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The Internet Your Rights Online

Can Internet Radio Survive? 212

Posted by timothy from the tough-row-to-hoe dept.
curunir writes: "Salon is running an interesting interview with the program manager for the internet radio station, SomaFM. He discusses some of the effects of the recent CARP recommendations (previously discussed on /. here). We all know the DMCA is bad, but this seems to be a particularly good example of where its broad nature is curbing reasonable web uses."
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Can Internet Radio Survive? More

Can Internet Radio Survive?

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  • IF they would get this online, I would make it survive!

  • All the radio stations that I liked are login only (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'm not listening if I have to log in.

    They have no chance to survive. Make their time.
  • I remember showing one of my students how to use Realplayer to listen to Radio 4. The frustrating this was that most of the time we tried there was just a recorded message saying something along the lines of : "We are sorry but we do not have the rights to broadcast the programme currently on Radio 4 over the Internet".

  • It has just as much a chance as (Score:3, Insightful)

    by tcd004 ( 134130 ) on Wednesday March 27, 2002 @12:27AM (#3232930) Homepage
    as crooked energy trading companies! [lostbrain.com]

    Tcd004

  • Shootring themselves in the foot (Score:3, Informative)

    by mbone ( 558574 ) on Wednesday March 27, 2002 @12:27AM (#3232932)
    K Claffy gave an interesting presentation at the last Nanog [nanog.org] that illustrates the futility of the Record Companies Efforts. See, in particular, her graph [caida.org] on file sharing usage.

    The result of years of litigation and bad law making :

    Napster is shut down, its successors have over 5 times the file sharing volume, and are used perhaps 100 times as much as the "legitimate" pressplay and music net services.

    And they call it a famous victory...
  • I never understood this? You need a device, similar to or equal to a computer which costs way more than a small radio, and more importantly bandwidth, monthly fee in one location, to be able to listen to something that typically requires a $2.25 device and a AA battery.

    Kinda like this new satellite radio, waiting for them to go away soon.
    • From the user's perspective, there is way more variety of stuff to listen to broadcasted online then you can pick up with that $2.25 device. To a lesser extent, the same is likely true of satellite radio.

      Not to mention, eventually computers will just cost $2.25. ;)

      • Not to mention, eventually computers will just cost $2.25.

        if things go the way they seem to be you won't be able to buy a computer, but you might be able to buy an SSSCA/CDBWHATEVERITSCALLEDNOW crippled webradio-a-tron for $2.25*

        *initial outlay only, music available to approved applicants.
        • Hey, maybe we'll still be able to buy computers, but only if they can not possibly view any multimedia content at all. We'll have 333 Ghz processors with only punch cards for input and ticker tape for output.

          I always wondered if I'd actually be more productive without graphics available --no video games, no web comics--nothing but productive work to do on my computer. Maybe next century we'll live on the moon, and we'll have the MPAA to thank!

    • Re:Why Internet Radio? (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Because Internet Radio has music formats that aren't available over the airwaves where many people live. Where I live there is only one radio station that plays the music I like, and they have 20 minute commercial breaks, ugh. So I tune to the net and have exponentially more choices.

      Internet radio is nice to have in places where a stereo system would be overkill. It allows you to *gasp* multi-task!
      • Internet radio is nice to have in places where a stereo system would be overkill. It allows you to *gasp* multi-task!

        Hell, Internet radio is the centerpiece of my stereo setup. I have a pretty decent sound card feeding my receiver. Occasionally I listen to a CD or record, but for the most part I stay tuned in to net radio stations. For example, I'm listening to Groovetech [groovetech.com] right now. Wish the sound quality was as good as CD though...
    • umm, it's not getting local stations, but stations you can't get with a $2.25 device with an AA battery. If you go and live abroad it's comforting to have some radio you're used to. Also sports games from local stations are a blessing sometimes. There are lots and lots of reasons.

      I'd like to see some new material played on internet radio other than the mass marketed garbage you hear on fm stations. This gives someone the perfect oppertunity to do so.

    • Choices, choices, choices. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Doktor Memory ( 237313 ) on Wednesday March 27, 2002 @12:39AM (#3232986) Journal
      Because if I try to set up a low-power FM station out of my bedroom here in Brooklyn to broadcast my favorite tracks to my neighbors, the FCC will throw my ass in jail [radio4all.org] for interfering with the signals of the local ClearChannel Inc. "Classic Rock" and "Alternative" stations.

      The FM radio band is a scarce resource regulated by the government. In most major urban areas, there hasn't been a new station license granted in years, sometimes decades.

      Internet broadcasting, on the other hand, is limited only by aggregate bandwidth. A thousand stations can sound just as good as two. And the startup costs are much, much lower: get a PC, a copy of IceCast, a $100 sound card and microphone, and suddenly you're a DJ. Sure, maybe only ten people are listening, but that's the whole point: those ten people found just the thing they were looking for.
      • Because if I try to set up a low-power FM station out of my bedroom here in Brooklyn

        You've got the last large community radio station in the middle of the FM spectrum in the United States right over on Wall. Support WBAI [wbai.org] -- it's not public radio, college radio or NPR/PRI/etc, and they have multiple mp3, real and (at least at one time) a quicktime audio stream.

        It's an avatism, left over from before "public radio" became NPR and classical, and colleges (who are now becoming NPR affiliates) were the only other radio alternative to Clear Channel and friends. Before they both got slid to the 88-92 FM spectrum.

        It's an archaic station, still run by the community, but by they provide unique content, one of the last few. They almost got sold off to a commercial network in the past year, and are still trying to undo the damage of a bad board of directors. It's a community station - your community. Use it.

        --
        Evan

    • Um, all the stations in my area (near two major metro markets) play commercial crap music. It's all really, really bad. I listen to experimental hip-hop, IDM and drum & bass all day on the Internet while I work. There's nothing like that on my FM dial. Radio sucks. My $2.25 radio is worthless to me. You want it?
    • There's a woman in North Carolina who has a stream I listen to very frequently... The reason is simple: No local station plays the music she does, and she has fantastic taste. I've bought ten albums based on what I heard on her stream alone, in the past few months.

      Face it, the overhead, the competition, and the general state of the recording industry make airwave radio suck.

    • Many reasons -

      I can listen to any BBC station even though I don't live in England. I can get music that I could never get on radio. I can also listen to old radio programs like Jack Benny... the amount of material is immense.

      It's also the easiest way to get music while I'm at work. Just click on a URL... don't need to haul CDs around.
    • Or anywhere else sufficiently isolated. We had two radiostation: the public radio station KCHU (I wonder if they are still running?) and a private one. The private one had maybe 6 reels of songs that they just cycled all day long, so if you kept your radio there, you reheard the same songs maybe 4 times in the course of a workday... And they didn't make new reals but maybe every two or three months... probably whenever they had a change in an advertisement.

      I would have loved web radio back when I lived there... exposure to new types of music. Lovely. A lot of us had shortwave radio, but that was pretty problematic too.

      I'm sure people living in some regions of arizona, Nevada, etc feel the same way.

    • Why Internet Radio? Because commercial music radio stations are now all mindless crap controlled by what focus groups like and the cookie-cutter schlock that the record companies are pushing for the Ashley market ("The new [insert boy group name] CD is out!" "Oooh, scandalous!"), and because public radio, at least in my area, doesn't always have what I want either. They stick with the safe stuff--not much chance of hearing, say, Harry Partch or Stockhausen or Varese or Machaut or des Prez on the "classical" segments, and if on a jazz show here you hear Ornette Coleman or John Zorn, I'll eat my Opus doll.

      Internet radio is the only way to get something resembling choice nowadays. Let's take Des Moines, where I live as an example: the "Des Moines Radio Group" owns six radio stations; Clear Channel Communications owns five; Two Rivers Broadcasting owns three. That's pretty much all there is in the way of commercial broadcasting--the last good commercial station in Des Moines, KFMG, went under around 1996, replaced by KAZR, a station by and for people who think a guitar is a penis substitute and who proudly display their playlist on their web site: all thirteen songs of it.

      KUNI is the best station around these parts. It's based in eastern Iowa, and all we have here is a low-power translator that's easily overwhelmed by skip in the summer and the far more powerful transmitters of nearby commercial FM stations the rest of the time--most FM radios have the selectivity and capture ratio of a dead crab, which doesn't help. I'm stuck in a basement condo and hence can't get a decent antenna going.

      Internet radio is the only way to get anything decent around here--and as a fine example of that, I'd point everybody at BeOS Radio [beosradio.com], which plays a wide variety of music, running on submissions of only original works and original performances of works in the public domain.

    • I never understood this? You need a device, similar to or equal to a computer which costs way more than a small radio, and more importantly bandwidth, monthly fee in one location, to be able to listen to something that typically requires a $2.25 device and a AA battery.

      You need a computer: Something you already own.
      You need bandwidth: Something you already own.

      I guess I don't see the problem here? It's not like some company is saying, "Hey, we have this great radio station, just $1500 for the hardware and $40 per month and you, too, can listen!" You already own the equipment for other uses so the cost to tune in is zero.

      As for why? Everyone else has already illustrated that for you: Local stations suck. They're controlled by megacorps and you're only allowed to hear what they want you to hear. I listen to SomaFM - in fact, I've got a listing of a dozen or so favorite Internet radio stations on a touchscreen in my living room and I can tune in to any just by tapping the icon. We have people over for dinner and they go, "Wow, this is some great music. What station is this? I've never heard this before!"

      People are sick and f'ing tired of the typical garbage and want something new. If you've got a broadband connection, Internet radio delivers that.

      I personally hope some of these operations move offshore and tell the RIAA to go f themselves. I've listened to Internet radio stations all over the world; what's to stop someone like somaFM from throwing up a server in another country and streaming the same stuff?
  • Of course it can survive. The rest of the world isn't governed by USA law. It just means you won't be able to broadcast from inside the USA.

  • Free music distribution (Score:3, Informative)

    by phutureboy ( 70690 ) on Wednesday March 27, 2002 @12:33AM (#3232955)

    From the interview: Well, now, when the fees suddenly go up to $350,000 a year or more, then it means basically that there's no way that a lot of stations can continue broadcasting. Their alternative is to move to start playing music purely by just unsigned artists.

    That's one option. Another option is to stream only music released under the Open Audio License [eff.org], or a similar license.

    The economics of Internet music distribution make the royalty business model weaker. I expect many artists will begin distributing their music for free, and making their living from live shows, special events, collectibles, etc.

    Of course, I could be wrong. I've been wrong before.

    • Re:Free music distribution (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Snoopy77 ( 229731 ) on Wednesday March 27, 2002 @02:23AM (#3233244) Homepage
      Excuse me? Do you instantly get modded up if you mention some sort of open license be it the GPL or this OAL?

      Is this guy serious? Does he think that artist will sacrifice royalties and instead try to make a living by being on the road for all the months of the year that they aren't in the studio. Sorry I just don't see this happening at all for one major reason: royalties mean that a few months of work in the studio will continue to pay for years to come. It has worked for ages and will continue to work.

      Mod me down if you must but I just though a bit of common sense needed to be thrown in.
      • Yeah, I'm fairly serious. I've seen free music distribution work - once in the Grateful Dead scene, and again, albeit a little differently, in the techno music scene.

      • Is this guy serious? Does he think that artist will sacrifice royalties and instead try to make a living by being on the road for all the months of the year that they aren't in the studio. Sorry I just don't see this happening at all for one major reason: royalties mean that a few months of work in the studio will continue to pay for years to come. It has worked for ages and will continue to work.

        The vast majority of professional musicians already work and are paid in that fashion. Only a small percentage are ever picked up by a major record label. The rest work desperately for a break while playing gig after gig and lucky if they don't have to work day jobs too, to support their careers. These musicians are likely to find signing such a license attractive. It makes them money indirectly, by giving them a chance to make new markets for themselves. Get better gigs. The better the gigs the more chance that the record companies get them.

      • I don't know it worked pretty good for Radiohead too, as well as Phish. Do you think Kid A would have sold anywhere near as many albums had people not heard the album on Napster first? If anything file sharing gets rid of the one hit wonders, which I really dont have a problem with.
      • Yeah, we call it a tour. Most good bands do that you know...
    • That is exactly what I expect to see over the next few years. It seems that the only artists who actually like the major labels are Britney Spears, Metallica, and their ilk. Meanwhile less "pop" artists mostly bitch about getting ripped off by the major labels.

      I look forward to seeing all (or almost all) of the artists I listen to simply ignoring RIAA, retaining the rights to their works, and licensing them (via minor labels) in a way that permits them to use internet distribution to their advantage with ____casting and the like.

      The major labels made big money on music distribution, back when distribution was difficult. Distribution is now trivial for anyone with a PC and a modem (read: 99 44/100% of the people who used to buy lots of CDs), so it looks to me like most of the revenue will soon be coming from performance, not distribution.

      I think listeners will gravitate to 'internet radio' (yeah, silly term) from airwave radio. There's less commercials (typically none on the channels I listen to), and the music suits my tastes far better than anything on the air. Maybe I'm atypical, but if I'm not, the artists drawing the biggest crowds to performances will be the ones with the most "internet radio" play. Wouldn't it be ironic if RIAA's recent tactics just amounted to a shot in the foot with a hollow-point round?

      Or, on the other hand... Copyright has been a dead issue for a very long time for the music of Beethoven and Bach. There just is none. The rights expired a LONG time ago. The last time I saw Bach played live, I read that ticket sales cover something like 75% of the cost of the performance, with sponsors and donors picking up the rest. I could be jumping to conclusions here, but what if there's a correlation between the absence of copyright protection and the business model you see in classical music? Will the pop music industry will go the way of the classical music industry?

      Yeah, you could be wrong. I've been wrong before too, but I think it's only a matter of time before performance revenues eclipse distribution revenues (read: CD sales). I wonder how RIAA will react to that.

      • Copyright has been a dead issue for a very long time for the music of Beethoven and Bach.

        I think the internet is going lead to a mini revolution for traditional music, folk and other music forms that not under the big copyright restrictions of pop and rock.

        Artists who do derivative works (like funky remakes of Mozart or the Beattles) will also be more prone to open licenses...since derivative work always gets caught up in fair use copyright litigation.
      • Or, on the other hand... Copyright has been a dead issue for a very long time for the music of Beethoven and Bach. There just is none. The rights expired a LONG time ago. The last time I saw Bach played live, I read that ticket sales cover something like 75% of the cost of the performance, with sponsors and donors picking up the rest. I could be jumping to conclusions here, but what if there's a correlation between the absence of copyright protection and the business model you see in classical music?

        You could still create a copyrighted CD of the performance of a classical piece. One point about classical music is that only the high quality end still gets performed...
        • There are also many classical compositions which are copyrighted, and the financial picture when the orchestra is playing Barber is going to be the same as when it's playing Bach. What makes classical expensive isn't that the music is copyrighted, but that you need about 60 highly talented and trained people, who have to spend a lot of time practicing together.
  • *Click*

    Ok, adding "Internet Radio" to www.fuckedcompany.com

    *PRESTO*

    You've been Terminated!

    -------------------

  • Resources (Score:3, Informative)

    by BrianGa ( 536442 ) on Wednesday March 27, 2002 @12:35AM (#3232969)
    Even though there are increasing restrictions [saveinternetradio.org] on the hobby, there are still some resources [saveinternetradio.org] to help you [wdvl.com] on your quest for an Internet Radio Station. Also, don't forget to find out how you can help [saveinternetradio.org].
  • In recent years intellectual property has shifted from a free market system to a command economy. This has culminated to the DMCA and CARP (Copywright Arbitration Royalty Panel, a government appointed panel). Mark my words, if we continue down this path, the intellectual market will collapse, just as the entire market collapsed in the Soviet Union.

    We can't have a single body that determines the prices for an entire segment of the market, it simply does not work. Supply and Demand is the only proven method of determining prices, and 14/100 of a cent per song per listener does not adequatelty refelct supply and demand.
    • You're right, of course.

      Keep in mind, though, that large sections of the world do not have a copyright system for music like ours, or do not enforce it at all. From what I understand, many parts of China and Eastern Europe have open bazaars where music is sold in open markets on burned CD's. I would not be surprised if those areas become known as hotbeds of artistic activity, and give birth to innovative new economic models for music distribution.

      Despite pressure from the U.S. gov't, I don't see China or the Russian Federation going to great lengths to enforce U.S. copyright laws for the benefit of the RIAA.

      So, we can wallow in our own litigious culture of red tape in the U.S., but in the meantime other countries across the globe are conducting an economic experiment which may make us look stupid, and force us to rethink our approach.
      • Despite pressure from the U.S. gov't, I don't see China or the Russian Federation going to great lengths to enforce U.S. copyright laws for the benefit of the RIAA.
        Yes and no. While you can probably find open bazaars of burned music CD /VCD easily in these countries, "exporting" the content back to US is a completely different matter. RIAA knows that they cannot extract much profit from these non-developed countries. But, if you are setting an internet radio for oversea subscription, they will view this as a much serious threat (terrorist act???).

        Every single country with internet connection to US fears the trade sanctions imposed by US (IIRC, it is the Resolution 301 stuff). They all buckle under the official pressure...

  • Internet radio was already in trouble... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by moonless ( 550857 ) on Wednesday March 27, 2002 @12:37AM (#3232978)
    Internet radio stations may want to be treated just like their AM/FM cousins, and blame the difference in the way they're treated on the DMCA and on CARP. But the reality is that internet radio stations have the worst of both worlds - all of the problems of radio and of internet startups.

    Consider - normal radio is portable. AM/FM stations are available wherever there are radios. Although stations have limited broadcast ranges, everyday listeners generally don't travel between cities and thus have no problems with this. Satellite radio may eradicate even this problem. But internet radio stations depend on computers - and the reality is that the vast majority of people [even some /. readers] spend time away from their computers.

    So, internet radio stations are less available than AM/FM ones. In addition, they have to struggle for revenue in the same way that .com startups do - things like banner ads and subscriptions. Because there are so many stations out there, it is not economically feasible for an advertiser to put a banner ad out on a page and simply assume that enough people will see it. And many stations play continuous music/talk, without broadcast ads. This means that they're suffering through the same money pinch that the rest of internet businesses are.

    So, in the end, the CARP ruling is simply the straw that breaks the camel's back. Although it's true that many internet stations offer far superior content, they suffer from some very obvious problems. They're not portable, which makes them less convienient for their audiences; their smaller audiences make advertising less profitable anyways; and because they often depend, like other internet content businesses, on things like banner ads and subscriptions, their financial situations are often precarious anyways.

    So sure, the DMCA and CARP are harming the internet radio industry. But the industry was already in trouble to begin with; this might itself have caused the same kind of commercialization and consolidation that CARP will likely force on the stations.

    • What you say is certainly true when you look at this issue from an economic standpoint. But look at this from the point of simple freedom: I have (off and on) run a Shoutcast station that consists mostly of Bill Hicks routines. Now, I can support up to a whopping 5 users on my home DSL line. I do this because I'm a passionate fan of Bill Hicks and want to spread those memes, not because I want to make any kind of money. But the restrictions that have been put in place prohibit me from doing so from a legislative standpoint, and that is where so many broadcasters have their problems.

    • But the reality is that internet radio stations have the worst of both worlds - all of the problems of radio and of internet startups.

      I'm not sure I agree with that. The main problem that internet startups have is how to make money. Commercial radio stations have a well established model for this (advertising) which should be the same for internet radio. Also, they have the ease of startup that an internet company has.

      So, internet radio stations are less available than AM/FM ones.

      Granted, it's easier to turn on a radio, than it is to turn on, log-in and access an internet radio site. However, the potential coverage of internet radio is the whole planet, not just your local city. (e.g. I'm a Brit living in Taiwan - there's only 1 way I can listen to UK music stations ...)

      However, what CARP is doing is slapping a huge fee on internet radio stations that isn't imposed on traditional radio stations. This changes a sensible business model into a big loss-maker. Note that because the fee is per listener, I would imagine it would shut down small & large radio stations alike.
    • The only time I listen to broadcast radio is in the car - maybe an hour a day. I spend at least 8 hours in front of my computer every day. Sure it's not portable, but I listen to far more internet radio than broadcast. Plus, I have much greater freedom to choose the content than I do on radio.
    • Internet radio's biggest potential market is the millions of people working at their pc in the office or at home, not, for example, people on the beach. When was the last time you saw people on the beach listening to the radio? Most people I see have portable cd/mp3 players, not radios.

      In fact, I would argue that it is traditional radio that has the smaller potential market. Traditional radio is largely relegated to the timeslot which occurs whilst people are in their car or at work places that don't have computers-- and even there, it's my impression people tend to prefer CDs.

      You can't argue with choice. Being able to hookup to radio streams from all around the world beats K00L FM any day-- and I spend 10+ hours a day at my computer.
      • You can't argue with choice. Being able to hookup to radio streams from all around the world beats K00L FM any day-- and I spend 10+ hours a day at my computer.

        But you immediatly have a problem which traditional radio, even with a huge network of transmitters, dosn't have. That is the music publishing industry wants the ability licence by geography. Unless you play music from outside the mainstream or have a non music format, e.g. news, talkshows, etc. Also if you want to carry adverts either you can only advertise the comparativly few globally available products and services. Or work out a way to identify where the listener is and insert appropriate local ads.

    • Re:Internet radio was already in trouble... (Score:4, Funny)

      by dimator ( 71399 ) on Wednesday March 27, 2002 @04:16AM (#3233440) Homepage Journal
      the reality is that the vast majority of people [even some /. readers] spend time away from their computers.

      away from... wait, wait, I can do it... my... computer ?!? You mean, like with a wireless keyboard and mouse, right?

    • There is another huge problem with internet radio you have overlooked. With broadcast (note the term) radio, it will cost you the same to broadcast it if 100 people or 100000 people tune in. Internet radio stations already have a cost per listener in terms of bandwidth. Bandwidth isn't cheap.
      • Oops. clicked submit too early. The other thing to note is that it's a true shame that multicast is not propely supported on the net. This would make so many things more viable to distribute via the internet - radio, software, cd images, ...

  • internet radio has infrastructure problems (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Splork ( 13498 ) on Wednesday March 27, 2002 @12:38AM (#3232979) Homepage
    cost alone could kill it until a decent multicast infrastructure doesn't exist throughout the backbone and to your door via your ISPs connection.

    you can't seriously expect them to fund paying for a seperate chunk of bandwidth for each individual user who's receiving exactly the same data being sent at the same time as all of the rest of the listeners identical data across zillions of the same router hops?

    hmm, with multicast do they pay less royalties because less copies of the data are being made in the interim? ;)
  • I know Clear Channel stopped doing streams for a while, but they now stream everyday...they just don't play ads unless they are nationwide ads. Both WNCI and WTVN in Columbus area stream now.
    • From GTA3: "Love Media, making sure that every radio in America sounds exactly the same".

      I don't even know why Clear Channel bothers. Comapanies like Clear Channel offer no variety. Every single one of their stations falls into a genre, and every one of their stations in that genre plays the exact same songs and sound exactlly alike. It's kind of pointless for them to stream more than one of their stations from each genre since. They're all the same. The thing I love about net radio is you get to listen to music that Clear Channel wont let you hear. I've discovered some great music that wouldn't be played in a million years over traditional conglomorate owned broadcast stations. I wouldn't even miss internet radio that much if broadcast offered the kind of variety and personality that internet radio has. Tragically, the only people who can afford to broadcast are huge companies like Clear Channel. It really sucks how that as soon as a broadcast medium comes along that is accessable to everyone, the music industry destroys it.

      Perhaps it won't be all bad. Even without the RIAA's crap, I will still be able to hear better music on net broadcasts than I hear on any of Clear Channel's stations.

      • Actually WTVN is Talk Radio and they have alot of local talent. SO far they are not replacing a bunch of shows with syndicated crap. John Corby, the afternoon dirve time host is the greatest. Gives me something to laugh at when I am on the way home. The guy after him, Sterling from 7 to 10 is pretty good also then there's the king of late night, Steve "Boom Boom" Cannon. Yeah I know, even I get tired of talk radio sometimes, but talk radio is the closest thing to Geeks in Space on normal radio. Plus John has the Big Bass Brothers restaurant reviews every Friday at 6. I find lots of places to eat from that that are not a chain store, that have good food and lots of it for not very much money. One restaurant called the Ohio Deli has a Dagwood sandwich that is HUGE and only costs a bit over 5 bucks. So, no, not ALL Clear Channel stations sound the same. Since Clear Channel has bought both WTVN and WNCI in the Columbus area, they have pretty much left things alone (except the weekends are getting more automated). Granted, NCI is top 40, so you hear alot of N'sync and Britney on it, but there's occasionally a good song being played and I only listen during the Morning Zoo anyway. They don't play music! :) Well, at least what I would call music....one parody song that have is called Osama Farted. Hilarious!

  • College Radio will survive online (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Talsan ( 515546 ) on Wednesday March 27, 2002 @12:42AM (#3232997) Homepage
    I am the Station Manager for a small college station in Chicago, and I just received information from SESAC (one of the three big licensing companies) regarding their fees... I was rather concerned at first, given that we have a very limited budget, however their fees for broadcasting our signal online are only $102/year. If BMI and ASCAP charge similar amounts, it'll stretch our budget, however we'll be able to manage.

    Of course, who knows how it will end up for commercial stations at this point.

    -Tal

    • BMI, ASCAP, SESAC fees are reasoble and are not the problem. But under the DMCA, you legally have to either (1) negotiate a deal with all the copyright owners of the musical recordings you play - which is not necessarily the artist or (2) use the DMCA "compulsory license" with all its restrictions and the costs imposed by CARP. Which are about 100 times higher than your ascap/bmi/sesac fees.

      You just think you're safe now... but the RIAA (through it's DMCA authorized division SoundExchange) is coming to get you soon.

  • ask JWZ (Score:4, Informative)

    by quannump ( 310933 ) <quannump&netscape,net> on Wednesday March 27, 2002 @12:45AM (#3233008)
    dont' ask me if internet radio can survive, read a rant [dnalounge.com] by JWZ [jwz.org].

  • They are already paying all the fees (Score:5, Informative)

    by ratajik ( 57826 ) on Wednesday March 27, 2002 @12:46AM (#3233011) Homepage Journal
    One interesting thing to note here is SomaFM *IS* paying to use the music, under ASCAP and BMI. They paying as a noncommercial station, about $1000 a year (college radio stations pay under the same deal). Under the CARP ruling, they would have to pay around $1000 a *DAY*.

    The thing I find really disturbing about all this is the court system seems to be buying into equating Napster-like copying with legit internet-based radio stations. Yeah, I know, you can record off of a internet radio station... as you can do off a college FM station. And the quality difference isn't much off from FM (and I've rarely had my local noncommercial station lag out and get disconnects during peek time). Just because it's a noncommercial on the internet doesn't mean it should be treated any different that one that's not.

    This ruling only serves to kill off the small guy, penalize the public, and let a handful of companies monopolize the radio internet radio industry.
    • A petition [kurthanson.com] filed by Live365 [live365.com] outlines their position that the royalty structure of the CARP cannot work for alternate audio streams:

      At one end of the spectrum are a small group of webcasters such as Yahoo! and AOL well-established Internet companies, with numerous successful revenue streams, tens of millions of subscribers or users, and well-defined infrastructures already in place. ... In stark contrast are most webcasters (such as Live365), which currently operate at the opposite end of the spectrum. These webcasters are in the early stages of development, are constantly experimenting with different business models, revenue sources, and methods of developing their customer base, and have not yet established substantial revenue streams. ...

      In determining the royalty rate and methodology that willing buyers in the marketplace would accept, the CARP focused on a single license agreement which was negotiated between Yahoo! and the RIAA. ... the CARP's emphasis on a single agreement which was negotiated by an atypical webcaster was arbitrary and erroneous.

    • Why comply with US laws when one doesn't have to.

  • Big money (Score:3, Interesting)

    by TheFlu ( 213162 ) on Wednesday March 27, 2002 @12:48AM (#3233017) Homepage
    I thought the guys math was wrong when he said it would cost them $350,000 a year in fees, but after doing it myself, that seems about right (thanks The Fanfan for this equation from the old story).

    1600 listeners * 24 hrs/day * 96 perfs/hr = 3686400 = $737.28 per day

    That's $269,107 per year. I'm sure Soma's calculations more accurate than my own educated guesses above.
  • As General Manager for a college radio station [whrwfm.org] in upstate New York, we too have felt the pressure of maintaining an online presence. I've been getting contract after contract to sign with ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors, & Publishers ) who want to charge us royalties for the amount of hits and number of listens on our website. The radio station, on a limited budget already, pays royalties to ASCAP and BMI to just play songs on our airwaves, now they want more money for our online feed. Being the cheap SOB that I am, I wonder if it's really worth it to maintain an online feed for an extra $600 a year. That's $600 that could be going to new headphones, new microphones, new turntables, etc. Making your station available to the world sounds glamorous, but baby, does it ever come with a price.
  • I can understand their desire to maintain their copyrights. They have enough fronts to fight with the casual piracy with file sharing that was featured at the Grammys. (I can find a whole bunch of problems with that speech, but that's another post.) They need to cover the costs of running a business. A 14/100 cent royalty is irritating, but it wouldn't be nearly as bad if it had to be retroactive. If it could meet halfway and charge the royalty starting when the DMCA took effect, it would be more reasonal. Still a hassle to the smaller broadcasters, sure.

    On another note: it may help the DMCA's image if it cut the smaller stations a bit of slack. The stations can bring newer and more off-the-beaten-track music to listeners's attentions. They can find the music at the CD store and, in a round-about way, cover the fees. Assuming a price of $15, one CD could pay for about 107 songs playable on-air. This leniency can also make any anti-trust prosecutions that might crop up think twice, since the slack towards "the little guy" shows it's not out to crush the competition for the airwaves and playback rights.

    • Uh. It is retroactive to the point the DMCA was enacted. The fees agreed to at the end of February applied retroactively to 1998. CARP is now in the process of determining the fees from then to the present.

      The smaller stations already do get a break in the CARP recommendation. There are different rates for simultaneous broadcast users, non-profit broadcasters such as college radio and internet only broadcasters.

      I suggest you read up a bit more on CARP before making such basic erroneous statements. Nothing personal, but your comments have been addressed in nearly every article I have seen on this topic.

  • So do something about it.... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If software has a shitty license: don't use it, don't resell it, don't support it (or at least charge alot) and don't steal it.

    If music has a shitty license: don't listen to it, don't buy it, don't support it and don't steal it.

    Screw the music industry, make your own music -AND- don't let them control it. Screw every industry.
    • It sooooo doesn't work that way in any real scale. You keep on trying to find market solutions to an essentially political problem, and it will fail. Yes, markets are, on paper, nicer and more rational and more adaptive than political processes, but it just won't work that way for this sort of thing (IP) - the music industry has a recording and distribution infrastructure that makes it the 800 pound gorilla that it is, and music "product" isn't a commodity, in that if the music I want to listen to is caught up in the industry mechanisms, I can't go next door to "the competitor."

      Just what is "the competitor" for any given type of music, anyway? I probably listen to music in the context of friends and acquaintances who share knowledge and appreciation of it.

  • Interesting stance on the "perfect copy" thing (Score:4, Interesting)

    by 1in10 ( 250285 ) on Wednesday March 27, 2002 @01:08AM (#3233081)
    I found it interesting that it was said that internet radio and napster are different cases. I think that given the stand being taken is that the DMCA should only be concerned with perfect digital copies, and that mp3s are not perfect digital copies, it becomes a bit hard to seperate the two.

    I mean, either it's perfect or it's not - how close various lossy audio formats come to perfect is a matter of much debate and so I find it hard to see how you could impose any sort of distinction other than perfect or not perfect.

  • Survival in a pool of acid (Score:4, Informative)

    by hyrdra ( 260687 ) on Wednesday March 27, 2002 @01:13AM (#3233097) Homepage Journal
    I don't know about SomaFM, but there is another really great radio station called Wolf FM [wolffm.com] that stands to be wiped from the planet if CARP goes through.

    In brief, Wolf FM is a commercial radio station. They play ads and sell ads for their online radio. However, as Steve Wolf (the owner of Wolf FM and quite an incredible man) says running the service costs thousands of dollars per month *just* for the bandwidth. That's not even counting licensing fees.

    It's so bad in fact Wolf FM has resorted to asking for donations because companies are not advertising on online radio, even though the response rate per impression is exponentially higher than regular broadcast radio.

    This is quite serious for the growing and quite large community of Internet radio. Most broadcasters either use donated bandwidth or take the burden on themselves as a hobby, continually seeing a loss at the expense of operating a world-wide station.

    These stations can't live on compliments alone. They are in jeopardy everyday just because of the costs associated with delivering the content. What CARP would do is turn the Internet radio community into exactly what they are trying to prevent - the domain of pirates.

    Let's face it, when something costs more than it's actually worth, is in high demand, and is controlled by one source who doesn't bend to the rule of supply and demand, people will resort to other ways of getting it. Suddenly the lines between fair use and illegal copying get blurred, and this is how an industry fails -- or worse, consumer rights get taken away and further restricted (read: the DMCA).

    If CARP gets passed, we will see an influx of pirate and distributed services like the many p2p file sharing services. The reputable and legal online stations won't be able to survive and hence they will not be paying their broadcasting dues to organizations like BMI and ASCPI, who actually have moderate pricing that allows online broadcasters to exist.

    So the effect of all this will be the artists and distributors loosing money, while creating a brand new pirate industry.

    It's sad really, because there is a lot of talent in online radio today and it would be a shame if it all up and vanished, which is what will happen if CARP gets its way.
  • There's some really great internet radio out there these days.

    Check out http://yp.shoutcast.com/ if you haven't already.

    One of my favorites is college comedy talk radio, the one broadcast from indiana.edu, just choose comedy as the genre on the shoutcast page and it's usually several down from the top.

    Awesome stuff out there, lets not lose it!

    -Malakin

  • A long shot (Score:3, Insightful)

    by NatePWIII ( 126267 ) <nathan@wilkersonart.com> on Wednesday March 27, 2002 @02:03AM (#3233200) Homepage
    I give the new satellite radio stations a better chance of surviving than internet radio, the problem with internet radio is that it require too many underlying serious infrastructural support to actually work, jeez if I want to list to the radio (FM/AM) I can just buy a cheap receiver for a couple of bucks, put in some lithium batteries and I'm set for months, not Internet connections, Real Play, computer, 24/7 broadband etc...

    Lets face it, it's just too complicated that is the problem. Granted for some geeks like myself, who sit in front of there computers almost 18 hours out of any given day, it might make some sense, but people like myself probably only account for about 1.5% of the population.
    • Granted for some geeks like myself, who sit in front of there computers almost 18 hours out of any given day, it might make some sense, but people like myself probably only account for about 1.5% of the population.

      Yeah, but we are the 1.5% of the population with the highest salaries. I think it will work. Demographically, high end product ads will work better on internet radio than regular radio. My local FM rock station runs ads for manufacturing companies seeking to hire people, condoms, and low-income homes. I guess we don't fit their average listener.

    • the problem with internet radio is that it require too many underlying serious infrastructural support to actually work

      Who modded this 'insightful'? Internet radio works fine. It has for quite some time. Yes, it requires a lot of infrastructure, but it's easy enough to overcome as evidenced by the many successful Internet radio stations available.

      There is no problem with Internet radio. It's a niche market but it does have a market and it is very viable. The problem is these controlling bastards who want to shut it down - honestly, do they really expect anyone to pay $350k+ per year to broadcast online? They know damn well this will put Internet radio to death and that's exactly what they want. When people can listen to non-RIAA controlled radio stations, they're going to start buying non-RIAA music, and eventually Internet radio will overtake commercial radio. When that happens, artists will have zero need for the recording industry.

      Don't kid yourselves: This is not about money. This is not about copyright. It's about CONTROL. It's about ensuring that you only listen to what the people in power want you to listen to. They don't want you to hear music that they don't own, because you might decide it's better than the trite shit that they want you to hear and that would be bad for them.

  • about 3 weeks ago. Very sad. Good ideas being squashed by big business.
  • From what I recall, since the FCC rules on ownership were relaxed a few years ago, almost half of all the radio stations in the US are owned by just two companies. This has caused a homogenization of broadcast radio that makes alternative outlets like the internet that much more desirable. In the home or office, internet radio can compete directly against broadcast without the cost of an FCC licenses. Scary to those who spend millions for those licenses.

    I'm curious, does anyone know where Clear Channel and the other big radio companies stand on this issue? I get the feeling they'd be all for charging internet radio up that yazoo...
  • The DMCA will certianly kill Internet Radio stations that play copyrighted music.

    But...what about Internet Radio stations that play copyfree or copy left music ?

    If I am forbidden to share copyrighted material on the internet in anyway shape or form, then I'll gladly oblige, the DMCA and it's creators, I'll indulge my sences and satisfy my needs with copyfree or copyleft material.

    I'll read material posted freely on the internet .

    I shall listen to music created by artists that have not signed deals with the powermad Music industry.

    I'll watch films and video produced by copyfree artists on the internet.

    And I won't spend a dime on copyrighted materials ever again.

    And one day neither will you.

    Because one day there won't be ANY copyrighted material available on the internet, AND WE WON'T MISS IT A BIT!

  • There's plenty of free content out there... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by aquarian ( 134728 ) on Wednesday March 27, 2002 @02:16AM (#3233231)
    There's plenty of free content out there, so why all the fuss? Who says internet radio stations have to play stuff owned by record labels, etc? There are plenty of bands, and even labels, who would gladly give away their stuff for free. Then there's public domain stuff for which the copyrights have expired. Not to mention original material. Quit yer bitchin' and just do it.
    • True enough, but how do internet broadcasters recoup the cost of their bandwidth?
    • The problem is finding it. Most bands are unbelievably obscure, and their material is not easy to find. Worse, when you find some material you have to research it a lot to discover if it's truely free or if you will become an evildoer pirate by downloading it (this is frequently not clear, sometimes the bands don't even realize that they aren't allowed to put their music online because they didn't read that contract they signed 5 years ago that's doing nothing for them).

      Unless you like Gregorian Chants don't expect much must to enter the public domain for a long long time. Your local lobbyist will make sure of that.
      • If you're no good at finding it, you don't belong in the business.
        • Who's talking about the business. I'm talking about the consumers. If everybody in the business knows that Band Foo is wonderful, but they still have nothing but word of mouth (on the other side of the country/planet) to go on, chances are you'll never hear about them. This is where the internet and services like Napster could really shine, but they keep being shut down before people come up with truely innovative ways to utilize the huge base of music.
  • How's about we ask Al Gore to shut down the Internet while we watch these DMCA/SSSCA/etc vanish into nothingness. Meanwhile, we'd be running loose on our own Wifi-based supernet, streaming mp3's to hell and back, like the good old days back when we all used WinPlay3 and mpg123 was just a slow flaky bastardized caffeine residue on someone's hard drive.

    Or we could just butt heads together and figure out an effective way to fight back (that excludes petitions, they never do shit).

    "Would you like to play a game of Global Anti-fascist war ?"
  • I know of one station manager in LA who's streaming, but won't post the archives of his most popular shows. He's afraid it will compete with the on-air broadcast. Kind of a no-Tivo policy.

  • Outsource! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by tanveer1979 ( 530624 ) on Wednesday March 27, 2002 @02:47AM (#3233286) Homepage Journal
    Well Well I think such laws are america centric. what if radio stations open shop in other countries which have different laws? Is there any juristdiction about this in america which can block parts of the world on internet from being viewed by americans?
    • > Is there any juristdiction about this in america which can block parts of the world on internet from being viewed by americans?

      They'll probably propose a law like that in a few months, in order to "protect" us from "terrorist propoganda sites" and "terrorist radio."
    • We have offshore tax havens, why not offshore RIAA/MPAA/DMCA havens? What's to stop a broadcaster in Russia or China from broadcasting American content to Americans?
  • Day after day, more and more folks here sit and whine about the various "anti-tech" laws and how the rights of the "little guy" are being trampled.

    There are (at least) two ways to start doing something about this.

    1) become lawyers. IP law and Patent law are in desperate need of folks that have at least a basic understanding of technology.

    2) start your own anti-marketing campaigns and product boycotts. This will probably fail since most of you folks that vigorously complained about the blizzard bnetd stuff will probably be buying the upcoming blizzard products and this is indicative of our subculture.

    You could always just post here and complain though, whatever works for you.

    Cheers,
  • As the DMCA is an American Law, what would happen if they distribute the servers over different nations and continents?

    I listen to Digitally Imported [www.di.fm] Radio at home, school, work, and I know they have multiple servers. Although the majority of them seem to come from europe, etc, what are the ramifications as to the charges if they are not US-Based non-profit organizations/servers?

    I know DI is asking for monetary and bandwidth contributions, as their bandwidth is a real b*tch.
    On average -- 2000 users @ 16KBps = 31MBps.

    I see some server-to-server bandwidth sharing ala p2p, as tonnes of individual servers maybe take 100 or so users. Splits the bandwidth over multiple hosts and multiple locations, and can't be shut down very easily. We're talking something Morpheus-like.

    Any thoughts?
    • As the DMCA is an American Law, what would happen if they distribute the servers over different nations and continents?

      The US will lean on the rest of the world to pass similar laws in the name of "globalization" and "harmonization". They will also lean on their allies to do so out of "friendship". Against any militarily weak nation they could threaten military action. (The covert CIA kind, rather the the B52 bombers on CNN kind though.)

      Although the majority of them seem to come from europe, etc, what are the ramifications as to the charges if they are not US-Based non-profit organizations/servers?

      What probably matters is not if these organisations make a profit or not. But if there is a potential that they might reduce the profits of US "high^H^H^H^Hcorporate citizens".

      I see some server-to-server bandwidth sharing ala p2p, as tonnes of individual servers maybe take 100 or so users. Splits the bandwidth over multiple hosts and multiple locations, and can't be shut down very easily. We're talking something Morpheus-like.

      You need to do this server switching without obvious glitches and you need some way to distribute to the servers...
  • This is kind of off topic, but you know, in truth I only listen to normal radio in the car. I wonder, with the increase of cars sporting built in computers/internet, will internet radio find a larger audience? How difficult would it be to build a modem with a soundcard and a crappy LCD panel designed specifically for internet radio? Imagine being able to listen to the same station as you drive from Boston to LA.
  • Am I missing something, or isn't one way around the excessive fee structure imposed by the industry is for individual artists and labels to release CDs and other MP3s with license terms that specifically EXCLUDE payment to the RIAA collection agency?

    IE:
    This music is released under the fair play broadcast license. Under this license, internet radio broadcast fees will be paid at the same rate as regular broadcast fees, with the exception that fees must be paid to the artist via (insert some non-profit group). This license specifically excludes (insert RIAA collection agency) as an agent of collection for royalty paments.

    Now, after specifying these license terms, these artists and albums then register their music on (insert non-profit group website) so that internet broadcasters can have a searchable index of music to pick from and promote. Note that this is different from the Open Source Music license - it just tells the RIAA goons to get lost, no other rights are modified or given up. Thus, each copyright holder can specify a license overrules the RIAA mandated rates, with the end result that the broadcast law then CEASES TO MATTER, except to the labels who don't get played 'cause they're too damn greedy.

    On that note, does anyone know if Shoutcast is going to support "buy" links in their streaming server software? It would really help if we could click a "buy" link on someone's shoutcast server when we hear something we like, that links us to a online MP3 store, or an online CD link.
  • many CD's actually:

    Underworld, Tosca, Sounds from the Ground, Kruder & Dorfmeister, Boards of Canada

    The last time I bought music was like 8 years ago.
    These are groups that don't get air time ANYWHERE that I know of. Surely many other people are buying their music BECAUSE of somaFM. My point is that these groups should be supporting (and I bet they would) somaFM's groove salad etc. because it's the only way they become known.

    fuck your local radio stations. I can't even listen to the radio anymore.

    -metric

  • Not feasible without wide deployment of multicast (Score:3, Informative)

    by Arrgh ( 9406 ) on Wednesday March 27, 2002 @06:03AM (#3233622) Homepage Journal
    Part of what makes RF radio stations economical--and even occasionally profitable--is that the marginal cost of providing the broadcast service to an additional listener is essentially nil, modulo geographic saturation and transmitter power.

    Today's streaming media services, however, incur a high marginal cost per additional listener--cost scales linearly with the number of listeners. There have been several attempts (Akamai, RBN) to get listeners to use a "nearby" transmitter, but these only flatten the cost-per-additional-listener line a bit by saving money close to the originating transmitter.

    The Internet evolved a more bandwidth- and cost-efficient distribution model years ago in the form of multicast, but it was never widely implemented in enough of the places where it would have made a difference--backbones, routers, terminal servers, DSLAMs, cable companies, etc.

    The idea is that a multicast packet stream should have a very small bandwidth footprint for the most expensive parts of the trip from transmitter to the receivers, only needing to be duplicated at the last few legs of the trip, where receivers aren't on the same physical network.

    IOW, no matter how many of an ISP's customers are listening to a multicast stream, the ISP only has to transfer the packets from the expensive Internet once, and then make sure they get routed down the cheaper links to those customers who are listening.

    Now that NAT is becoming more and more widespread, the situation doesn't look good--but hopefully IPv6 will kill NAT, and improve the multicast situation by opening up a vastly larger range of multicast addresses, and therefore a larger maximum number of simultaneous multicast connections.

    Some fun links:

    An Introduction to IP Multicast Routing [google.com] (from Google cache, the site seems to be down)

    Some stuff from Cisco [cisco.com]

    RFC2375: IPv6 Multicast Address Assignments [faqs.org]

    IPv6 Multicast Standards [ipv6forum.com]
  • In theory it sounds good but its not entirely a good idea [yet] since the required bandwidth doesn't exist. Lets put asside stupid laws that prevent the broadcast for a second, in my town there are a few "pop/rock/modern" music stations. Each puts out at least 50kW so chances are they have around 20,000 listeners each a day.

    If this is wideband audio at a minimum of 96kbps then that is 234 megabyte/sec of traffic per station or 1.8 gbit/sec. The average co-location bandwidth is 100Mbit/sec so you'd need 18 of them just to keep up. Thats seriously expensive.

    If everyone listening to a FM broadcast suddenly jumped onto the net it would be disasterous to say the least.

    In otherwords I'd say netradio has bigger things to worry about than the DMCA.

    Tom

  • I know it may sound flamebait, but I'll say what I think.

    • We all know the DMCA is bad, but this seems to be a particularly good example of where its broad nature is curbing reasonable web uses.

    What do you mean whith but? DMCA IS bad, dot, nothing more. This kind of legal freak is the proof of current lazyness of american media industry, that needs to limitate citizens freedom in order to avoid the development of new bussiness rules to adapt itself to the new digital era.

    Why can't they do just like anyother industry (or even citizens)? Adapt to the new reality, instead of trying to build a reality more confortable. We all do this!

    Internet radios are the future of music broadcast, as simple as it gets. Always directed to the right public, and nothing more then this. All you need is to advertise and people will know exactly who you are.

    I confess that I'll be very disapointed if DMCA shuts down all this freedom of choice.

  • If CARP becomes reality another example of a great net radio station, CT Ultra Radio, would likely be in danger of going off the air. This is NOT a good thing.

    CTUltraRadio [ctultraradio.com]

  • If you all think that these laws just happened to come together to form something inherently evil, you're wrong. This sure seems like a concerted effort to me. Consider this:

    * 1996 Telecommunications act makes it possible for radio stations to consolidate.

    The effect of this is that in 6 years, 2 large companies own 50% of the radio stations in the country, multiple stations in many markets. And this percentage grows every day. These stations, in order to consolidate operations, have common playlists, and some even broadcast canned programming at night, when advertising dollars are weaker. The consolidation is done to allow the stations to attract national advertising campaigns. It also gives the RIAA a peer to talk with.

    In some cases these stations are owned by media conglomerates which also own record labels (Viacom). This fits into the Master Plan -- produce music, get it played on MTV, publicize it in the magazines, get the bands featured on TV shows, and finally play them on the radio. If the music isn't owned by you, only play it if it becomes a major hit.

    With this consolidation, the quality of radio plummets. Normally market forces would kick in and upstarts would be created to fill the creative void, giving consumers what they want. But the startup costs for radio stations are immense, and there are limited frequencies. It is not possible for competition to fill the void as quickly as it has been created.

    Now the internet comes along and starts to fill the void. If you aren't happy with a radio station in your market, you can listen to a station in a different market. All radio has the potential to become national. Smaller radio stations who play a nice variety of music like this development; if they can prove that they're getting a large national audience, they can attract national advertisers (instead of the local used car lots).

    The big radio station companies can't be too happy about this. They have the potential to be scooped by the little guy again. Competition only means headaches for them.

    * DCMA/CARP is born. It effectively places huge costs upon people trying to broadcast music on the internet. These costs can't possibly be recouped -- they are higher than costs put on broadcast stations, and they are in addition to the publisher fees that broadcast stations pay.

    Oddly enough, the money goes to the record companies (not to the artists), giving the large conglomerates a huge advantage, because they're going to be paying themselves...

    This sounds like anti-trust at its finest. The large media companies become 1000-pound gorillias primarily through laws passed through Congress, and these laws, although written generically, require payments which wind up in the pocket of the gorillas. So the gorillas get fatter and the small companies get bled dry.

    The laws that have been created do exactly what they were intended to do -- they squash the little guys who have the potential to upset the apple card, they lock up the content with the large media conglomerates (who will just get larger), and they reduce the choices of the consumer (which cuts costs for them, because if you have to choose between Britney Spears and 100 other artists, chances are you won't choose Britney, but if your choice is between Britney and 4 other artists, you have a 20% chance of choosing Britney).

    I wouldn't be surprised if, when the conglomerates own most of the stations in the country, that they introduce these new fees onto radio, with the claim that "the internet has these fees, why shouldn't broadcast radio", effectively locking the music market for good.

    And this is all paid for by us. We pay extra money so that the conglomerates can bribe the Government.

    Ralph

  • A CARP by any other name still smells like ... (Score:3, Funny)

    by sporktoast ( 246027 ) on Wednesday March 27, 2002 @10:24AM (#3234189) Homepage

    The
    Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel, a body appointed by the U.S. Copyright Office, ruled on Feb. 20 that under the DMCA, [...]
    Now really, how disingenuous! Are they aribtrating copyrights? NO. The terms of the copyrights are already set in law. What they are arbitrating is the royalties to be paid on copyrighted material.
    But I guess they wouldn't want to just come right out and call it what we all know it actually is.

    CRAP.

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