Congress Passes SWSA 183
signer writes "Congress has passed the Small Webcaster Settlement Act (House of Representatives link). Webcasters have until December 15th to negotiate Percentage-of-Revenue royalty payments, and they have the option of changing their status to non-profit and gaining a delay until June 30, 2003 to pay owed royalties from previous years. RAIN (www.kurthanson.com) has details."
Annual minimum royalty (Score:2, Interesting)
IS this settlement good or bad for the webcasters?
There is an annual minimum royalty of $500, which means that the smallest of small webcasters may not be able to afford it.
Re:The Real Question is? (Score:2, Interesting)
How does this effect College radio? (Score:3, Interesting)
A lot of alumni from my alma mater were upset when our radio station stopped webcasting. That was a MAJOR connection for us. Where will students/administration go to get answers? Will it be affordable (less than 4 digits)?
-Foo
Re:There's nothing wrong with this bill (Score:2, Interesting)
Most people playing this music aren't looking at profit but are playing music for the sake of music. Those that use "non-profit" status to try and slip by this are going to run head-long into the IRS rules on NPOs -- and they're NOT forgiving of organizations that try to use NPO status as a "cover."
I've always wondered (Score:4, Interesting)
Thanks,
I'm Done (Score:3, Interesting)
The sad thing for the RIAA is, that I really used to buy quite a lot of cds. By the time graduated high school I had nearly 100, and this mostly bought out of my own cash. Even as a poor colloege student I always buy my favorite bands cd's, but not anymore. Sad really, looks like I'll never own that new Pearl Jam. Oh well, I'll support the band by continuing to go see concerts and buying t-shirts and posters. The RIAA will never see another dime of my hard earned money.
What about free streams? (Score:2, Interesting)
So what does this mean for me? If my revenues are zero, do I owe zero? A lot of the stuff I'd be playing would be from obscure artists who would likely not get a PENNY from RIAA extor^H^H^H^H^Hroyalties anyway.
Or is there a mandatory minimum, as I remember reading of in previous proposals?
What about classical stations? (Score:3, Interesting)
The music companies might put out an argument "Well, since we sell Beethoven and Bach CDs, you owe us", but realistically, what do you guys think will happen to those who only play music too old to be copyrighted (at least, until Congress ups the copyright time limits retroactively again
What the hell? (Score:4, Interesting)
congress - bah! (Score:3, Interesting)
Take insurance for example - they can make it a law that you must actually carry insurance - but they cant make a law telling me how much i have to pay for it (although they should regulate the prices due to the fact that we are forced to carry a product sold by a private company)
Just because they *can* pass crap like this doesn *not* make it right.
This country is so ass-backwards these days I am amazed at the things that congress get away with without any repremands.