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| Please note: The "Inslee-Cannon-Boucher"
letter to the Library of Congress (in RAIN here)
is available to RAIN readers as a "screenshot"
image file here,
or the much larger (1.98 MB) Adobe Acrobat file here
(not recommended for dial-up users). |
update! |
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Additional webcasters
who have committed
to be part of next Wednesday's "Day
of Silence" (see yesterday's RAIN here)
include Audiocandy.com
(legal downloads), BumpNgrind
Radio, Daily Dementia
Overdose (punk/hardcore), Destination
Doo-Wop (doo-wop), TheDownbeat
(downtempo), Flaresound
(deep house), Green Mist Radio
(Celtic/folk), HitzRadio
(CHR), KCRW/Santa Monica
(NPR), KOZT/Mendocino County
(adult rock), KUSA Radio
("spanning a century of American music"), KTRU/Rice
University, RadioMaxMusic
 (various
formats),. Rave Network
 (electronica),
Red White & Blue Radio
(Americana & country), Reign
Radio (Christian hard rock), SmoothJazz.com
(jazz), The70sStation
('70s), Stanford
University streaming media, WebRadioPugetSound
(various formats), WETD/Alfred
State College, WFMU/Jersey
City, NJ (the longest-running freeform radio station
in the US), WMVY-FM/Martha's
Vineyard (progressive), WSIA-FM/Staten
Island (CUNY), World
Music Webcast (world music), and Zoetek
World Radio (world music). |
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Help
support this effort —
and help keep Internet radio from a premature death!
To add your station to the list of broadcasters and
webcasters crying "Mayday! Mayday!" on
May 1st, e-mail Kurt here.
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From CNet News.com: "The Recording Industry Association
of America is calling for additional federal funding to combat the
ongoing wave of piracy, saying that the number of arrests and convictions
for copyright crimes has skyrocketed over the course of a year.
"In a congressional hearing Tuesday before a subcommittee
of the House Appropriations Committee, the RIAA requested additional
funds for federal anti-piracy law enforcement efforts and is pushing
for a renewed agenda on protecting intellectual property. The RIAA,
which did not request a specific amount, said the additional funds
are needed for investigations and cases.
"Specifically, the RIAA is requesting the funds be used
to create additional squads or units for a program called  Computer
Hacking and Intellectual Property, which is part of the
Justice Department's initiative to fight cybercrime. Although the
RIAA applauded the creation of CHIP, it said it is concerned that
CHIP's main focus will be on computer hacking and not on intellectual
property. The RIAA requested in its testimony that these CHIP units
make intellectual property a top priority.
"'Piracy is not a private offense,' Hilary Rosen [above], president
of the RIAA, said in a statement. 'It hurts everyone by diminishing
the incentive to invest in the creation of music. It should not, therefore,
be viewed as a crime only against authors, performers, composers,
musicians, record companies, distributors, wholesalers and retailers,
but against each of us.'"
Read this entire story in CNet News.com here. |
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From The Riverfront Times: "Could the Recording
Industry Association of America get any more demonic? Wasn't
it
enough that they shut down Napster and forced the RFT to change
the name of our beloved music awards?
"Now those bastards are going after Internet radio --
which, for many people, is the only way to escape the sickening
corporate-controlled cesspool that is commercial radio.
"Because the RIAA considers regular radio a promotional
tool, it's off the hook when it comes to performance royalties
and additional payments to the labels. For chrissakes, thanks to
the miraculous legal loophole known as independent promoters (i.e.,
bribe-facilitators), major labels routinely pay commercial radio
stations to broadcast their artists. That's because they recognize
commercial radio for what it is: a way to force-feed their inferior
wares to a captive audience...
"According to Wanda Atkinson, co-owner/general manager
of 3WK, a Web-only station
based in St. Louis, the proposed fee is a whopping 449 percent of
the station's annual income. That's right: Despite the fact that
3WK brought in about $10,000 last year, the brainiacs behind CARP
think the humble Webcasters should pay four times that amount in
performance fees.
"'We were totally flabbergasted!' Atkinson exclaims. 'It
kind of makes you wonder if [CARP's] ultimate goal is to get rid
of Webcasters so that major labels can completely control music
distribution on the Internet. But I tend to think that they misunderstood
the market for Webcasting right now. I think they were under the
assumption that we're like most FM stations and we're generating
millions of dollars. We want to give them the benefit of the doubt
and assume they misunderstood the economics of the situation and
not that they want to get rid of us.'"
Read this entire article in St. Louis's Riverfront Times
here.
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From AllAccess.com: "The building explosion in Manhattan
[yesterday] morning heavily damaged offices used by Launch.com...
"At least 50 people were injured when a blast believed
to have originated in the boiler room exploded just before
11:30 am. The building has been evacuated and thankfully, no one
at Launch was seriously injured.
"The preliminary police reports have ruled out terrorism
as a cause for the explosion."
Read this item in yesterday's AllAccess.com here
(free registration required).
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"The
tide may be turning..."
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Overall, I think the support in the Senate may by and large
come from the Republican side of the aisle. It was Orrin
Hatch [right],  Republican
Senator from Utah, who expressed concerns about the DMCA after Judge
Marilyn Hall Patel shut down Napster. On the Democratic side, Senator
Patrick Lahey of Vermont also
is concerned about the overenforcement of the DMCA, but as head of
the Senate Judiciary Committee, he has placed the issue on the backburner.
Those of us in these Senators' states should start writing them and
seeking their support.
I have heard from another source that the tide in this battle
may be turning, and that the public may finally be waking up to the
issues surrounding webcasting. Keep writing your Congressmen (both
Representatives and Senators), and we may well ultimately win the
day. This is a fight over nothing less than freedom on the Internet,
and we can win if we all continue to stand together.
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"What
every smart record executive wants..."
|
 I
just want to commend you on your dedication and hard work in trying
to save Internet Radio.
As you know I testified at the CARP hearings back in August.
In my testimony I promoted the fact that my Internet radio stations
do what record labels really want from radio. We expose new talent
and give them free promotional time that is priceless in their efforts
to promote artists and sell product. We help provide the information,
interest, that leads to what every smart record executive wants; passionate
devoted record buyers.
With consolidation, now more that ever, labels need new outlets
that are more than willing to play new and different artists. Thanks
again for your efforts.
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Quincy McCoy, VP Radio and Music
Programming MTV Interactive |
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"The
RIAA is alienating its largest potential client base..."
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This feedback refers to the RIAA's "The Real Facts Behind
CARP" statement on their website.
From that statement: "These CARP rates alone will not drive all
webcasters out of business. Many of the non-commercial webcasters
will actually only be required to pay the minimum (and minimal) annual
fee of $500."
See this story reported in RAIN here...
Fairly ludicrous.
SHOUTcast's 30 day ttsl currently sits at 20,732,556. With
a (conservative?) estimate of 12 songs per hour, and 3,000
stations in the directory, that's $109 a month per station on average.
I fail to see how that adds up to the minimal $500 per annum the RIAA
seems to think most of my stations will be paying.
A station paying less than $500 a year could have no more than
3 average listeners if they limited
themselves to 12 songs an hour. 3 average listeners for a station
with a 15 minute average listening period is only 288
unique persons a day. I think the RIAA's view of a hobbyist
differs dramatically from what most of us know to be true. Even College
gets significantly more exposure than 3 listeners at a time. The TTSL
figures on SHOUTcast.com indicate that approximately 650 of the stations
currently broadcasting would owe more than the annual minimum.
The real point is missed, anyway. Hobbyist broadcasting has
many missions, only one of which is targeting new music to a thirsty
audience. This statement fails to comprehend that systems like Spinner
and SHOUTcast are quickly replacing terrestrial radio in the office
environment, where listenership is all day, fairly passive, and listeners
want the same  content
most terrestrial stations have programmed them into wanting. Branding
is important to these listeners, and Live365 has shown us they aren't
going to go hunting through 10,000 stations with 3 maximum listeners
to find one playing what they want.
The RIAA is alienating its largest potential client base. SHOUTcast
is the most-listened-to radio service on the Internet, bar none. SHOUTcast
also hosts the stations with the most hours logged of any other Internet
radio service. Those stations also happen to run, for the most part,
as a noncommercial station.
I've heard too many times that they're ready to negotiate a
solution via press release, but have been ignored when inquiring how
we should negotiate a rate with them. Perhaps I should start the bidding
in my own press release. A $100 annual minimum,
or the greater of $0.00002 per song or 12% of revenue seems reasonably
fair, and much more along the lines of what I would consider
a reasonable rate for a "hobby."
A rate closer to the one I'm proposing would promote significant
growth in systems like SHOUTcast. Broadcasters already have difficulty
funding bandwidth needs. Why further stifle growth in this important
new market by adding royalty costs twice that of bandwidth costs?
Providing a reasonable rate and reporting mechanisms that can realistically
be implemented would be a boon for the RIAA, by encouraging a good
relationship between labels and broadcasters instead of stiffarming
them.
| Note: The above is the personal
opinion of Tom, and does not
reflect the views of AOL Time Warner or its subsidiary companies. |
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"The
fans will lose..."
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When are the artists of the world going to realize that by
allowing a group like the RIAA to represent their interests via their
record label, they are effectively slitting their own throats with
the very public they are trying to sell to? Until the artists join
forces with their fans and rise up in protest, the fans will lose.
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"More
homogenized programming..."
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I appreciate the efforts of RAIN to inform and support small-time
webcasters, of which I am one.
I have been an FM broadcaster for 28 years and recently lost
my full-time position to Clear Channel's "rightsizing." I still
hold
on to my weekend show which has aired for over 15 years in Detroit...
Having seen the direction of corporate radio, my partner and
I embarked on an accompanying website which also streams some of the
live music my show has aired. TheThirdCoast.com
has been up for about 18 months, we have had well over 4 million visits.
I am able to promote my site on my weekend show which airs
on Alice 106.7 WLLC/Detroit.
Next week we will launch an hour long broadcast which will be fresh
each week. We have our eye on a longer broadcasts for the future,
but the uncertainty in our plans is directly related to the fees that
may be assessed in the future.
Although Sen. Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow seemed informed
and responded to my e-mail, I did not see any Michigan Congresspeople
on the recent piece which appears on your website.
I can assure the folks at RIAA, I have no knowledge or desire
to play with the big boys of Internet broadcasting. I fear they are
creating the same climate that has taken local content on local radio
and shoved it aside in lieu of bigger profits and more homogenized
programming.
I applaud the efforts of RAIN to keep the www safe for independent
thought, music and grassroots efforts. NOW...more than ever.
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"Labels
need to be paid more?.."
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In (Tuesday's) issue (here),
Paul Maloney says "The Congressmen fear that a rate much higher than
rates paid to songwriters and publishers, and not based on a 'percentage
of revenue' formula..." which makes me wonder why the labels need
to be paid more than the folks that created the music in the first
place?
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"Rationale
holds no water..."
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John Simson, executive director of SoundExchange says in the
Washington Times article (in RAIN here):
"Webcasters
pay for bandwidth. They pay their rent. Why shouldn't they pay for
the music?"
I would be more than happy to fax Mr. Simson copies of the
checks I wrote to purchase our music library. We have already paid
for our music, as have thousands of others in our business. The record
industry has already made a nice chunk of change off of us, and they
will continue to do so, when people buy the music that we promote
for them, free of charge...
Asking us to cover the supposed losses incurred by the record
industry because of free downloading of Mp3's (which cannot be done
with streamed audio) is like asking the next customer in a retail
store to pay double because the last guy stole something. The rationale
holds no water.
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John
Schneider
Radiopoly.com |
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"No
manufacturing cost or overhead..."
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Do you realize that at 0.14 cents a song a listener, for every
10,000 people I stream to, the record company has just sold a $14
CD with no manufacturing costs or artist royalties?
If I have a steady audience of 10,000, and I play 14 songs
an hour, then in 24 hours I will effectively generated 336 units of
revenue for the record company, with no manufacturing cost or overhead
or artist royalties at all on their part? In a month, 10,800 free
album sales. In a year, 122,340. Four of us, and that's a gold record.
| Ed. note: Josh makes a very clever
point here. Do note that record labels are, by law, to split
the webcast royalty 50-50 with the musicians. Also, in all fairness,
there are some manufacturing costs and overhead involved --
or else webcasters wouldn't have the song or CD in their hands
to begin with. Nonetheless, excellent point Josh! |
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