Senate Committee Holds Webcasting Hearing 58
jonathanjo writes "Yesterday (5/15/02) the US Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing titled: "Copyright Royalties: Where is the Right Spot On The Dial For Webcasting." This was a review of the work of CARP, the Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel, the group formed by the DMCA that has closed down webstreaming for many independent radio stations with new high fees and exhaustive reporting requirements. Representatives from RIAA, Digital Media Association, Arbitron, Real Networks, and Yahoo gave testimony, as well as people representing two independent Vermont webcasters, and the American Federation Of Television and Radio Artists. Senator Patrick Leahy's (D-VT) testimony was surprisingly sympathetic to small webcasters (especially by inviting two from his state to speak). Orrin Hatch gave the expected pro-DMCA boilerplate."
From Leahy's Speech: (Score:3, Interesting)
You know, I'm glad someone said it...
The best thing the Librarian of Congress could do would be to reject the proprosal, and then deal with the inevitable appeals in Federal Court from the RIAA. Let's all keep our fingers crossed. (when they aren't busy dialing our Congressmen!)
Save Internet Radio (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Save Internet Radio (Score:2)
Orrin Hatch? (Score:2)
Re:Orrin Hatch? (Score:3, Insightful)
People exchanging music suddenly became hardened criminals sitting in the darkness behind a computer screen plotting the overthrow of the capitalist recording companies. The way these revolutionaries are potrayed I'm not sure what I'd do if I ever met one in a dark alley. Would I run? Would I be afraid of this dark nemesis of intellectual property rights? Are they the spawn of evil that the RIAA and MPAA has made people out to be? What about all the flagrant copyright violators who buy VCRs and tape programs for their personal archive of movies and shows they like? Do these people walk the dark path of corruption? How can we return these souls to the light?
Case in point: I was listening to Opie and Anthony a few days ago and they had some joker from Metallica on. Normally I would change the channel since the group sucks and I have boycotted them anyway, but I found it intriguing what he was saying. He actually said it was sharing to send out tapes to 2000 of your friends.. that's fine. If you put it on the Internet however that is "stealing" (in his words). Where is the point of no return? I can give away your music for free as long as I get to know the people? How about if I'm swapping mp3 collections with friends from IRC? Is that fine? Where does the line get drawn? These luddites will eventually get old and die away, but hopefully they won't have a chance to corrupt musicians from the next generation who must understand they need to embrace technology and not shun it to succeed.
Wow, they actually invited the other guys (Score:2)
Cool, something good may actually come of this.
This is a result of poltical pressure... (Score:4, Informative)
Last Thursday, before the Roundtable at the Library of Congress on the CARP recordkeeping rules, there was a "Hill Walk" organized by Kevin Shively of Beethoven.com [beethoven.com] and other small webcasters, who went to the Capitol and meet with legislators and their staffers to explain their position. Earlier, on May 1, the same group organized the "day of silence" on Internet radio, to show the result if the situation wasn't changed. This hearing was one result from this politcal campaign.
More information about this grass-roots effort can be found at SaveInternetRadio.com [saveinternetradio.com], and some of the best coverage is in the Radio and Internet Newsletter [kurthanson.com].
Info Galor! (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.kurthanson.com/ [kurthanson.com] -- RAIN is a trade publication for the Internet Radio industry. This is an excellent site to keep tabs on how the campaign is going to stop these fees and reporting requirements.
http://broadcastpromotions.net/carp/ [broadcastpromotions.net] -- This site allows you to send faxes through their web site and directly to the person in Washington that you should be bugging.
The CARP proposal, if passed, will take effect on or about May 21, 2002.
Re:Info Galor! (Score:1)
I looked around the site but could not find anyway to contact the owner of the site. Do you know how I can let them know to update this info?
Thanks.
court cases (Score:1)
Re:court cases (Score:1, Interesting)
Yes and no. There are some examples of cases like this (the Australasian Performing Rights Association took on Telstra over royalties for on-hold music for instance), but do you hear about anything that goes on outside the US?
Hatch's pro-artist, pro-consumer legislation (Score:1, Interesting)
1) artists ought to be able to exploit or benefit from works that are not being exploited by the labels that currently hold the copyright, such as out of print works.
2) artists ought be paid their online revenues directly and those revenues should not be unfairly discounted because of traditional, but inapplicable, offsets.
3) artists should be able to keep their own online identifiers, their domain names, so they can more directly control their relationship with their fans online.
4) we need to explore how to make copyright ownership information available through the Copyright Office more accessible and usable through the Internet.
5) we must help ensure that market power in content is not unfairly aggregated to the detriment of other legitimate distributors of online music who seek fair licensing opportunities.
Sen. Hatch (Score:2, Funny)
Tides of changes (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Tides of changes (Score:2)
There are plenty of possible revenue streams out there for those willing to think about the problem. Courtney Love's making plenty of lawyers a lot richer, but "sue the record company" as a business-model is not going to get her any more income. The RIAA's generals want to fight the war-before-last, and musicians will eventually find out the hard way how dumb that is, IMO...
JMR
(These opinions are SOLELY mine, nobody else seems to want 'em anyway.)
Re:Tides of changes (Score:2)
You have very good points and I agree with them.
What I fear, however, is that it will be difficult to enlist established artists that have been accustomed to feeding at the trough that RIAA has created. No matter that the signed artist only gets a small fraction of what the recording label collects, the total price of a CD tells you in no uncertain terms that the old distribution network was raping the consumer for profit margins far beyond what the media itself cost. (I know, I know, they'll tell me that advertisements aren't cheap, but I won't buy that line all the way to the bank.)
I think there's a good analogy to be made with alcohol and tobacco distribution. Those products command premiums due to taxes and various other restrictions on their sale and distribution. But, if you've noticed, if those extra costs get to a certain point above what they can be made for, then people will seek to circumvent the distribution network, buy cigarettes on a reservation or in North Carolina, etc.
By virtue of the Internet, the cost of making and distributing music has decreased drastically below the CD model. Old artists, accustomed to getting several million dollars from the recording labels, won't want to participate in the new scheme unless the old scheme dries up.
What really needs to be done is for new artists to be enlisted in an Internet distribution scheme that actually makes them some money. That's all.
Re:Tides of changes (Score:2, Insightful)
Unfortunately, however well-intentioned the thought is, the reality is that most musicians would not realize any additional income, unless you have change for a penny. How much do you think consumers are going to pay either directly or indirectly? Divide that by the number of artists who will think they are entitled to be paid. Small number. Very.
Such a company would be faced with the same (greater?) obstacles as ASCAP/BMI/SESAC with respect to radioplay.
"Online distribution/radio HAS to be cheaper than retail channels. Common sense says so."
How so? Sure, the raw cost of goods sold is cheaper (i.e. little or no manufacturing costs), but why would the promotional costs (to both radio and retail) necessarilly be cheaper online? If anything, such costs might actually be significantly greater given the relatively much smaller barrier to entry for the hacks. IT is not cheap to rise above the din of background noise.
If the solutions were so self-evident, I am sure somebody would have successfully exploited them.
Brootal
Re:Tides of changes (Score:2)
Years ago it required quite a few people and lots of money to put together a record. Now anyone can put together something that has a good sound if they have talent.
I don't think the RIAA represents anywhere close to 90% of the artists out there. For example there are about 3000 bands in Melbourne Austraila that can put together an album per year (according to entries from a local radio station). If the US has as many bands/person there should be nearly 300,000 bands that produce at least one album per year. Consider that people like Bing Crosby made nearly 33 songs per year and popular bands tend to record 8 to 16 songs a year. So how do I get access to thouse 2.5 million songs that were recorded last year? Current album sales in the US are around 3/4 billion units per year but most of thouse are the top 40 albums.
You must admit... (Score:1)
Compelling testimony from Arbitron (Score:2, Informative)
If a top-rated radio station in NY had an online listening audience the size of their on-air audience, they would pay $15 million in license fees, or over 25% of their advertising revenue. Similarly, for the entire radio industry, the cost would be $2.4 billion, or %13 of total revenue.
He plainly states that most existing radio stations could not afford to webcast under those conditions, much less any Internet-only stations, whose costs would be double that amount. He even covers the variety of music that is not available on commercial radio that would not be broadcast if web radio were to disappear. If this doesn't convince the Libarian of Congress that the CARP royalty rates are way out of line, then nothing will.
Senator Hatch (Score:1)
The root of the problem is obvious (Score:2)
Re:Certainly an appropriate acronym (Score:2)
Re:Certainly an appropriate acronym (Score:2)
KPIG (Score:3, Interesting)
Contact your Senator and Congressperson (Score:3, Informative)
Ok... this is bad... (Score:2)
think I've had enough starwars now, time to return to reality.
-Restil
More interesting than this specific debate... (Score:3, Insightful)
This doesn't necessarily mean that the politicians personally care about this issue. It is more likely to mean that we are seeing the birth of politics on the Internet. The independents are gaining a voice because they are more effectively rallying support for thier cause than the traditional lobbiests.
I'm happy about this.
What I'm not happy about is that once this process is understood by the majors, the same folks we dislike because they shut us out of pollitical processes today will be the ones controlling the debate on the Internet.
Be aware of this.
CARP's Royalty Issues.. (Score:1)
who don't play any american music. We do however play
some english versions of the same tunes, and we do know that some of it is licensed in the U.S. Most recently, Disney picked up 'Spirited Away'. How would
this affect Japan-A-Radio?
Japan-A-Radio plays the best in Japanese Pop and Japanese Anime Music from Movies, TV Series, and more. you can find it at: http://www.japanaradio.com
Why is music a special case? (Score:2)
We don't have "compulsory licenses" for novels, poetry, software, etc, do we? Yet somehow broadcasters (whether radio waves or internet, I don't care) think they should be allowed to get licenses to redistribute whatever they want to, without having to negotiate terms or jump through any hoops.
Can someone explain to me why music is different? Are music broadcasters abusing the system or are people who want to share other non-music copyrightable stuff getting screwed?
I wonder what some people around here would think, if Microsoft wanted to share your software with (sell your stuff to) their customers, by paying a small fee for a compulsory license instead of having to agree to terms of your choosing, such as those in the GPL.
Re:Why is music a special case? (Score:1)
Sure we do. They're called "libraries".
Re:Why is music a special case? (Score:1)
Amateurs and Professionals (Score:3, Interesting)
So, why not base Internet royalties on the size of the audience, or perhaps the number of simultaneous streams a broadcaster can handle?
This would allow the larger broadcasters to pay the larger royalties and hopefully allow the hobbyists to pursue their hobby without it bankrupting them.
Surely the RIAA must realize that they can make more money from small payments from a lot of source than from big payments from two or three sources. Unless this is all about power, which is entirely possible, in which case nothing short of shutting down everyone who isn't buddy-buddy with them will make them happy.
It's not business, it's businessmen (Score:1)
While what you say is true it's not always the way decisions are made. I worked for some years at the HQ of a Fortune 100 company. I will never forget explaining to a VP how the method we were using cost the stakeholders more than was necessary and having her explain to me that the method we were using came out of another department's budget. Her (and my) bonus was based on how we spent our department budget.
If a record executive has decided that N'SUCK is will make x profit given n promotion dollars it is not in his interest to let other factors influence the outcome.
Number of comments on this issue is telling. (Score:2, Interesting)
You can make a difference (Score:2, Informative)
This note really indicates that you can make a difference -- if only you take action. Bear in mind that some/most/all Slashdotters know more about the reality of internet radio than the LOC. This is probably also the case for most highly technical issues.
You will have to guess which of the 39 commenters I am, but I note with some satisfaction that the reply comments [copyright.gov] from the RIAA indicated that they read my initial comments, and they couldn't figure out how to respond to one of the issues raised.
Time for us to do something... (Score:2)
A small lobbying group forms to represent the interests of the consumer against the major media companies and their representatives (RIAA/MPAA/etc). Everyone who can sends in at least $10 or so by check, money order, cash, whatever. Assuming we get no other funding and no one sends more than $10, we should end up with roughly $1million in total. (assuming not even half of the slashdot readers send in). Obviously, this is nothing compared to the 60 and 70 million dollars that the entertainment industry puts in the pockets of politicians, so we take a more targeted approach. We pick the most vocal ally of anti-consumer/pro-entertainment industry legislation (offhand, I'd say Hollings) and target their constituents with ads all over the TV and radio. Every dirty trick and rotten bill he puts forth, we sensationalize the hell out of it, then put it right in front of the people deciding whether they're re-elected. ("Your senator wants to make sure you can't even listen to your own CD on your computer!"
That's my basic idea, if anyone wants to refine it, post a reply. This is a real way we can get something done for a change, and a small amount of money put forth isn't going to kill any of us. Even if it fails completely, you're out $10; so what? If it succeeds, you'll have been a part of something great. Anyone feel like putting together a full proposal with a timetable and tangeable steps at putting this in place? Feel free to post. This isn't just a US problem, the world needs to wake up from this dream that a corrupt entertainment industry can have its problems solved by legislating away rights supposedly guarenteed to us. It's time we did something about it.