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INTERNET RADIO WILL DIE, HELP SAVE IT! (pg. 4)
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| Rick Mage |
| interesting.... |
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| idoru |
| quote: | Originally posted by Push2005
So when will these Internet radio's exactly shut down ?
And are the big ones (di.fm) going along with it or do they have some sort of solution. |
It's a retroactive change up until 2010, so any point between now and then. You'd have to pay attention to DI's news and such for word on what's happening with them. However, this little piece of news just came out today which could have a very positive effect for the whole situation...
| quote: | | "The Register reports that "Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA) and Rep. Don Manzullo (R-IL) have headed the 'Internet Radio Equality Act,' which aims to stop the controversial March 2 decision which puts royalty of a .08 cent per song per listener, retroactively from 2006 to 2010 on internet radio," as imposed by a recent decision from the Copyright Royalty Board. "If passed, today's bill would set new rates at 7.5 percent of the webcaster's revenue — the same rate paid by satellite radio."" |
http://politics.slashdot.org/politi...7/0334203.shtml |
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| DJGemini69 |
I don't know about anyone else but I HAVE been in touch with my congress representatives and even those outside of my own district, to let them know that what the RIAA is trying to get through the US Copyright Royalty Board is blatantly unfair to online radio stations and should be stopped.
Here is news release (dated April 30,2007) just a few hours ago regarding this matter. The US Congress is seeking to overturn the royalty ruling handed down back in April by the US Copyright Royalty Board; finally someone has heard our cries and has decided to do something about the internet radio community being raped and pillaged. The Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) must answer to congress in addition to two member of the House ofRepresentatives which have proposed a new law which could wipe out the recent ruling by the CRB and would propose a different payment system.
Internet radio activists state that the CRB's ruling is unfair as online radio is penalized with the payment system proposed by the CRB. Right now regular broadcast radio is not charged any royalty fees and satellite pays much less than what has been proposed for internet radio to pay. This new bill was introduced by Democrat Jay Inslee and Republican Don Manzullo.
Jake Ward of SaveNetRadio is quoted as saying "Since the CRB's decision to dramatically and unfairly increase webcaster royalty rates, millions of internet radio listeners, webcasters and artists have called on Congress to take action. Today Congress took notice, and we thank Mr Inslee for leading the charge to save music diversity on the internet.".
The CRB has proposed that internet radio fees would be based on two things: an annual charge and a percentage of profits. The minimum fee would be $500 PER STATION with a fee scale of the following:
2006 $.0008 per performance
2007 $.0011 per performance
2008 $.0014 per performance
2009 $.0018 per performance
2010 $.0019 per performance
A "performance" is defined as the streaming of one song to one listener; thus a station that has an average audience of 500 listeners racks up 500 "performances" for each song it plays. These charges are set to be billed reto-actively so any station that opened any time in 2006 would owe all the back fees as well as current fees. For noncommercial webcasters, the fee will be $500 per channel, for up to 159,140 ATH (aggregate tuning hours) per month. They would pay the commercial rate for all transmissions above that number.
I think we can all see how easily this would crush any small online radio station and I am very happy to see that our Congress is actually listening to the people for once on this issue. The thing about all of this is that the artists aren't even making the money off of any of this! 90% of what is collected by SoundExchange (AKA the henchmen of the RIAA!) goes to them and the remaining 10% actually goes to the artists. How are these organizations protecting the artists interests? This is nothing but a SHAM and a SCAM that our US government has been sucked in to and now it's time that the government start listening to the people that actually use the internet and know what the hell internet radio is all about.
If you PAID for a song,CD, record or tape then you should OWN it, not be renting it and pay more down the road if you want to play it somewhere. It's bull that these people are making money hand over fist and leaving DJ's hanging in the wind. Where would these artists be if it weren't for DJ's playing their damn music in the first place?
Don't these people realize that most artists are as popular as they are because some DJ somewhere is playing their music? It's bull too that plain old radio doesn't have to pay ANYTHING in royalties and they are the biggest conglomerates of music in the world! How in the hell did that happen? Why aren't they being raked over the fiery coals along with the rest of us? Don't these organizations know that the true money lies there with their advertising dollars and their big corporate sponsors????
Coming after the little people isn't where they will see the big money but I think they know they would flat out LOSE if they tried to take on plain old radio. I know for a fact that Clear Channels (one of the biggest radio corporations in the US) owns in the neighborhood of 7 radio stations here in Arizona. Now, imagine how much these thugs would be getting if they charged Clear Channels for EVERY SONG that EVERY STATION they owned played! They actually own more than 1200 radio stations across the US so lets just say for the sake of argument that have 1200 stations. Each station has it's own music and lets say each song is five minutes long, that gives us 12 songs per hour per station so that's a total of 14,400 PER HOUR that they play.
Now, let's multiply that with 24 hours in a day and you get 354,600 songs played in just ONE DAY. So looking at the fee scale that was presented by the Copyright Royalty Board, they could charge per song per kilowatt to roughly gage how many listeners the stations may have at any given time. But even if Clear Channels was just charged for one performance, you are talking about a LOT of money just in one day right?
The total is going to make you yourself.....$2,534,800 PER DAY people, per day! You can't tell me that DJ's playing music on the internet is going to get these robbers even CLOSE to that in a month! Raping internet radio is nothing compared to what they COULD be getting from established, sponsored plain old radio stations. They know they would lose though so with that in mind they decided to burn us like ants under a magnifying glass; they are bullies and we all know bullies prey on the WEAK and the SMALL. |
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| Boomer187 |
| quote: | Internet radio royalty increase pushed back two months
By Justin Mann, TechSpot.com
Published: May 2, 2007, 1:17 PM EST
In what comes as a (very small) bit of breathing space for Internet radio, a three-judge panel has pushed back the date in which new royalty fees will take effect. The decision will give these stations two additional months to plan, as well as give more time for appeals and other actions to take place. The royalty increase has been huge bone of contention to many, with people claiming it will put many companies out of business because they will be unable to afford their fees. That didn't sway the hearts of those at the CRB who are steadfast in getting more money.
The loudest voice opposing the increase is SaveNetRadio.org, which hopes to get the fees lessened or other stipulations put in place for smaller companies.
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we get some time. |
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| Acuariano1951 |
Save the Digital Radio streams
" If the goal is to help musicians earn a decent living, raising the internet royalty rates will likely have an adverse effect, as ironic as that sounds.” – the Alexis Harte Band |
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| dark_Omens |
| Alright, just emailed my representative! Let's hope for the best. |
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| Taerinshar |
Just wanted to throw some more information on the fire here. If you read the articles people have posted here one of the most ridiculous things, imho, is that even if di.fm or any of the other stations **only** played independent artists, i.e. those who weren't affiliated with the RIAA, or their symbiotes around the world, they would **STILL** have to pay royalties! The way the bill is worded, SoundExchange takes it upon itself to collect royalties regardless of the origin of the song if I read things right, and then it is up to the individual artists to contact them to receive their share. Thus, it seems impossible for any station to stay afloat.
What I don't understand is why the internet stations don't simply pay the same royalties as satellite radio as they seem fairly similar, with satellite having the additional bonus of being portable. The fact that they charge a fixed rate per song per person as opposed to a system that is related to the total revenue that a station brings in seems wrong. I remember reading on one of the websites on savenetradio, that if a station has, on average, 10000 continuous listeners which seems to be a pretty reasonable amount, they would be paying 1.1 million in 2006 (http://www.savethestreams.org/seren.../pages/faq.html). Then, this jumps 37% in 2007 and by 2010 (if they survive that long), they want 2.6 million for just 10000 listeners. So, even though internet radio is typically free or ad supported (personally I subscribe to di.fm for the high quality streams for $5/month), they need to bring in $110 per listener per year *just for the royalties*. Then there's administrative costs, the large bandwidth expenses and other costs that businesses incur if they want to stay afloat.
Personally I love DI and have never regretted my subscription, but as a student I can't afford to personally give $100+ to a radio station just so that they can pay off these extortionists. I honestly hope that this ammendment goes through and that people come to their collective senses. |
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| antronx |
I don't think sites like ETN and Proton will be a target. They play promo mixes. SE needs individual names of tracks played so they can automatically calculate who gets paid how much. Since those are mixed sets and track names are not being streamed, SE will not know who to pay. Their primary consern is Top 40 music streams. What every station needs to do is just not comply. It will be to expensive to sue every small netcaster on the web.
If DI moves its streaming servers overseas, but the source remains in US, then they are still liable. If source and servers are outside, but they still play same music licensed in US, then they can still be liable if their streams can be received in US. RIAA can pressure the ISP's to filter their streams. It will be a mess. The RIAA will loose more money enforcing new royalties. |
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| idoru |
| quote: | Originally posted by antronx
I don't think sites like ETN and Proton will be a target. They play promo mixes. SE needs individual names of tracks played so they can automatically calculate who gets paid how much. Since those are mixed sets and track names are not being streamed, SE will not know who to pay. |
You do know that 98% of the sets have full tracklists that are available on Proton's website, right? |
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| antronx |
| I know,but i've heard SE pulls now playing data from the live stream. They require tags to be in proper format like "Artist - Track". At least thats what loudcity requires. On other thought, why would they be worried too much about underground format stations like ETN? |
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| alffla |
wow this must be one of the most stupid laws ever proposed.
interesting replies as well especially the comparison to the normal radio stations haha...
hope this doesnt get through! |
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