Internet Radio Stations React To New Royalty Scheme

For those who have heard of the Copyright Office and the Library of Congress and their parts in copyright management, but have never heard of the United States Copyright Royalty Board, here is a link to their web site:
»www.loc.gov/crb/

Here are the 3 guys who make the decisions on royalty rates:
»www.loc.gov/crb/backgrou ··· ges.html

Here is the web page with links to written testimony that led up to this decision:
»www.loc.gov/crb/proceedings/

Participants in the hearings that led to the decision:
»www.loc.gov/crb/proceedi ··· icipants
A question I have is where were all these music streaming groups with their comments on the hearings that have been ongoing thru 2006? They had their chance to make their case, but they didn't take part. NOW, they are all running around and whining. Where were they for the last year?

I agree I never heard of it until now.

Stream from russia or some other nation don't have to worry. problem solved. I listen to most stations now that just rebroadcast songs from the USA stations now.

I guess RIAA wants to destroy smaller webcasters so only left will be large RIAA-partners like maybe iTunes. That way RIAA can control what's played and encourage specific tracks for users to buy, by for example, cutting them in half or interfering with messages, ads.

Now small webcasters promote less known music not heard on mainstream radio stations and offers HUGE variety and decent quality.

It's like radio and RIAA doesn't get it, they still think webcasts are threat to radio like mp3s to CDs even though older offers more flexibility.

If only DI.fm was offered on satellite radio, I would get it right now.

They own the rights to the content, they should be able to charge for it.

Or is this another "we should be able to pirate it becuase it's easy to" post?

I said this to the last post about the RIAA and I'll say it again. FUCK YOU!

RIAA bending them over. Greedy bastards.

Man, the RIAA is slowly digging their own grave -- they just don't see it yet.

Every radio (internet, satellite, or conventional) station playing a song amounts to an advertisement for the RIAA's products. Most producers of a product have to PAY OTHERS to get their product publicized.

I know a guy who invented a new water filtration system. Maybe he should produce an entertaining commercial, then charge TV and radio stations to air his ad. That way, he can't fail!

Sheesh -- even people who sell through mass marketers have to give away free samples.

Good going, RIAA. Drive your advertisers out of business by nickel and diming them to death, and keep blaming college students for your declining sales. Heck, extortion is much more profitable, anyway.

If you read about monopolies and how they relate to destroying the theory of capitalism you will see why this should not be allowed.
Adam Smith is a good starting point to start reading.

A friend of mine who now works on air for Cox Radio used to be the program manager at a local college station. About 10 years ago they had almost shut down the station because of these fees. At the time something was worked out, to tell the truth - since it really didn't impact me at the time I didn't pay to much attention to what he was telling me. But now looking at this, it would seem to me that this might cause many schools to shut down their stations to aviod paying these higher royalties.

In the end this hurts everyone.

I just keep listening to songs I downloaded, and burned on a CD, on my 10-disc CD changer.

RIAA can kiss my dark Puerto Rican a33. They are nothing but a two-bit thug trying to get as much money as possible. "Damn, Guido, I taught I told you to take care of it?"

EDIT: for clarification.

daslog, nobody is looking for a way to pirate music here. Webcasters currently pay high rates for the rights to legally stream music. The RIAA and their copyright board just jacked those rates so high that it will now cost the webcasters more than twice as much in royalties to play those same songs as they can make in revenue. The copyright board has made their business model unsustainanble for all but the richest mega-corporations. This is RIAA greed to the max.

If anything the RIAA is encouraging piracy, because now the only way for these legitimate webcasters to stay in business now is to move offshore and skirt U.S. law.

just make the same rules apply that always have for regular fm radio stations. i dont think a new system is needed.

Now do you understand why so many Comm Colleges go "talk radio/news" or "sleepy time classical (semi/public domain)?

Of how America moves closer to being a communist country.

Seems to be these guys are just alienating themselves and the artists they promote/own from the direction that media and content is heading to in this Digital Age. But apparently they are only interested in short-term profit.

Solution: Don't play RIAA artists on your stations.

They must have A LOT of crazy bald heads working in that firm. No up and coming marketing Guy/Gal would be coming up with these wacky ideas, policies and procedures to lead the company forward.

Eh, what do i know though..

So the power co. decided to raise your rates- would it be ok if they made it retroactive- after all they own the power?

So where is a list of non-RIAA musicians that we can listen to?

The RIAA could care less who is playing the music whether its a small time site or something like iTunes (although I don't beleive they stream, you get the idea). All they care about is getting their money. And because streaming doesn't get them nearly as much as you buying a CD, they don't like streaming.

You can start here »www.riaaradar.com/

FUCK OFF.

RIAA killed the internet star.

If the RIAA charges all of them, then they won't have a constant source of income. They should charge them lass and let them regenerate their money and sue again. This is not logical

I always thought that it is better to get paid less but by more sources than getting paid more from very limited sources. I guess they want people to force them into online music stores.

huh? WTF does anyone understand what "Communism" means??

When the recording industry finally allowed internet music stations back online a few years ago, they were saddled with several restrictions RF broadcasters weren't aren't and will never be stuck with. A few:

• Artist and Album can only be announced/posted after the particular selection begins to play. No "Coming Up" tracklists.
  
• A mandatory 60-minute delay shall be observed between taking a song request and playing it.
  
• Four hours must elapse after playing one selection by any particular artist, before playing another by same.
  

I'm having a hard time trying to figure out what their "major malfunction" is; it's either: (1) Blood supply, and therefore oxygen, is being restricted to their collective brain via a spincter tightly clenched around their neck, or (2) Chronic constipation, caused by a lower intestinal blockage the size on an adult's crainum (!) Take your pick.

-NK

Oh yeah. The only thing that they did the same as their over-the-air kin was the paying of BMI/ASCAP/SESAC publisher royalties. According to someone who runs a fairly decent 80's station, these fees were accomodatingly negotiable withe those three organizations. Does this new fee go to the songwriters, as the latter, or does it go into some other organization's pockets?

They already get a bunch of money off of ads. Click on the song being played you'll get directed to amazon or where ever to buy it.

Here's a different link.

»www.save-internet-radio. ··· t-radio/

That's just fabulous. Charge rate per performance per customer, i.e. if you have one song playing and only one listener is listening to it you pay x amount of money, if you have 5 people listening to it you pay 5x amount. Wonderful. Not only that, to make up for 3% percent inflation raise rates at 25% per year. And to top an icing on the cake make sure rates apply retroactively back to 2006, so even if some station goes down under and closes its operation it still owes RIAA $112,000. WTF?

I mean, this is so amazing that I find it hard to believe.

Not so,

The one I frequent, http//www.flashbackalternatives.com, has always had to solicit donations ($700 this month) to keep operating. Of all their income, a major chunk already goes to royalties, and a lesser chunk goes for bandwidth.

Uhmmm, free ride? A question. So by your logic, if a customer listening to a song clicks on a link which leads him to amazon and buys an album, does radio station gets any kind of kickback for bringing in another potential customer? Because that would be logical, wouldn't it? No free ride, yes? Somehow I'm not aware that such a thing actually exists in works.

Well if all my revenue would be striped away by some lunatics I would react too.