Experimental Fees Settle Royalty War For Internet Radio 270
S-100 writes "SoundExchange has reached an agreement for royalty rates with a consortium of Internet radio broadcasters. The parties are ecstatic that the issue is finally resolved, and that the new rates are below the previous 'death to Internet radio' levels that had previously been imposed by the CARB. According to NewsFactor, Pandora founder Tim Westergren proclaims that 'the royalty crisis is over!', and other large broadcasters are equally pleased. One unheard-from group is less likely to be pleased: small Internet radio broadcasters. Buried in the details are a new minimum royalty payment: $25,000 per year. So say goodbye to all of the small Internet radio stations that you have been listening to, as they will no longer afford to operate legally."
Social corruption (Score:5, Insightful)
"Buried in the details are a new minimum royalty payment: $25,000 per year. So say goodbye to all of the small Internet radio stations that you have been listening to, as they will no longer afford to operate legally."
Re:Social corruption, or small-player boon? (Score:5, Interesting)
So say goodbye to all of the small Internet radio stations that you have been listening to, as they will no longer afford to operate legally."
Perhaps -- On the other hand, people who make music available without royalty (thus staying outside of the CARB system) -- such as Creative Commons licenses, or even non-CC licenses which simply explicitly allow On-Air radio stations that aren't part of CARB to play them -- might find themselves with a boon as they will then be the only music that small radio stations will be able to play.
If I was a small (or even not-so-small) musician that wanted my music to get play, I'd probably release my music on a license that allowed people who haven't signed up for CARB to play my music royalty free, but had standard fees for stations that had paid the CARB $25K minimum (I mean, why give up royalties that have already been allocated to me?).
That way, smaller stations can play my music, and the larger stations (that really make money) can give me my fair share of CARB royalties if/when I get big enough to attract the attention of the larger stations.
Re:Social corruption, or small-player boon? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, except it hasn't happened yet and there's already been plenty of reasons to not listen to mainstream label music.
The main reason probably being that 99% of indie music really really sucks, and people don't want to have to look for that 1%.
Re:Social corruption, or small-player boon? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know if you've noticed, but 99% of commercial music sucks, too. It just has better marketing.
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It's broader than that--90% of everything is crud [wikipedia.org]
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It takes more than a beat to make good music.
Re:Social corruption, or small-player boon? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Music is not melody? Where'd you come up with that line of BS? Check Wikipedia's definition, for example. The first paragraph of their
Entry [wikipedia.org] on the subject states that:
Me, I have trouble callin
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Fsck yes!
Mind the giant lasers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd7Q4E66O7A [youtube.com]
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IIRC, in order to be able to actually obtain the royalties paid to SoundExchange for playing your music, you have sign a contract agreeing not to undercut them by licensing your music for radio play any other way. (Yes, this is evil - especially as SoundExchange is the statutory licensing organisation, so even if you don't sign up the radio stations can pay money to them to play your songs.)
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...using the coercive power of government.
Social corruption, only if you let them. (Score:3, Insightful)
Error: $500, not $25,000, apparently (Score:3, Informative)
However, the Slashdot story seems to be in error. The amount should be $500, not $25,000, apparently [slashdot.org].
Re:Error: $500, not $25,000, apparently (Score:4, Informative)
From Wikipedia:
From the Library of Congress, Section 3f2: ( http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c104:1:./temp/~c104dVWooD:e844 [loc.gov]: )
Emphasis mine.
Re:Social corruption, only if you let them. (Score:5, Insightful)
Who says that an agreement between one set of parties binds others who were not party to the agreement?
Congress created copyright law, and by law a copyright holder can sue you in court for copyright infringement, and the courts will enforce it and if necessary bring in gun-toting police to enforce the authority of the court.
But then it gets more complicated. Congress passed a new law specifically to deal with "internet radio" webcasting. This law set up something called CARP - the Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel - an the law authorized this panel to listen to industry lobbyists and set "reasonable" copyright payment rates for webcasters. The panel was directed to set the rates according to what willing-buyers and willing-sellers would agree to pay on their own under normal free market conditions. The payment rates set by this panel have the force of law.
What then happened is that the RIAA represents a multi-billion dollar industry with huge influence in Washington and with an army of lawyers and with an army of lobbyists and with effective monopoly power to dictate manipulative contract terms. The RIAA then made a deal with Yahoo (and maybe one or two others others) to license Yahoo to webcast the RIAA's copyrighted music. The RIAA manipulated this deal to inflate the apparent royalty rate. The RIAA then submitted this inflated rate to CARP, as evidence of the "natural free market price that willing-buyers and willing-sellers would reach on their own", and the RIAA used all their industry power and Washington influence to influence the CARP process. Webcasting - being brand new and mostly small upstarts and things like college radio - their interests had little or no representation before the CARP panel, and of course they got STOMPED. CARP set impossibly high royalty rates webcasters had to pay. It set impossibly high rates that would exterminate both small and large webcasting. Rates that effectively prohibited any sort of internet radio.
Webcasters, both large-and-small, found themselves faced with retroactive bills they would have to pay, bills far larger than than any money they had and larger than any gross-revenues coming in from webcasting. College radio and similar small and indie webcasters would get smacked with huge retroactive bills and shut down, and larger webcasters would literally have to file for bankruptcy. Webcasters large and small all screamed that the CARP set unfair and impossibly high rates, and they increasingly got their act together as an "interest group" to challenge the CARP ruling, and it appears they were going to be successful in having to reversed.
The RIAA then made a NEW deal with large webcasters. A deal that eliminated the impossibly high per-song-per-listener fee, and allowed them to pay according to a completely different and lower cost payment system While this was a "private contract", according to the CARP system other webcasters would also have the right to opt-in to those terms if they wanted to. The terms of this contract set a vastly higher minimum fee specifically to lock out smaller webcasters. The original CARP system had a $500 minimum payment for college radio and other indie webcasters (with per-song-per-listener fees going up from there), the new deal set a $25,000 dollar yearly minimum fee.
So the RIAA has effectively split the webcaster interest group that were fighting to get the CARP rates reversed. The RIAA gave the large webcasters a deal they could survive with, and effectively eliminated the "big muscle" on the webcaster side fighting the original CARP rates. College radio and other indie webcasters lose the little corporate support and legal support and Washington lobby influence they had. The small webcasters are unlikely to be able to effectively oppose the CARP ruling on their own, and will likely be exterminated.
So small webcasters are *not* bound by this particular agreement, but they are still bound by the CARP panel fees backed by the force of Congressional law. In fact small webcaster
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$500, not $25,000, apparently (Score:5, Informative)
I assumed, in my grandparent comment, that the Slashdot story was correct, and was shocked at the amount.
This government PDF file seems to say $500, also: Final Determination Of Rates And Terms, Docket No. 2005-1 CRB DTRA [loc.gov] (PDF) Quote: "(b) Minimum fee. Each Commercial Webcaster and Noncommercial Webcaster will pay an annual, nonrefundable minimum fee of $500 for each calendar year or part of a calendar year of the license period during which they are Licensees pursuant to licenses under 17 U.S.C. 114."
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If you had read the summary you might have worked out that the story is about a new agreement on fees. This means that your wikipedia article on what the fees have previously been is completely irrelevant. If you had then RTFA you would find that the summary is correct.
Re:$500, not $25,000, apparently (Score:5, Informative)
The latest version is still $500, not $25,000. (Score:5, Informative)
4. Minimum Annual Fees
(a) In General. For each year from 2006-2015, an Eligible Small Webcaster shall pay annual minimum fees as follows:
(1) $500 for electing Microcasters, which shall constitute the only royalty payable hereunder by an electing Microcaster, except that an electing Microcaster also shall pay a $100 annual fee (the ''Proxy Fee'') to SoundExchange for the reporting waiver discussed in Section 6(a), and the provisions of Section 5(d) shall apply;
(2) $2,000, for Eligible Small Webcasters other than electing Microcasters that had Gross Revenues during the prior year of not more than $50,000 and reasonably expect Gross Revenues of not more than $50,000 during the applicable year; or
(3) $5,000, for Eligible Small Webcasters that had Gross Revenues during the prior year of more than $50,000 or reasonably expect Gross Revenues to exceed $50,000 during the applicable year. (b) The amounts specified in Section 4(a) shall be paid by January 31 of each year. (c) All minimum fees (but not the Proxy Fee for the reporting waiver for Microcasters) shall be fully creditable toward royalties due for the year for which such amounts are paid, but not any other year.
This is part of what makes ./ (Score:4, Interesting)
You really do need to deal.
And you've been here a while too. I see your posts, from time to time and that's actually something given all the users we've got passing through now.
If there is a gaffe, it's corrected in the comments and that's just how the site is. We've got at least as many users not reading the article, hosing up the summary, not reading the comments, making ASSumptions and god knows what else!
There is kind of an unspoken agreement that the object of interest is the interest, not the meta-surrounding it and ./ Don't get me wrong, we like meta --look at my contribution this morning!
Bottom line is the site is not devalued for this kind of editing gaffe. We use ./ as a rolling point of discussion and as a loose community where lots of good ideas abound, along with a lot of shit too. The shit to signal ratio varies, but is usually tolerable at best.
So then, harping on the editorial quality seen on the front page here is theraputic, but futile --as is my post, quite likely!
And if people use ./ the way it is meant to be used, they find your comment and realize that there is actually some value to vetting what they see on the front page. Call it a healthy reminder that we need to do a bit of digging ourselves. I like it that way actually.
Cheers and greets! Haven't exchanged words with you in a while.
Re:Social corruption (Score:5, Insightful)
This has nothing to do with Capitalism. The Market hasn't spoken, this is about copyright and royalties which is nothing but Government protection of works. Not saying copyright is a bad thing inherently (it is in a bad state if you ask me) but this is nothing but a barrier to entry into the internet radio business. This keeps out the small guy who isn't doing this for money (probably doing it at a loss out of his or her own pocket) and since it's compulsory someone running an internet radio station with just unsigned or independent music will still have to open their wallet to $25,000 a year. This is just a ploy by old media to keep broadcasting in their hands. It won't matter much to the more dedicated of the amateur broadcaster as they can most probably move their operation out of the United States.
Re:Social corruption (Score:5, Interesting)
There's a third option that doesn't seem at all bad. The smaller independent radio stations can form a co-op where each station pays their own independent fees but together they will do more than $25k per year. That way everyone wins.
Yes this sucks, but I don't think it is really as limiting as the doomsayers believe.
d
What about public domain music? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What about public domain music? (Score:4, Informative)
This would only apply to record labels or artists covered by SoundExchange.
Basically it's part of the RIAA so you have the Big 4. Sony EMI, Universal, and Warner.
There may be some others.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoundExchange#Business_structure_and_oversight
Re:What about public domain music? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What about public domain music? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is probably the most important (and most likely to be overlooked) point in the whole issue. Artists cannot opt-out. Even artists who have never heard of SoundExchange and have never received a check *from* them are generating revenue *for* them.
This might just be a good issue around which to construct a test case for the judicial system. With good legal counsel close at hand, create a station which exclusively plays content that is offered under a suitably free license (http://openmusic.linuxtag.org/, http://www.danosongs.com/ [danosongs.com], insert your better suggestion ___ here), or where your station has a separate agreement with the artist, or where the artist is not receiving royalties from SoundExchange (and perhaps thinks he/she should be on the basis that SE has collected them from broadcasters).
Publicize, grow, attract attention belligerently.
SoundExchange *seems* to claim to represent all of these scenarios under the "no opting out" doctrine. There is no music "outside of their catalog" as they have no catalog, just an "all your music are belong to us" clause.
In the first two cases, open licenses and individual agreements *should* trump SE's doctrine. If so, then it's time to set about creating a clearinghouse method for mass producing "individual" agreements.
In the third case, SE is ripping off artists in a sense, and shouldn't be able to get away with it. Many small indie artists haven't a clue about SE or how to get royalties from them. Yet SE *keeps* royalties for artists who don't know how to claim them. Existing under a "no opt out" charter is reason enough that the onus should be on SE to notify artists & rightsholders of royalties they have coming.
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I think that existing under a "no opt out" charter is grounds to have your charter revoked, under order that you rewrite it without that part, or it's completely forfeit.
Unfortunately (and fortunately for some) I'm not important.
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License agreements voluntarily negotiated at any time between 1 or more copyright owners of sound recordings and 1 or more transmitting organizations entitled to obtain a statutory license under this subsection shall be given effect in lieu of any decision by the Librarian of Congress or determination by the Copyright Royalty Judges.
This should be perfectly doable, but from what I have read and heard it's almost impossible. Part of the problem is all of the different parts of
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Re:What about public domain music? (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't matter if you personally held the copyright to every single piece of audio played on your station. The RIAA will still insist you pay up (or at least file reams of paperwork that no small station can afford to file)
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SoundExchange collects royalties for all music. Not just its members. so yes, you'd still have to cough up.
And if you don't cough up for your station that plays only Free [freedomdefined.org] music, what grounds will SoundExchange or anyone else have to sue you?
Are you crazy? (Score:2, Funny)
Nobody makes music free, son.
SOMEONE stole it from my music empire.
And give me back those electrons you stole from my computer!
Re:Are you crazy? (Score:4, Insightful)
Nobody makes music free, son.
SOMEONE stole it from my music empire.
Are you referring to the mathematical near-certainty that a song's hook will inevitably match that of at least one of the millions of songs in BMI and ASCAP's repertory? Or the precedent set in Bright Tunes Music v. Harrisongs Music that accidentally copying the hook of a song heard a half-decade ago is just as much a copyright infringement as what happens in the warez scene? Or both?
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They don't need grounds. They can bankrupt you just by filing the suit and dragging out the proceedings.
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They don't need grounds. They can bankrupt you just by filing the suit and dragging out the proceedings.
They could do that against somebody who doesn't even run an Internet radio station. Heck, record labels have sued a network printer for copyright infringement. I'd still like to know how broadcasting Creative Commons licensed recordings of public domain musical works exposes me to more risk of being the victim of vexatious litigation than propagating any other Creative Commons licensed work.
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Because the other trade industries don't build on suing individuals?
Capitol v. Thomas identified specific works whose copyrights were willfully infringed. If I can control the playlist and document each work's license at least as well as Wikimedia Commons controls its own, my attorney could get the case thrown out at the "do you own the copyright in this recording?" step.
Re:Trade Industries (Score:2)
This is sounding like we have to create the Kurt Godel Day to get out of this.
Anyone know who the lead trade groups are for pictures?
"Hi. My friend Logan sent me his pr0n and a "enhancement support" file. When decrypted by NSA backdoor methods, bitmapped by Bruce Schneier's birthday, XOR'ed by the original pr0n and then "evaluated by a special program" well, the result JUST MIGHT sound like music."
So does Sound Exchange really want to trade in Pr0n?
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What about an artist who released things under a CC or similar license terms that you met, you used that, then the artist gets signed and releases the same song under a different label? Sure, you still should be able to use the CC licensed one, but you have no proof
Wayback Machine by Archive.org might still have a page with the title, artist, and a CC license notice.
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Please show that CC licenses can be revoked (Score:2)
But there would be still no proof that you were playing the CC licensed one rather then the Warner licensed one because they are the same product.
In the software world, that's called "dual licensing". As I understand most licenses for free software or free cultural works, individual copies aren't offered under the license; the work is offered under the license, and once it is so offered, such a license can't be revoked. For all the jury knows, I could have copied the work from any redistributor under a CC license. I'd like to see how you think a WMG lawyer would defeat reliance on a CC license.
Re:Please show that CC licenses can be revoked (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd like to see how you think a WMG lawyer would defeat reliance on a CC license.
Simply by taking them to court you can crush a lot of small stations. When given the option of A) shutting down and WMG will waive the fee B) paying some sort of large (but not huge) fee like $5000 or C) being sued for $50000+. Most stations, especially those ran by individuals in their spare time would simply choose to shut down. The fee could cause a sharp increase in operating costs so the "ad free" station suddenly has more ads then terrestrial radio. If they go to court, they might keep operating for some time, but eventually the court costs could drain their operating costs budget to where they can't afford it. Even if the internet radio people win, they still lose.
Re:Please show that CC licenses can be revoked (Score:4, Interesting)
Thankfully, Copyright law has a 'loser pays' rule which means that, once you show that you there's a CC licensed version of your song, it's up to the RIAA lawyers to prove (on the balance of the probabilites, with a tie being in your favor) that you were playing a non-CC version of that song.
If they fail to do so (and they're likely to fail if they're suing on false pretenses), then they're the ones who end up paying your court costs.
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If they fail to do so (and they're likely to fail if they're suing on false pretenses), then they're the ones who end up paying your court costs.
And if I de of old age before they actually give up trying its a Pyrrhic victory. Just look at SCO vs IBM... if IBM were an individual person instead of the massive corporation it is, SCO would have one simply by wearing them down into insolvency.
Podcasts (Score:2)
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What are they paying now? (Score:2)
What are smaller broadcasters required to pay now? $2100 per month doesn't seem like a terrible amount. I guess if you are a super small station you are going to be in trouble. What about SomaFM?
Re:What are they paying now? (Score:4, Informative)
If I understand, that's just for the right to not be sued for broadcasting the music. Broadcasters still have to pay to buy the music, for bandwidth to stream the music, hardware to do that, people to select music, build websites themselves, manage online communities, manage advertising relationships, etc.
AND that's the minimum. So if you have zero listeners, you have to pay $25 000 per year just to start.
goodbye to the small Internet radio station? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:goodbye to the small Internet radio station? (Score:4, Informative)
I, for one, welcome our new allofinternetradio.ru overlords.
Play new music, not corporate label rehash. (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only does this new deal not cover every country (the Internet has this global presence to it) but this new deal doesn't cover all music which is legally redistributable in the US. Support artists who aren't signing their copyrights away to the huge few corporate labels, support musicians who share with you under terms that allow you to share further, and you'll find there's a lot of good music out there to be enjoyed. Small radio stations would do well to stop trying to emulate the major radio stations and develop audiences that appreciate something different and new.
Is this just in the US? (Score:3, Insightful)
$25,000 barrier to entry (Score:5, Interesting)
According to NewsFactor, Pandora founder Tim Westergren proclaims that 'the royalty crisis is over, and we don't have to worry about any small competitors sneaking up and taking our business!'. I may have added that last part, but I'm sure he was thinking it. Like most regulations, it serves mainly to fuck small business and eliminate competition.
Re:$25,000 barrier to entry (Score:5, Insightful)
Why are we all so busy blaming Pandora for this?
IIRC, they were just trying to save themselves from getting annihilated by these preposterous fees... and now we're giving them a hard time because they didn't save every other tiny internet radio station all at once?
Seems to me that we won the battle, but not the war (yet). So let's celebrate that instead of flagellating those fighting on our side, yeah?
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I'm curious, why do you consider Pandora to be on *our* side? I haven't followed this situation closely, but it seems to me they've only done their best to stay afloat and nothing else. That's to be expected from any business, but it isn't something to be praised either.
Jamendo...anyone? (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.jamendo.com/en/ [jamendo.com]
Re:$25,000 barrier to entry (Score:4, Insightful)
According to NewsFactor, Pandora founder Tim Westergren proclaims that 'the royalty crisis is over, and we don't have to worry about any small competitors sneaking up and taking our business!'. I may have added that last part, but I'm sure he was thinking it. Like most regulations, it serves mainly to fuck small business and eliminate competition.
1. This isn't a regulation, it's a cartel whose licensing terms are enforced by [government]
2. And this $25K business sounds ripe for anti-trust investigation. How is it not abuse of a monopoly position?
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Because USC 17.112 explicitly makes an exception to anti-trust law to allow the negotiation of a statutory rate structure for compulsory licensing of phonorecordings for digital distribution,
Lets try and make a list of industries that have anti-trust exemptions.
(google the name + anti-trust exemption to verify)
1. Sports
2. Unions
3. Music/Movies
4. Freight Rail
5. Freight Ocean Liners
6. Insurance
7. ??
After some googling, I discovered there's an entire book on the subject. [google.com]
Maybe making an exhaustive list isn't the best idea after all.
Re:$25,000 barrier to entry (Score:4, Insightful)
According to NewsFactor, Pandora founder Tim Westergren proclaims that 'the royalty crisis is over, and we don't have to worry about any small competitors sneaking up and taking our business!'. I may have added that last part, but I'm sure he was thinking it. Like most regulations, it serves mainly to fuck small business and eliminate competition.
1. This isn't a regulation, it's a cartel whose licensing terms are enforced by [government]
2. And this $25K business sounds ripe for anti-trust investigation. How is it not abuse of a monopoly position?
That's easy.
Because many of the same people who were instrumental in putting this in place and that stand to gain from it also just happen to be the ones that would also be instrumental in deciding if it's fair or not.
Wagers on their decision?
Strat
A great opportunity for upstart talent... (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps now is a good time for all the upstart talent out there to be heard before getting their work corrupted by the recording industry. Small broadcasters should set up their own organization to collectively promote new talent by sharing their newly found content with each other for broadcasting. All that would be needed is some sort of vetting system to ensure the work isn't already owned by someone other than the artist that created it.
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Sure, but that still could be a minefield. Lets say a small band in 2009 releases music that isn't covered by this.
Define 'release' from a legal perspective. If you just find some music on line, you are taking a risk downloading and playing it. Even if the performers post it there themselves. How are you to know that they have the rights to do so? Some legal title needs to be in place to define performers' ownership even when a recording label isn't involved.
2010 rolls around and they get signed on by Warner. Now, because Warner owns all their songs,
All their songs? What if this is a band than moved from one record label to another? The previous label would still have rights to their old work. Warner would only
SomaFM? (Score:2)
What about SomaFM? How will this affect their royalty issues?
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That's what I was afraid of as well.
I didn't start donating until the ridiculous rates from a few years ago kicked in, but here's hoping they keep going strong.
I'm thinking it would be best to just wait until they post on their blog about how it affects them. Either it'll be a huge sigh of relief, or a kick in the pants.
HA! (Score:2)
I bet their Friggin' "Ecstatic"! Most of the big broadcasters will easily make double the fee over the next year in increased traffic from all the people that no longer can listen to the really good smaller radio stations.
$25K Adds Barrier of Entry to Control net Radio (Score:5, Informative)
Re:$25K Adds Barrier of Entry to Control net Radio (Score:5, Insightful)
Think "COOP", not "Compete" (Score:4, Interesting)
Look at it this way. You and 99 of your friends can now have all-you-can-eat streaming music for US$250/yr + costs, as long as your costs are US$100k (royalties are 25% of costs or revenue, whichever is higher) - running it as a coop means no revenue.
Even better, you can offer it to everyone!
Sounds like a great way to have a large, legal, on-demand music collection.
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slashdot ate my less than.
"as long as your costs are _less_than_ US$100k"
So, your cost is US$25k + Transmission and Hosting.
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BILLY MAYS HERE... (Score:2, Interesting)
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This is an outrage! (Score:2)
Small Internet Radio Stations cannot afford the minimum $25,000 a year fee to operate.
This is the RIAA screwing over the small business and non-profit organizations in the music business. Next I suppose they will hit up DJs for a minimum fee for $25,000 a year to play Audio CDs and MP3 files they legally own?
Re:This is an outrage! (Score:4, Informative)
That would be ASCAP, not the RIAA.
"ASCAP protects the rights of its members by licensing and distributing royalties for the non-dramatic public performances of their copyrighted works. ASCAP's licensees encompass all who want to perform copyrighted music publicly."
http://www.ascap.com/about/ [ascap.com]
Ambiguous, too (Score:4, Interesting)
It should also be said that this "special deal" is opt-in, and not compulsory. Webcasters are still free to adopt the rate structure established earlier by the CRB, however it was those rates that caused the revolt by webcasters in the first place, since those rates are so high that a typical small station could end up owing over 100% of revenues to Sound Exchange.
Got this email from their CEO (Tim) (Score:5, Informative)
I hope this email finds you enjoying a great summer Pandora soundtrack.
I'm writing with some important news. Please forgive the lengthy email; it requires some explaining.
First, I want to let you know that we've reached a resolution to the calamitous Internet radio royalty ruling of 2007. After more than two precarious years, we are finally on safe ground with a long-term agreement for survivable royalty rates â" thanks to the extraordinary efforts of our listeners who voiced an absolute avalanche of support for us on Capitol Hill. We are deeply thankful.
While we did the best we could to lower the rates, we are going to have to make an adjustment that will affect about 10% of our users who are our heaviest listeners. Specifically, we are going to begin limiting listening to 40 hours per month on the web. Because we have to pay royalty fees per song and per listener, it makes very heavy listeners hard to support on advertising alone. Most listeners will never hit this cap, but it seems that you might.
We hate the idea of capping anyone's usage, so we've been working to devise an alternative for listeners like you. We've come up with two solutions and we hope that one of them will work for you:
Your first option is to continue listening just as you have been and, if and when you reach the 40 hour limit in a given month, to pay just $0.99 for unlimited listening for the rest of that month. This isn't a subscription. You can pay by credit card and your card will be charged for just that one month. You'll be able to keep listening as much as you'd like for the remainder of the month. We hope this is relatively painless and affordable - the same price as a single song download.
Your second option is to upgrade to our premium version called Pandora One. Pandora One costs $36 per year. In addition to unlimited monthly listening and no advertising, Pandora One offers very high quality 192 Kbps streams, an elegant desktop application that eliminates the need for a browser, personalized skins for the Pandora player, and a number of other features: http://www.pandora.com/pandora_one [pandora.com].
If neither of these options works for you, I hope you'll keep listening to the free version - 40 hours each month will go a long way, especially if you're really careful about hitting pause when youâ(TM)re not listening. Weâ(TM)ll be sure to let you know if you start getting close to the limit, and weâ(TM)ve created a counter you can access to see how many hours youâ(TM)ve already used each month.
Weâ(TM)ll be implementing this change starting this month (July), Iâ(TM)d welcome your feedback and suggestions. The combination of our usage patterns and the "per song per listener" royalty cost creates a financial reality that we can't ignore...but we very much want you to continue listening for years to come.
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I wonder how many of those are "the whole office"? I know a few offices I've been to where Pandora replaced the workplace radio. There must be a reason we were daily reminded that "The station you listen to all day, every day at work is WRQX". Those listeners belong to Pandora at the moment, but I don't think anyone's going to be paying for the privilege.
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I see a solution... (Score:2)
Why not broadcast the music and the "DJ" separately? The DJ says, "Here's a song you'll like" and sends a JSON packet to your browser, telling it to (a) listen to it on Pandora or Last.fm or something, and (b) switch back to the DJ when the song is done.
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Reason: Payola! (Score:4, Insightful)
I bet the only reason it got cheaper now, is because those "big" radios finally bought into Payola.
For $25,000 they now can play everything they want, as long as it's what the RIAA tells them to play.
Luckily, I and my Internet radios never cared, and never will!
Some of them are even illegal by government rules (like the idiotic UK laws), which makes them real analog "pirate" radios too!
But I either listen to them or to my mp3s. I could never go back to that pop shit that is "normal" radio stations. My musical knowledge of rare bands of the UK, Russia, Japan, UK, France, etc, grew massively since I listen to Internet radio. To me it's the second most important killer feature of the Internet. Right after porn!
The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, (Score:3, Insightful)
Innovation is made possible by lowering barriers to entry, not raising them.
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More like the question: Is this the end of Live365? Because I like this one particular community-run station (not naming names here to avoid inviting a lawsuit) that runs on there, and requiring $25,000 will be the death of it unless we can unearth enough money to save it.
Solution... (Score:5, Interesting)
Some way to stream anonymously...P2P style, but untraceable? A freenet type thing for pirate internet radio, and that way, ANYONE could broadcast. Not a way really to make money, but, if someone wants to play DJ. You could set up nym email accounts, and communicate with your public, and still avoid identification.
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Django Reinhardt Radio
Electro Station #1 (Orbital, Orb, Wink)
Gaelic Storm Radio
etc
Or are you talking about their attitude? They are a business and want to make some profit to continue to operate, but they hardly seem anything like the homogonizing, profit maximizing, soul crushing folks at CC.
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Or are you talking about their attitude? They are a business and want to make some profit to continue to operate, but they hardly seem anything like the homogonizing, profit maximizing, soul crushing folks at CC.
Pandora founder Tim Westergren proclaims that 'the royalty crisis is over!', and other large broadcasters are equally pleased
Lets see, he is cheering on this that will save Pandora and perhaps a few more stations but crush the rest. It reminds me of a certain operating system vendor....
Thats not to mention their reduction in skips, inclusion of audio ads, etc.
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Re:worksforme (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Who cares about smaller internet radio stations (Score:5, Insightful)
The point of traditional radio stations is to cover costs (and preferably make a profit) with revenue from advertisers by distributing their material to the populace. The populace generally isn't interested in listening to advertisements all day long, so the radio stations must provide material the populace is interested in, with advertisements thrown in periodically. Range "Y" is an artifact of radio broadcasting and power limitations imposed by the FCC to allow wider use of radio spectrum. I agree that the internet's nearly infinite supply of spectrum eliminates the need for any kind of range limitations. Genre "X" limitations are similarly a radio spectrum issue and need not exist on the internet.
Try turning that around: "What can the large one offer that the smaller one cannot if they are both free?" Really, I would expect a larger entity to develop into a far more bureaucratic system, making it slow to respond to listener's changing interests and requests. Further, large entities are somewhat resilient to legal action and more difficult to reconstruct, making them more easily controlled by external parties such as large copyright holders. Such legal action on a small entity would likely crush it, but a new one could quickly sprout up in the hole left by the original. Going back to the original question: "What can the small one offer that the larger cannot i they are both free?" Simply put, adaptability and resistance against external corruption. These qualities do not mesh well with the music industry's legacy business model, thus the attempt to eliminate them with a $25,000 minimum charge. I would be interested to see what kind of logical knots they try to tie in their attempts to defend this minimum.
Re:$25,000 is not much for small businesses (Score:4, Insightful)
For some cases you are obviously correct.
However in the case of the smaller stations this can be a daunting if not insurmountable price.
Consider, a station which plays primarily alternative music sources, but plays *one song* from the RIAA catalog, once, in a year. Still out $25k for that one song.
The pricing structure is clearly designed to exclude smaller and/or less mainstream stations.
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