Internet Radio In Danger of Extinction in United States 229
An anonymous reader passed us a link to a Forbes article discussing dire news for fans of Internet radio. Yesterday afternoon saw online broadcasters, everyone from giants like Clear Channel and National Public Radio to small-fry internet concerns, arguing their case before the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB). The CRB's March 2nd decision to increase the fees associated with online music broadcasting will have harsh repercussions for those who engage in the activity, the panel was told. "Under a previous arrangement, which expired at the end of 2005, broadcasters and online companies such as Yahoo Inc. and Time Warner Inc.'s AOL unit could pay royalties based on estimates of how many songs were played over a given period of time, or a 'tuning hour,' as opposed to counting every single song ... [They] also asked the judges to clarify a $500 annual fee per broadcasting channel, saying that with some online companies offering many thousands of listening options, counting each one as a separate channel could lead to huge fees for online broadcasters." There was also a previous provision for smaller companies that allowed them to pay less, something the March 2 decision did away with; in the view of the royalty holders, advertising more than pays for these fees, and they're ready for higher payments.
ditch corporate music (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:ditch corporate music (Score:5, Insightful)
Because of their arrogance the music industry wil now have 0 revenue where before it could get something.
Re:ditch corporate music (Score:5, Insightful)
I wish that were true. Sadly not enough people are motivated enough to make anything near that reality possible. Plus the RIAA has their hooks in many different industries now (blank media for one). How many people do you know personally that actually say "I'm making an effort to no longer support the RIAA"? I don't know any, sadly. I think I'm the only person I know that tries to spend my money on music not controlled by them and even that is impossible to do all the time.
While I think the steps they are taking is having an effect on the public, I don't see it killing their profits.
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Until music is sold without DRM in mp3/flac form for reasonable prices people will continue to download and nobody will buy cds. Unfortunatley (for them) RIAA & friends dont want to sell mp3/flacs without DRM. Therefore they are digging their own graves a little more every day.
One day even these dinosaurs will have to fac
Re:ditch corporate music (Score:4, Insightful)
I hate to break it to you, but plenty of people are still buying CDs.
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While there will probably always be some market for cds, if mp3s were sold the same way (maybe $1 when they first come out, and then 10 cents cheaper every x months) everyone would buy mp3s instead. Better still if you can offer a subscription service fo
Re:ditch corporate music (Score:5, Insightful)
If everyone is only buying the songs they like, it sends a drastic message: We won't pay for crap. Instead of an artist releasing 20 tracks a year, they could release half a dozen extremely high quality, worthwhile songs, and hopefully make the same -- or more -- revenue (since they don't need to make 11 filler tracks).
The RIAA doesn't like that model, though. It lets tiny garage bands into the same market with a 10MB file, there's no massive production, shipping, and marketing costs required. The RIAA wants to continue deciding which bands succeed and which do not -- it is hard to convince a puppetmaster to give up puppeting.
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Yeah, but see, I won't buy *any* CD if it's crap -- RIAA or otherwise. My principle has always been to buy the CD for the whole album if it's good, never for a track or two.
Careful With Your Blanket Statements (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps that has been your experience. Mine has been considerably different. I've currently got about 600 "real" CD's (I did a purge about 10 years ago, otherwise it'd be about 1000), and I'm willing to wager that, on at least three quarters of these albums, more than half of the tracks are much better than mediocre.
Then again, I don't buy CD's willy-nilly just because I heard one song I liked on the radio. Look hard enough and you find thirty second clips for nearly all albums somewhere online.
You might buy crap albums, but just because you do doesn't mean all albums are "engineered" that way. Like there's a group out there that tells bands, "Okay, now, we're up to three good songs - radio engineering standards dictate that you half-ass it for the rest of the tracks."
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This is not to say that the other songs on the CD aren't good. Analogy: When you go to an art museum to see the Leonardo da Vinci exhibit, you don't dwell on his lesser known works, you head right to the Mona Lisa. Most people don't care about his
Re:Careful With Your Blanket Statements (Score:5, Insightful)
As an "enlightened music listener" you should be MORE likely to examine the lesser known works. Otherwise you're not enlightened - you're a sheep, just like the masses, going wherever you're pointed. Enlightened appreciators will look at the sketches because art is progression.
I've been a musician for 25 years (guitar primarily, with classical training and jazz aspirations), and I, too, would consider myself an enlightened listener. It's a matter of looking for the gems. I've ordered 36 albums this past calendar year from overseas (I'm in Canada) because the stuff typically on the shelves here doesn't draw me strongly. If you put in the time, you'll find PLENTY of great albums.
Identification problem (Score:3, Insightful)
The nice thing about the MP3 model is it only rewards songs that are worth it. Anyone who has bought CDs knows each CD is engineered to have 2-3 good tracks and the rest as mediocre filler songs. The big songs are what they advertise and publicize via concerts, radio, movie soundtracks, etc. The filler take much less money to produce.
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If everyone is only buying the songs they like, it sends a drastic message: We won't pay for crap. Instead of an artist releasing 20 tracks a year, they could release half a dozen extremely high quality, worthwhile songs, and hopefully make the same -- or more -- revenue (since they don't need to make 11 filler tracks).
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The problem with this statement is that when you ask a band before an album is released which songs are the 'real good ones' they will list a lot of songs that the public ends up seeing as 'filler'. They just can't tell. After they work on it, struggle with it, and create it out of nothing it becomes 'their baby' and they can't see it with the public's generic eyes. Look up a list of B sides that are huge hits and see how many of the A sides you can't remember. It is surprising!
It is good that you can pu
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Truer words have not been
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What you are saying is true for bands from large music companies.
OTH, a regional band in my area named Blue October's CD's are almost like a compilation of greatest hits. Maybe it's because they are still fresh/young and have something to say. I know they love their music enough for the lead singer to come out on a broken leg to sing despite being in obvious pain.
It's tough- I was exposed to them through copies of their music ( a friend wanted me to go to a concert so burned me a CD
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Not necessarily. Many of us still buy CD's because the quality of sound is greater than the lossless mp3's for sale. If they sold lossless, like flac.....then I'd be in line to buy online music, but, until then, I'll prefer to buy CD's....or listen to the odd samples I find on the lossless USENET groups out
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By all means, if you enjoy music support the artist. I know I do
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That might have been true, about 20+ years ago, when MTV still actually played music....
esp. if minimum payment (Score:4, Informative)
"Radio Broadcasters propose that music-formatted stations pay a fee ranging from as little as $500 per annum for small stations in low revenue ranked markets to as much as $8,000 per annum for large stations in high revenue ranked markets"
The term "Creative Commons" is not grep'd in the document so I assume it didn't come up.
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You'd think the industry would recognize the fact that the Internet is where more and more people are actually choosing and buying their music nowadays, and would avoid crapping on Internet-based music fans... but then again, this is the bloated and cluel
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David Byrne [nytimes.com] agrees with you -- he believes that thanks to the Internet, artists don't need the music labels as much anymore, which means if the RIAA wants to stick around, it better find a way to adapt to the times.
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The RIAA has very little to do with this. It's ASCAP who collect royalties.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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The article says nothing of the sort, and you have provided no sources to back-up your claim.
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The artists love it too. I've had se
Classic Radio (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Classic Radio (Score:5, Informative)
For Internet radio ONLY, they ALSO have to pay a 'reproduction' fee, since internet radio is SOOOOO much different than regular radio according to congress. This fee goes to... you guessed it, directly to the RIAA, not the songwriters or artists. That's the fee they raised to obscene levels and what is threatening to kill internet radio.
Fair huh? No? Call your congressman.
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Why would they want internet radio to thrive? The stream can easily be captured and turned into mp3s, traditional radio pays out, and the record companies are at war with anything internet based that isnt the ITMS. If internet radio finds a way to get by they'll just raise the rates again. This is how the record companies work. The last thing they want is decent internet radio.
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How to contact your congress critters. (Score:2)
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And What About No Advertising NPR? (Score:2)
I listen to Minnesota Public Radio's The Current [publicradio.org] nearly 10 hours a day on average. I don't hear a
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Support for NPR comes from the following...
There's usually some commission, retailer, foundation, company, etc whose business is essentially getting a "plug" and for which they're probably making a much larger donation than $120 per year. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I think that this ruling is a good idea, but in fairness, I can understand how they might be trying to lump NPR into the fold as w
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Basically all you can say is, "The preceding programming was brought to you by the fine folks at X, who make many fine products that I can't tell you about."
Denial, RIAA style (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Denial, RIAA style-sideline story (Score:5, Interesting)
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Does anyone else see the hidden error in this? Their work != the artists' work.
Me too! (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm also ready for higher payments!
That means I automatically get them, right?
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"Digital performance rights were originally granted to record companies in 1995, in part with the intention of protecting them against the possibility that digital transmissions could erode the sales of CDs."
All you libs who think "the free market" is going to sort out this mess should get current. This market hasn't been within 100 miles of free since the Depression.
Watch out, other countries (Score:2)
Outsourcing? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Well... (Score:2)
I guess it's good news for the internet hosting business at Russia, China, etc...
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As the adage says, if you outlaw Internet Radio (Score:5, Informative)
But, on a second thought, that is exactly what the Media Cartel want. They don't matter where you are getting it, as long as the only way to be legally exposed to new content is through their channels. They couldn't care less if you and a couple of technologically wealthy people are going around their blockage, but they will do everything on their power to prevent both the average people and the *artists* to get in touch with each other without them.
This is not about giving people no options. It is about giving *artists* no option. People are attached to their favorite artists and will follow them wherever they go.
Some useful links... (Score:5, Informative)
The DJ of my favorite internet radio stations, Radio Paradise [www.radioparadise], has a very informative blog [saveourinternetradio.com] concerning this issue.
Also, if you're interested in taking action, check out Save Net Radio [savenetradio.org].
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better yet, write an actual paper letter. a sack of mail is harder to ignore than a disk of email.
It will sort itself out... (Score:2)
Re:It will sort itself out... (Score:5, Insightful)
You make the presumption that the labels want internet radio to succeede and their profits from internet radio to be maximized. What if what they really want is for internet radio to go away?
Why would they want to do this? Because right now the labels act as the gatekeepers to the radio. That is why musicians sign horrible contracts with them. You want a hit record, you need to get on the radio. You want to get on the radio, you need to sign with a big label. If internet radio takes off, suddenly you'll have new outlets which the labels don't control. In the long run, maintaining this control is more important then any profits they might make of internet radio.
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What they fail to realize is that the RIAA can't and will not control internet radio overseas especially on the European front which of course don't play that much RIAA music anyways.
Not to mention that if internet radio stations in the states
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I read it, and the panel that awarded the fees basically took the content industries' recommendations for the new fee structure verbatim, with only one exception (they also wanted a 25% add-on to the fee for any broadcast terminating at a mobile device). It's like two people going to a required mediator, and one party asking for $1000, and the other suggesting that they can afford $50, and the judge saying "$1000 sounds good to me!"
What was that song again? (Score:5, Funny)
Profit? (Score:3, Interesting)
Royalties for broadcasting over public airwaves, or on the Internet are a really dumb idea. The artist already got paid with the CD sale. The artist gets 'free' advertising.
Go on tour and make your money. Use CDs as promotional material.
Two scenarios (Score:2)
Scenario #2 - no-one is making money off of Internet streaming anyhow, and this will give them the excuse to pull the plug on a money losing service.
And I guess that there's a Scenario #3 - everybody buys satellite radio receivers and iPods and radio listenrship just continues downhill.
Personally I would real
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I have had XM for a few years now and haven't listened to terrestrial radio since. While at work,if I am not listening to an MP3 player, I am streaming XM over the internet to my cell phone or laptop.
How is this fee going to impact listeners like me? XM Canada (not truly an XM Company) has recently ra
Counterproductive (Score:3, Insightful)
In the long run, this move by the RIAA is hurt its own interests. The current situation is actually pretty good for them. They're getting paid (though perhaps not as much as they would like), their music is reaching the ears of potential customers, and the broadcasts are at bitrates good enough to expose people to music while low enough nobody wants to fill their hard drive up with an archive of it.
So what are Internet radio listeners going to do if this succeeds? Sure, some might switch to a more RIAA-encouraged form of entertainment, but a lot will just change the station. Once the RIAA wipes out the stations promoting their music, that leaves the ones playing independent and international music. "Drive your customers to discover competitor's product" is generally not the missing "2. ???" step that leads to profit.
No, it's not counterproductive... (Score:3, Insightful)
This is what they want. They don't want the venue to exist, so they'll get the government to tax the hell
out of it so it'll go away. I wouldn't mind helping my favorite internet stations pay the bill if I thought
that the money would go to the artists I listen to (All unsigned in the case of the stations- I like listening
to Celtic, Celtic Rock, and Renaissance Festival music on the streams. I don't li
HELLO (Score:2)
WOXY discussion (Score:2)
There's been some discussion of this on my favorite Internet station, WOXY [woxy.com]. While the owners have assured us that there is enough revenue to sustain WOXY under the current model, all of their user-based streams would probably go away or be vastly different (P2P, in nature, instead of broadcast). Also, I got the feeling that "sustain" meant more "squeak by" than "doing peachy".
I've written both my senators and my congresscritter about this. Pretty please, do the same.
Cheers,
-l
Whew! (Score:2)
That's all I really cared about! I was terrified that these rules were being applied to ANY music being broadcast. If I want to put up a shoutcast station playing nothing but recordings of myself singing about my cat it would be outright robbery for me to have to pay a fee to the RIAA and it's ilk.
Luckily the music that I like the most are all stations like Gro
Speaking as a musican (Score:3, Insightful)
That said, I think to apply the same (or at least similar) royalty fees to these Internet Radio Stations is pretty unfair. As a composer and a musician, I despise that I have to agree with Clear Channel on this one, because I think that they are RUINING terrestrial radio if in fact they haven't ruined it already. I side with Internet Radio as an artist because it is exactly the freedom from some of the industry regulation that makes it possible for someone without Warner Brothers or Sony behind him/her to get exposure. There's no friggin' way I'm going to get my music played/heard on a Clear Channel station or in a Warner Brothers movie soundtrack without EVERYBODY getting a piece of the pie. On the other hand, if I find a niche Internet Radio Station, I can submit my stuff and get it heard by a smaller, but hopefully more targeted audience and perhaps eventually generate some revenue from licensing deals with them or CD sales.
I guess my point is, while it would be easy to jump on the bandwagon as an artist and hope for the "big score" of more royalties, doing so would choke the "small time" Internet Radio Stations and make it once again a field of only "heavy hitters" with whom I stand little chance of getting heard. It may seem counterintuitive to some, but I think keeping things affordable with regard to royalties is exactly what's making it fertile ground for emerging artists and what's keeping Internet Radio a viable alternative for people looking for something more diverse and different than traditional radio.
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I'm surprised... (Score:2, Insightful)
Prog Rock vs Punk (Score:2)
pay royalties based on estimates of how many songs were played over a given period of time, or a 'tuning hour,' as opposed to counting every single song
Retroactive (Score:2)
Golden Eggs (Score:3, Funny)
"And our projections show that if we choke the goose hard enough we'll get more eggs."
RIAA free radio? (Score:5, Informative)
Anybody see a reason why this wouldn't work?
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Quality of music, perhaps?
Unfortunately, the music that is controlled by RIAA members extends far beyond the top 40. We'd be saying goodbye to many semi-popular groups, classics, and classical recordings.
Re:RIAA free radio? The filtration problem. (Score:2)
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Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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The thing that galls me the most is that he has absolutely no concern about America's place in the world. To him, America *is* the world. His rationale?
Petition to save internet radio (Score:2, Informative)
Tipping Point? (Score:2)
Switch to broadcasting indies instead (Score:2)
At issue are the royalty fees paid to royalty holders for broadcast music. The rates are going to drive Internet radio into the ground, and even major communications companies don't like it.
If you are a small station and don't want to/can't afford these new royalties, why not just drop the content entirely and support local talent instead?
There's lots of big talk about boycotting the big media companies due to heavy-handed tactics to protect their copyright and the lack
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This is all fine and well within certain genres but there is tons of stuff this simply wouldn't cover. For instance: my father is a big doo-wop/oldies fan. There is no real way to substitute that type of music by indies. Maybe there is a handful of modern doo-wop style groups out there today that are independent but i doubt enough to supp
Here's what's really going on.... (Score:2)
The amount of revenue for the RIAA is insignificant, either if the fees stay the same or if their raised, since raising them will kill the internet broadcasting industry before its really started. And killing the internet broadcasting industry is exactly the point.
Left unchecked, eventually internet radio will make broadcast radio obsolete. Maybe not for 10 years, but it will happen eventually. For the recording industry, that's a huge problem. See, they effectively control
seems like great news (Score:2)
Internet radio is dead... (Score:2)
there goes the free country, for a few bucks more (Score:2)
So I'm confused... (Score:2)
So I can still listen to broadcasts hosted outside my borders? How will the Royalty Idiots & A**holes of America enforce this?
A long long time ago... (Score:2)
comments from a webcaster (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Well it had to happen sometime (Score:5, Informative)
If you had bothered to read the article, or the previous article two weeks ago when the decision was announced (I know, I know, this is slashdot), you would have found out that previously they paid royalties similar to that of airwave broadcasting based on tuning hours. The move to per song/per listener is a considerable change in the fee formula that will drive many smaller broadcasters out of business. Its interesting that if I own a bar with non-live music (juke box/radio) I pay per listening hour regardless of how many patrons are in the bar that particular night, but if it is the internet, I have to pay per ear.
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If you look at the history of how the rates were computed, the CRB tried to find real royality agreements to base the rate on. (The CRB dictates compulsive rates: the labels must agree to these rates as a minimum. If there are no compulsive rates, then each radio station must independently get a contract with the labels). Before the CRB got involved,
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Well, you better tell Arbitron, because they sure make a good living on what is impossible.
Can you tell to the last person? No, but the ratings give them a good enough idea that advertisers are willing to pay based on that data.
Re:Well it had to happen sometime (Score:5, Informative)
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Not a good thing...for music....or musicians. (Score:2, Informative)
This rule change is not about paying artists more money. It is about controlling concentrating profit channels. Internet radio allows independent and niche genre music a place to be heard and promoted. If these rule changes go into effect internet radio stations will see a ten fold increase in fees paid to rights organizations.
A few Music Publishers hold the vast amount of rights to music. They want nothing else than all the available bandwidth for broadcast to
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Potential audience size is meaningless (Score:2, Interesting)
No, else by your logic, any song played on shortwave radio would have to account for a potential audience of 6+ billion people.
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See my other comment, broadcast and internet radio pay the same ASCAP/BMI fees to the songwriters based on listener reach.
Internet radio ONLY (NOT terrestrial radio) has to pay a reproduction fee to the RIAA, because you sit at home all day recording songs off internet radio complete with cros
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Example. [kiisfm.com]
There are "internet only" advertising packages which include ads on a radio station site along with streaming, etc.
So yeah, CC has a big stake in this. Non-traditional revenue/internet revenue is (obviously) a big part of their long-term strategy.