We've announced our first set of speakers for this year's annual RAIN Las Vegas Summit. New additions to the list include Director of AOL Radio Lisa Namerow, Westwood One's Gary Krantz, and ABC Radio Networks' John Rosso. REGISTER TODAY! Visit our Summit page for details (and a PayPal link to make your reservation) about the all-day event, to be held Monday, April 16 at the Renaissance Las Vegas Hotel.

BY DANIEL MCSWAIN
In what should be a clarion call for artists and musicians worldwide, legendary Talking Heads frontman David Byrne has come out strongly against the CRB decision and SoundExchange efforts in his blog.

"The reasoning that it’s for the benefit of the artists rings a little hollow as most artists heard this argument re: cracking down on file sharing," Byrne writes. "Most never see money from their record companies anyway — so the line about 'we’re doing it for you' is pretty suspect."

By his own account, Byrne's webcast station draws about 40,000 listeners a month. He pays all costs out of pocket, and is ostensibly more than happy to bankroll the opportunity to expose and promote the work of all musicians, legendary or ultra-obscure, at his own financial expense. "For the love of the game," one might say.

In the post, Byrne also urged readers to visit SaveTheStreams.org, a CRB awareness and petition site.

Matthew Ebel (pictured), an independent musician and podcaster who attributes his following to "enterprising hobbyists with a mic and a Mac Mini spinning my tunes for free," recently highlighted the contradictory haze surrounding the whole CRB debacle in a post to his blog.

"You’d think that, as a musician, I’d be overjoyed to see a larger slice of the pie going to publishers and, therefore, guys like me," Ebel writes.

"Hell no. Would I like to see a little chunk of change every time my music gets played anywhere? Of course I would. But am I willing to sacrifice the goodwill of internet broadcasters and their listeners simply to make, quite literally, a nickel?"

Read David Byrne's blog post here.

During the 2002 CARP royalty rate dispute, the recording artist Moby spoke out against the ruling. Read previous RAIN coverage here.

...

... Once again, we have to do a better job of getting word to artists: The DMCA compels copyright owners (labels) to share 50/50 with performers (artists) royalties collected under a statutory license. But an untenable statutory rate might very well force webcasters into direct license deals with record labels -- deals that have no royalty-sharing requirement. These direct deals would enable labels to cut out the performers completely, and they would earn nothing. Are record labels likely to agree to split the money they collect if they're not legally obligated to? -- PM ...

The cover story of this week's eFMQB online magazine is an interview with RAIN Publisher Kurt Hanson. Below are excerpts from that interview. The full text can be found here.

FMQB: "What are the basic implications of the CRB’s proposed royalty rates for radio?

Kurt Hanson: "The implications of this are possibly fatal for Internet radio as an industry... And that’s true for almost everyone who’s a standalone webcaster and may also be true for terrestrial streams. It will be tough, if not impossible, to get enough money from advertisers to hit the necessary numbers anytime this decade, which means [terrestrial] broadcasters may pull their streams out as well...

FMQB: "Do you feel the CRB miscalculated the implications of this decision and what it would do to a lot of webcasters?

KH: "Either they misunderstood, or they didn’t think it was any of their business... They may have just felt that wasn’t their assignment from Congress to not worry about whether 90% of webcasters are going to go out of business.

FMQB: "There’s a group of public stations that have protested the CRB decision. What has commercial terrestrial radio’s response been?

KH: "The response has been disappointingly tepid. The NAB said it was a disappointing decision, but not that they were necessarily
intending to do anything about it. Broadcasters are conflicted and think maybe it’s good if Pandora, LAUNCHcast and the like are shutdown, and then maybe that will send people to HD Radio.

FMQB: "Is that just speculation on your part?

KH: "No, I’ve actually heard broadcasters say this and it’s kind of thinking that the Internet’s going to go away...The point terrestrial broadcast groups are missing, is they can compete in this space. What consumers are embracing on the Internet is largely national brands of multi-channel radio, with lots of different kinds of music and some personalization elements.

"There is no reason why CBS, Cumulus or Citadel couldn’t create an Internet brand of radio and reflect what consumers are looking for on the Internet when they’re looking for radio. They could compete and possibly trump the Internet-only players because they have more expertise in music and in consumer tastes. But if this ruling stands, they won’t be able to compete either...

FMQB: "What do you think is going to happen?

KH: "I don’t have much experience with the behavior of copyright royalty tribunals, but my guess is they’ll realize the $500 minimum was a mistake.

"As for the rest of it, there are too many ways it can go. If they do a rehearing, that could take weeks or months, in which they could suspend the decision until then.

"If they don’t have a rehearing, they have 60 days to publish their decision in the Federal Register, and then there’s a 30-day window in which the parties to this proceeding can appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals. During the appeals process, new players can’t enter. They have to be people who have already been engaged in the process the whole time."

Read the entire interview at FMQB.