Save Internet Radio - it may be your last chance!

[bombastique]

Please take 5 minutes of your time to take some power away from the Big 5 labels (don't they have enough already??) and go to:
http://www.saveinternetradio.org/

Read what they have to say and how it will affect YOUR music getting played by independent webcasters - and anyone in the spirit of non-corporate control of your music.

There are 2 weeks left - a few minutes of your time can make all the difference.

[jecahn]

Good eye, bombastique. And a good post. The reason that the "powers that be" are so able to get away with this kind of thing is simply because most folks don't know about it.

[9MileSkid]

Excellent link, bomba. I've run across this (at KPIG (http://www.kpig.com), one of my favorite radio stations) and posted it to some other sites I frequent, but I guess I just forgot about posting here.

I sure hope this thing doesn't pass. Commercial broadcast radio is pretty much dead as a source of exciting new music, and the only thing on the horizon that I foresee changing that is internet radio (in ten or fifteen years we could easily have mainstream stand-alone wireless radio sets that let us tune in to anything streamed over the internet, assuming there will be something left). If these recommendations are implemented, it will doom most non-commercial streams and the few commercial station streams that are worth listening to.

Thanks again for posting this. I strongly encourage everyone to visit that site and do something. Radio as a concept is incredible. We shouldn't let five megacorporations make it their bitch.

-m

[bombastique]

Ok, you guys rock, but I can kinda sense from the lack of replies or commentary that maybe alot of other don't much care.

Big biz feeds on apathy - seems to be plenty going around...

[Sonic Valley]

By the time the public gives a **** it'll be too late. I've been running an audio banner on my site http://www.sonicvalley.com. If you want to link to it I'll send you the code. It's looking real bad up here in Canada as well.

[9MileSkid]

I noticed a column about this yesterday in the Chronicle. It's better than nothing, but you'd think it'd be front entertainment-section page news and not on page 35...

-m

[bombastique]

Sonic - definitely send me the code! I'll put it up on my label site and a few others that I know of...

[Sonic Valley]

Stick this in your body tag after the margin settings...

OnLoad="na_open_window('win', 'http://www.sonicvalley.com/saveinternetradio.htm', 0, 0, 500, 65, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0)

[Nashville Ed]

Interesting quandary.
I know of several AM/FM stations that were simulacsting their signal over the web that have stopped because of this.

I do think that internet broadcasters should be required to pay roylaties similar to that of terrestrial radio broadcasters.

On the other hand the differing fee structure is a puzzle??

[Sonic Valley]

As is the the retroactive payments.

[bombastique]

No real puzzle there, it's just the RIAA and the record companies trying to extract the maximum amount of cash from anyone and everyone they can. The fees are all negotiated, so it's likely they just couldn't negotiate as good of a deal (for them) on certain fees, thus the difference.

[Nashville Ed]

..or maybe it's just a negotiating position. Ask for the moon but they know they will have to settle for less. They have created the maximum fee as a starting point for the negotiations. Not a bad buisness move, everybody hates them already after Napster it's not like they are avoiding negative PR.


[This message has been edited by Nashville Ed (edited 05-17-2002).]

[jdechant]

ummm.... well in case you guys didn't know the statetory rate for streaming Mp3 transfers over the internet has already been set... pretty recently too... it was was around the end of April I think.

it was set to 1/700th of a cent per streaming transfer. It seems to me that the internet radio station would fall under this streaming transfer rate, so they would have to play 700 songs before they owed one penny in public performance royalties. uhhh if a station can't afford that, they've got alot of other problems they need to look at.

the rate for mp3 file transfers has yet to be set, but would have no effect of internet radio stations... they stream data, not transfer files.

[jdechant]

ok I read more on the website and they say that rate is per listener... 1st thats not what I heard it was... and 2nd determining how many people are listening to a webcast is not an easy thing to do...

I'm gonna see if I can find a copy of the legislative document and see what IT actually says... per listener/transfer or just per transfer

[Sonic Valley]

The CARP issued its ruling on February 20th, 2002, recommending a royalty rate of .14¢ per song per listener for Internet-only webcasters ( .07¢ per song for commercial radio station simulcasts, and .02¢ per song for noncommercial radio simulcasts), with royalties, as per the DMCA, due retroactively to October, 1998. (Thus, an Internet-only Webcaster which streams one hour of programming (15 songs) to 1,000 listeners would owe royalties for that hour of broadcasting of $21.00 (= $.0014 x 15 x 1,000).)

The CARP determined that the only example of a "willing buyer/willing seller" was a deal cut between Yahoo! (which had recently paid $5 billion for Broadcast.com) and the RIAA in July 2000 (while the dotcom craze had not yet crashed) and based their ruling largely on the terms of that deal.

For most Webcasters, the critical issues in the ruling are (A) that the CARP arbitrators set a rate far higher than the rate for composers' royalties, based largely on the Yahoo!/RIAA deal, and (B) they rejected the "percentage of revenues" royalty concept that both sides had previously been willing to accept — and which most Webcasters were counting on to stay in business.


Why the CARP ruling may kill Internet radio...

Here's why Webcasters believe that the CARP ruling may be a harsher decision than Congress originally intended when it passed the DMCA:

The Internet radio industry is still very young and its audience is as yet too small to interest most advertisers. Thus, most Webcasters have seen very little revenue to date. As a result, the proposed rate is much more than the "15% of gross revenues" rate that the RIAA originally asked for. For most webcasters, it's more like an effective royalty rate of 200% to 300% or more of gross revenues!


While CARP's proposed royalty rate might be manageable for Internet radio properties owned by multi-billion-dollar corporations like AOL, Yahoo!, and Microsoft, it will effectively bankrupt the vast majority of Webcasters For example, for a mid-sized independent webcaster (imagine two or three people working out of a home office or a campus apartment) that has had, say, an average audience of 1,000 listeners for the past three years, the bill for retroactive royalties — which will come due 45 days after the royalty rate is approved — would be $525,600!


Here's a comparison to help put the CARP decision into perspective: If broadcast radio stations were required to pay the same royalty rate for the over-the-air broadcasts that the CARP has proposed for Webcasters, it would add up to a royalty payment obligation to the RIAA of more than $3.3 billion per year!

In the four years that have elapsed since the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was written, technology has evolved significantly. Virtually no one in 2002 contends that record companies are losing business to the Internet radio, which is generally transmitted in relatively low quality and is not saved on consumers' devices. (In other words, even if digital copies were being made, they would merely be perfect copies of low-quality source material. The rationale behind the DMCA doesn't even apply to Internet radio!) (However, note that this issue while may be relevant to Congress, it is irrelevant to the Copyright Office's responsibility.)

If the Copyright Office accepts the CARP's recommendation, it seems likely that the vast majority of the Webcasters will be forced off the air and out of business by late Spring. In fact, some Webcasters have shut down already.

[Nashville Ed]

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for internet broadcast. I don't think it should belong only to the Big 5. On the other hand, ASCAP and BMI have offices here in town. I have friends who are song writers.I know lots of folks who make their living in music that'd like to be paid for their work.

I would hope a reasonable compromise can be reached. (key word: reasonable)

Ed

[Nashville Ed]

CARP rejected:
http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article/0,,3_1142161,00.html

[Sonic Valley]

Thanx for posting that Ed. It's good news for little dudes like me who does alot of streaming.

There does need to be a reasonable solution. But I agree that money should be paid to the artist. Without them...there's no music. At times it all seems so overwhelming. I think that a new rate should be set...maybe even based on a percentage of the web stations income. Problem with that is they make so little money for the most part and the other half will become non profit or something.

Still...it'ss all up in the air...

[Nashville Ed]

Originally posted by Sonic Valley:
At times it all seems so overwhelming..
Still...it'ss all up in the air...

Yep, I agree with you totally. It's up in the air at least another 30 days.

"if the Librarian rejects the CARP's determination, section 802(f) provides an additional 30 days for the
Librarian to render his final determination."

[Nashville Ed]

Well, the ruling has been made. Here's a link:
http://www.copyright.gov/carp/webcasting_rates_final.html