If Internet radio
stops playing in the forest, will anyone stop hearing
it? A loose coalition of small Webcasters is planning a
day
of silence
tomorrow to protest proposed royalty rules they say
would ruin them.
The Christian Science Monitor ran a comprehensive
wrap-up of the squabble earlier this month, calling it a
battle that "could determine whether online radio
winds up in the hands of the many or the few." At issue
is an industry-proposed royalty rate for Webcast music
-- which would be retroactive to 1998 -- that many small
Webcasters say represents twice their revenues, or more.
"We're calling this a bankruptcy rate," the San Jose
Mercury News quoted a VP at Webcast portal
Live365.com.
This fight has been simmering since February --
Unspun linked to coverage a month ago -- and has been
heating up in recent days. CNET's News.com and USA Today
covered the day-of-silence
angle, and News.com and others took note last week when
a group of congresspersons sent a concerned letter about
the proposed royalties to the Librarian of Congress.
USA Today gave the recording industry some air time
on the question, noting that the Recording Industry
Association of America says they should not be last in
line to get paid, watching while Webcasters pay for, for
example, bandwidth. The Christian Science Monitor
countered with a quote from a law professor who believes
she knows what the RIAA is thinking: "Webcasting is not
the place for the recording industry to collect all the
money that it believes it is losing on CD sales because
of peer-to-peer file sharing."
USA Today provided some of the only hard numbers
Unspun came across in researching this hot-blooded
fight. The paper quoted Gartner G2 figures for audience
size: "16% of the 156 million adult Internet users ...
listen to the estimated 10,000 Net radio
stations," most of which average under 70,000 listeners
a month. Come tomorrow morning, that might add up to a
lot of slience. - Keith Dawson
Net radio
to fall silent for a day
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-894676.html
Net Radio
Will Pull Plug to Protest Fees
http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2002/04/29/radio-fees.htm
Net radio
fears heard in Congress (April 23)
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-890024.html
Fees threaten to silence
Web radio
(April 4)
http://www.christiansciencemonitor.com/2002/0404/p17s01-ussc.htm
Can Internet Radio
Survive? (March 28)
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/03/27/0041254
Web radio's
last stand (March 27)
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/03/26/web_radio/index.html
Plan to alter Internet radio
(March 25)
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/business/2926260.htm
Copyright Office Proposes Webcasting Regs (Feb.
20)
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/02/20/2351222
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