain? Its not about fair, its about your inabil
no need for central collection agency any more... (Score:2)
Anyone who wanted to claim copyright on their music could register with the collection agency.
What's more - they could specify the price they wanted to charge for broadcast (within tiers for simplification).
That way radio station X could simply say, 'we won't play any track that costs more than X'. The rights holder would get to decide whether they want to charge more than X.
No more monopoly negotiations - the agency simply manages a market.
My guess is that most companies would pretty quickly list their tra
This is a very timely issue... (Score:5, Insightful)
These payments to both sound recording owners as well as publishers are the norm for stations everywhere else in the world.
A measure of how wildly successful the radio stations are in the US today should be the amount of money they appear to have available to spend on lobbyists hired to ensure that this one-time exemption never ends.
One could fail to see what is so bad for owners of sound recordings to finally get paid for the use of their work, broadcasters have had a free ride for 80 years or so, it's fairly clear that they do not need that exemption for its original purpose anymore, and they should build their business model around the same one every other radio station on earth has been using successfully all of this time.
Yes, it obviously fantastic to have your songs promoted on radio, and labels have always seen this as a great way to help sell many more copies of whatever physical product, downloads or ringtones even. But when comparing the amount the broadcasters would have to pay for each song played to what most of them are already racking up from pro-rated advertising income for the time slot that song was in, one cannot help but wonder what this fuss is all about.... a mere few drops in the bucket.
Z.
Let the death of radio come (Score:2)
Gordon Gecko was wrong, dead wrong:
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Living up to your name again I see. It's not a question of the amount that should be paid. It's a question of who should get paid.
It's more like not paying the pilots on a Seattle to Portland flight.
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It's more like not paying the pilots on a Seattle to Portland flight.
Yeah? Well screw them guys, it's the cabin stewards who bring me the peanuts, not the pilots. What's the pilot going to do about it, crash the damn plane? Not when he's sitting in it too.
Re:Why Internet radio should pay more (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah! He was probably going that way anyway.
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Internet radio has a potential audience that spans the globe. Radio stations are typically limited by geography and signal power.
Why should passengers flying from New York to Tokyo pay more than flying from Seattle to Portland? Because the distance is longer.
Your logic would make sense, except that Pandora pays for every single song played for every single listener. So they access a larger audience and they pay disproportionally more per listener than regular radio stations.
In your airplane example, this would be like passengers flying from NY to Tokyo on a 777 paying more than if they flew on a 737. Same distance, same cramped seat, but you pay more because of the larger audience.
Re:Why Internet radio should pay more (Score:5, Insightful)
But Pandora is paying more per person. They pay a fee each time a song is played to a single user account. Regular radio stations do not pay a fee per person, they pay per song.
The 777 takes advantage of the economy of scale. With a larger plane, the airline can carry more people, but they use more fuel. But it works out that as the planes get bigger, the passenger profit increases faster than the fuel cost because a slightly bigger and efficient engine can carry a lot more people.
They record labels have managed to argue that since Pandora could reach more people, they should pay more per user. It's really quite ridiculous, but I guess the labels need to make up for lost profits somewhere.
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"but don't let them take away our free music."
Well, you paid for the radio and whatnot, how about you buy a guitar and have all the free music you could want?
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how about you buy a guitar and have all the free music you could want?
Popular music, the music that the majority of people actually choose to listen to, is non-free even if you're performing it yourself.
Re:Contact your state senator!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Hell no, I'm going to tell my elected officials to vote for it.
Sure we might lose mainstream music radio, but most of them are Clearchannel anyway. I can simulate a week of a Clearchannel station with a mini-CDR in a player set to deterministic shuffle.
On the upside, we gain a shot at lots of mobile bandwidth if the radio industry crumbles, plus we set the music & radio industries at each others throats, and any outcome besides the status quo also is likely to result in a weakened music industry(now or later) or more small artists getting radioplay cause they're cheaper.
Re:Contact your state senator!!! (Score:5, Funny)
I can simulate a week of a Clearchannel station with a mini-CDR in a player set to deterministic shuffle.
Alternatively, one could save the cost of the CDR and still generate a passable simulation of a Clearchannel station, by beating oneself over the head with a stick for a few hours.
Re:Contact your state senator!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
That might be one outcome. Alternately, we might just lose the independent stations and be stuck with all Clear Channel. This sort of regulation always hurts the little guys more than the big conglomerates.
Re:Contact your state senator!!! (Score:4, Interesting)
Perhaps we don't care anymore either way? With car stereos able to hook up to iPods and the mash of annoying commercials/on-air "personalities" one has to listen too are people even using their radios anymore? I have a broken antennae on my car. I can get pretty much two radio stations reliably: NPR, and the local college's radio station. Considering the college station is a non-commercial low-power transmitter and the public radio station is, well, a public radio station I imagine they'll be immune to these changes, and I don't listen to those two stations anyway. All i listen to is my own CDs, some of which are actual CDs and some of which are burned with digital music files I bought at online stores or acquired through other means.
I learn about new music either through word of mouth from people I know online, other works the music gets used in like commercials or movie soundtracks, or listening to samples at online music stores and bands' own websites.
Radio? Who needs it!
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I take it public radio is not very high quality in your part of the world.
Here in Sweden we pay the equivalent of about $250 US for the (obligatory, if you have a tv receiver) tv-licence, which also pays for public radio. Public radio and tv is (supposedly) free from commercial and political influence and the quality is highly superior to anything else. I love it. (Some don't like the whole socialism thing, though.)
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about $250, yearly, that is.
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Actually I meant that the public radio station, being supported by public donations, grants, etc is not a profit-seeking venture, it would not be required to pay extra dues, if it does to begin with. Since quite a bit of it's programming is classical music a lot of it is also public domain in some ways. The people writing the bill would give a pass to public radio so the public wouldn't think they were trying to put public radio down by stifling their limited operating budgets with new fees.
And I misspoke o
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I meant that the public radio station, being supported by public donations, grants, etc is not a profit-seeking venture, it would not be required to pay extra dues
Why would you think that? Why would a public radio station be exempt from copyright-related royalties? I don't see the connection.
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To quote myself from the post you're replying to...
It's just an act of good faith on the part of the bill's sponsors (read as: PR move). Public radio stations generally are classical/world/independent programming, so they really aren't competing with the the media interests who push the royalty bills through.
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Radio is quite popular (Score:4, Informative)
Radio? Who needs it!
Back here on earth, more people are listening to radio [telegraph.co.uk] than ever before. At least in the UK if not on earth, but that article is consistent with others I've seen looking at the US as well.
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With car stereos able to hook up to iPods and the mash of annoying commercials/on-air "personalities"
That's one thing that annoys the hell out of me about commercial radio - you can't hear music in the morning. Gabbing DJs who play two or three songs in a half hour's time. If I wanted to hear some dufud blabber I'd listen to talk radio.
I'm glad we have a very good non-commercial, low wattage station here (WQNA). It's the only station I've ever heard the Dead Kennedies sandwiched in between Tennessee Ernie
If it's not pirate.. (Score:2)
Perhaps their hope is that by playing this game they either A) effect an industry they might see as a competitor or B) they gain an ally in short term with their own fight who can help with legislation and/or rate negotiation. Kind of a reversal of what they might have seen as a divide and conquer scheme that landed them the different rates in the first place.
Of course the real fight is still coming as we begin the tr
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I happen to have a great public radio station in my area (KCSM) - the best I've ever heard. No news, sports, weather, NPR, or any of that crap, just jazz 24/7. They're almost entirely donation funded now, which makes it hard to deal with higher expenses, as they're already stretching to cope with other soruces of funding being mostly eliminated. I don't know how I'd cope without them, they're the only good radio in town.
Re:Contact your state senator!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure we might lose mainstream music radio, but most of them are Clearchannel anyway.
Except that this will actually help the largest stations by killing off their smaller competitors who can't afford the new fees. If you think things are bad now, just wait until this bill gets passed.
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Not listening now, not listening then.
Seriously, this is about playing fair. Broadcasting radio stations don't have to pay the same fees that internet radio stations do. The playing field should be level.
Re:Contact your state senator!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
No, you won't. These frequencies are also shared with all sorts of navigation equipment, that luckly enough radio stations contribute to. Pilots regularly use standard radio stations in place of VOR transmitters for navigation. This is one of the primary reasons that radio stations have to say their callsigns at required intervals, so pilots can identify the station should they have some sort of insturment failure which allows them to tune in, but not know what they are tuning into. Once you figure out what you're listening to, and which direction it is, you can use just a few more landmarks or another station to figure out where the hell you are.
Very useful if you're in a small craft at night with partial equipment failures, and doing so is a requirement for getting an instrument rating for private pilots.
Re:Contact your state senator!!! (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't think so.
FM stations won't substitute for a VOR, the implementation is totally different.
AM stations can be used as an NDB for ADF, but my understanding is that this isn't used very much anymore. From what I've seen and read, most ADF equipment won't detect VHF frequencies.
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severely diminish the quality of all radios out there.
Have you actually listened to the radio? How can it get any worse? Oh no, I won't be able to hear the same eleven songs played over and over and over again with random call-ins by idiots asking for the same crappy song that got played 30 minutes ago. I don't know if this legislation will help make radio better, but I can't imagine it getting much worse than it already is.
Re:Worse (Score:3, Interesting)
It already has.
There was a vague musical trend of each half-decade up until about 2005. You could decided something felt "dated" but at least it felt like it belonged to some era.
Now they're running out of fresh genres, and desperately working the 2nd level blended stuff.
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Now they're running out of fresh genres, and desperately working the 2nd level blended stuff.
Creativity has been blooming now that most people can afford instruments and put their music and videos on the internet. Fresh genres are appearing all the time, except my guess is that you are too old to actually be interested enough to put in the time finding new stuff.
I'm 32 and I find that my friends listen to the same old stuff that they listened in their teenager years while I spend hours every week trying to find new stuff.
No need! (Score:2)
Seriously. Email/write/call your state representative about this bill and tell them how this bill is severely diminish the quality of all radios out there. Urge them to vote against it!!
I'd say that the quality of radio already was severely diminished when a few corporations started buying up every channel in the country so that they could ram their selected artists down the public's throat by playing their hit songs over and over every hour.
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Just for grins, maybe the stations will raise fees to promote bands and labels to offset the new cost of doing business. This may be a good thing to raise costs to promote the bland bands. If you think payola to promote bands was bad before, wait until this bill passes an only payola of the highest budget plays on the radio.
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It seems to me that the voter matters less
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Seriously, has anyone here ever written to their representatives and had it work properly?
Yes and no. And when it doesn't work, it frustrates THE HELL out of me. I once called my Federal House of Representative's office and expressed my opinion on a political matter (not in an abrasive way, but in a 'hey, here's my opinion, please mark this down, and by the way what does the congressman think?'). By this woman's confused and slightly annoyed sound, you would've thought I'd have asked her to build a compiler from scratch. She had no idea what to do with my call.
On a separate occasion, I'v
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On the other hand, that also makes it harder for indie artists...
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On the other hand, that also makes it harder for indie artists...
Having heard the quality of most "indie artists," all I can say is thank God for that.
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On the other hand, that also makes it harder for indie artists...
Having heard the quality of most "indie artists," all I can say is thank God for that.
Nice attitude you got going there, buddy. "Collateral damage", it doesn't really mean anything to you, now does it?
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Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly - This should not be a surprise.
Pandora is a cool service and they're playing the cards they've been dealt. Maybe those cards are largely viewed as unfair, but they want a level playing field. Why would anyone expect them to pony up for fees that some of their major competition (even though it's different technology) is immune to? Sure it would be better if they could win free broadcasting, but now that they've lost that battle they're just trying to level the playing field.
Hell, you could even view this as Pandora trying to get a couple of more players into the "let us broadcast w/o complications" game...
Free Market At It's Best (Score:2)
In typical modern capitalism fashion, companies are free to compete for exclusivity and preferential treatment, but not freely with each other.
The playing field is never even, and be it lobbying with congress, inking expensive deals, hiring an army of salesmen and lawyers, or leveraging your monopolistic weight, big businesses know how to tilt the market so money trickles only their way. New comers and outsiders on the wrong side of the slope cannot compete by price or quality, and the issue precedes supply
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Pandora should just tell the major labels to fuck off, and play music by artists who don't demand fees. But most radio stations are paying the web fees anyway, almost all broadcast stations stream to the web.
Funny how the majors beg the broadcast stations, who have limited reach, to play their stuff and have been caught bribing DJs to play it, while lobbying for webcasters to pay fees. It just goes to show that the RIAA labels are afraid of the internet (and P2P) because the internet empowers the indies. If
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Radio Data System (Score:3, Informative)
at least the Pandora guys give you the option to buy what you're listening to on iTunes or Amazon, unlike a radio station.
If you mean enough artist and title information to write it down and buy it later, FM radio has that too [wikipedia.org]. If you mean a button to Buy It Now, how would that work in a vehicle? Not everybody has $700 per year to spend on mobile broadband.
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Imho, TFA refers to a protocol for finding out who is billable. If you're not billable, they'd go upstream one, and bill whoever broadcast, etc...
It's not feasible/politically desirable for them to bill individuals per track so far. Heck, if they did, they'd encourage piracy like you wouldn't believe... "What? I've got to pay 5 cents for every single song that plays, no matter if I like it or not? What's this? a scam? You gotta be kidding me, I'm taking my business elsewhere..."
Only, by then, there's no
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Only, by then, there's no elsewhere to take it to
How is Creative Commons not an elsewhere?
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Re:Radio vs Pandora (Score:4, Interesting)
The day I can drive from one end of my city to the other with Pandora streaming for free into my car stereo, with no dropping the signal, and local concert info and other news on occasion... only then will radio be useless.
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How about:
*IF* the performers and record companies get this, they lose the right to make covers under a statutory / compulsory type license and have to negotiate with the rights holders?
Just a thought...
drew