A Reprieve for Internet Radio 108
westlake writes "In the wake of Internet Radio's Day of Silence, SoundExchange has proposed a temporary $2500 cap on advance payments 'per channel/per station.' The Digital Music Association responded immediately in its own press release that it would agree to this, but only if the term for the new arrangement were extended to 2010 — or, preferably, forever. On another front, SoundExchange seems aware in its PR that it will have to concede something more to the non-profit webcaster, if it is to avoid Congressional action."
"didn't realise" (Score:5, Insightful)
We're going through a painful growing stage that's going to be full of 'WTF?' moments but I'd be surprised if in ten years time, the music industry landscape will be drastically different with self-publishing bands, CDs a rarity (or their replacement format) and the licencing juggernaut that we have right now being relegated to history.
The only reason I can see for the industry as it stands to exist is R&D but they do so little of that now as to be moot. If a band doesn't hit the big time on their first single/album, they're dropped, no more the nurturing of a band over several albums while they find their stride.
The HiFi brigade will naturally be less than enthused about MP3 as a primary format but that will no doubt be replaced with some sort of lossless DRM free format by then.
Re:"didn't realise" (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:"didn't realise" (Score:4, Insightful)
Let internet radio die (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:"didn't realise" (Score:3, Insightful)
Not just self-publishing, but self-publishing and somewhat self-promoting. I mean somewhat because a new market will be created for promoters, whom will be hired directly by bands, much like a publicist today. Except that the promoter will do all the promoting jobs, not just talking to the media -- they'll hire advertisers, they'll buy Google ads, they'll hire the necessary people to setup concerts and gigs. IOW, they'll do a lot of the valuable work the record companies do today.
Call me naive, call me a dreamer -- but the more I look it at it from the perspective of a musical artist, it just seems to be going in that direction.
The panel is incompetent (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, that won't happen. Incompetence and ignorance are not grounds for removing a judge, and from the prespective of the current administration they played the game very nicely.
Re:"didn't realise" (Score:4, Insightful)
ShedPlant makes a valid point, though it's not to the liking of most people here.
The record industry is extremely wealthy and has the ear of the extremely powerful. Though it may seem obvious to us that their business model is outdated and is destined to fail, they have the political clout to make sure US legislators prop up their model for a long, long time. They also, via control (or association with those in control) of television media, continue to have the strongest marketing presence.
It's all fine and dandy to believe that the music industry of the future is just over the horizon, but I don't think it's in the immediate future -- there is simply too much political clout and capital invested in making sure that then status quo is maintained. I think back ten years, and people were saying that by now, we'd already have witnessed the restructuring of the music industry due to technological changes. Ten years from now, I think we'll look back at today, and be saying the same thing.
This isn't just Monday morning pessimism, the simple truth is that it will be another generation (or two!) before the people who really understand the future of media distribution are in the political power positions necessary to overcome the money being funneled into politics by the media companies. And that's if we're lucky.
Re:Testing the waters? (Score:4, Insightful)
Anybody want to rent some of my Canadian bandwidth for streaming to US customers?
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)