We hope to see you this week in Seattle for the NAB. Please join us for our RAIN Reader Cocktail Party, Friday 5-7p at the Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurant. It's in the Pacific Place shopping mall, just one block west of the main convention hotel, the Sheraton (click the link for directions). Hope you can make it!

BY PAUL MALONEY
According to a press release from the office of U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA, right), the Congressman is urging his colleagues to support the legislation he crafted to save the Internet radio industry by sending a letter to Members of Congress every day until October 21.

Inslee, along with Reps. George Nethercutt (R-WA) and Rick Boucher (D-VA), in July introduced the Internet Radio Fairness Act (IRFA, see RAIN coverage here). The legislation would provide various measures of relief for smaller webcasters who fear their operations will be forced to shut down when the Librarian of Congress determined royalties for the music they play are due.

According to the release, the bill is now cosponsored by 23 other members of Congress. However, at least one webcaster who has been involved in meetings with Representatives says that figure is dated -- and the bill now has 50 signatures!

The IFRA, if passed, would exempt "small business" webcasters (those that gross under $6 million per year) from the Librarian's determination of sound recording royalties of $0.0007 ($0.0002 for noncommercial webcasters not part of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting) per "performance" plus 8.8% for ephemeral fees, with a $500 minimum. (This would not absolve webcasters of royalties -- the royalties due for the period covered by the Librarian's decision would be determined by the next copyright arbitration.)

The measure would also change the standard arbitrators try to meet in determining a royalty to recommend to the Librarian. Instead of a "willing buyer/willing seller" standard used by the Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel, the bill calls for the use of the "traditional" standard enacted by the 1976 Copyright Act.

Further, the ephemeral charge would be eliminated, small businesses would not be required to pay to participate in future CARPs, and future CARPs would need to comply with the Regulatory Flexibility Act requiring the consideration of a new royalty rate's impact on small business.

Librarian of Congress Dr. James Billington is pictured at right.

The text of the letter, signed by Inslee, Nethercutt, and Boucher, is below. You can read a copy of the "background and legislation summary document" here (Microsoft Word format).

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BY PAUL MALONEY
The Clear Channel broadcast group is using the Internet to distribute audio content for today's September 11 commemorative programming to their over 1200 stations. A company called Andromeda is providing the technology.

On a page called "Tributes and Triumph: America's Day of Remembrance" (here), Clear Channel has posted well over a hundred MP3 audio files of actualities, news bites, and statements and speeches from those involved in the events and reactions to the terrorist attacks on our country one year ago. The files can be "streamed" for auditioning purposes, and then downloaded by the radio stations for on-air use.

Clear Channel produced a special two-minute audio montage honoring heroes and victim's of last September 11 to air today. A recorded message from President Bush followed the airing of the montage on Clear Channel stations, and the company made both recordings available to the radio industry and public.

Andromeda provides a cross-platform tool to serve audio files (as well as other types) for corporate, public, and private use. You can see the features of their services here.

This is Part 2 of 5 in a series...


BY JOEL WILLER
for Radio And Internet Newsletter
The Recording Industry Association of America's SoundExchange has continually attempted to use the "little guy" image of recording artists as a human front for the multinational corporations represented by the RIAA membership.

RIAA's fill-in-the-blank spokesperson of the day will inevitably weave into any sound bite reference to artists' deferred royalty compensation.

In the case of college radio, RIAA wonks have even argued that excruciatingly detailed recordkeeping is mandatory to ensure obscure artists are fairly compensated for airplay in eclectic formats.

Just how much money for artists
are we really talking about?
In the first part of this series (here) I accepted the general notion that many high school, college, and university radio stations will pay the minimum annual performance royalty fee for their Internet retransmissions. Using that assumption as a basis, let's look at some real numbers. As with the earlier installment of this series, I'll use actual figures from the University of Louisiana at Monroe's noncommercial radio station KXUL to make my point.

In contrast with many college radio stations, KXUL makes comparatively extensive use of computerized tools in its programming. This clarification is offered to head off any false conclusion that information available to KXUL is easily obtainable by the majority of college radio stations. Before generalizing this analysis to other college radio stations, I must also point out that music rotation on KXUL probably includes a list of songs much smaller than is typical of many college radio stations. As a result, the figures below will likely overstate the amounts of individual artist compensation across the universe of college radio stations.

"Would you like to supersize that?"
An advantage provided by KXUL's resources is that the station can readily determine the frequency with which a particular song has been played on air. A review of historical airplay for one week reveals that the average title is performed by KXUL 1.17 times each day. Of course, some songs are played more often than others, and many songs will be played for only a portion of each year, but this number represents a fair estimation of the high side of "average" on KXUL. Comparing this number to the total number of daily performances, using the Librarian of Congress' estimation method, shows that the "average" song represents 0.406% of KXUL's airplay.

Assume for a moment that a benevolent SoundExchange does not withhold administrative costs from the $500 minimum annual royalty fee collected from KXUL. In such case, $2.03 of the total royalty would be generated annually by the "average" KXUL song. Of that amount, $1.02 (50%) would be distributed to the recording label, 91¢ (45%) to the featured artist, and 10¢ (5%) collectively to the non-featured musicians on the recording. In actuality, these figures would each be reduced by the amount of SoundExchange's administrative costs.

The annual royalty KXUL will pay a featured artist for the station's "average" recording could be used to supersize a fast food meal. What happens when KXUL's fees are combined with all other college stations?

(CONTINUED BELOW)