Bad News for Internet Radio (US)

[troutman]

http://www.kurthanson.com/archive/ne...07/index.shtml

The Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) has announced its decision on Internet radio royalty rates, rejecting all of the arguments made by Webcasters and instead adopting the "per play" rate proposal put forth by SoundExchange(a digital music fee collection body created by the RIAA).

Radio Paradise's Bill Goldsmith notes, "This royalty structure would wipe out an entire class of business: Small independent webcasters such as myself & my wife, who operate Radio Paradise. Our obligation under this rate structure would be equal to over 125% of our total income. There is no practical way for us to increase our income so dramatically as to render that affordable."

Although this is undeniably a huge victory for the legal departments of record labels (or at least for the lawyers at their industry trade association, the RIAA), I doubt that the heads of the record labels and their marketing executives actually want to see Internet radio driven out of business. (This may be a case of "Be careful what you wish for, you may get it.")

Last summer, there were rumors of seemingly productive negotiations going on between Sound Exchange and webcasters regarding a voluntary (i.e., not statuatory) percentage-of-revenues royalty rate. Everyone's best hope, I believe — for webcasters, labels, musicians, and consumers alike — would be if those negotiations could resume.

[Bobblehead]

Heck of a way to kill a low budget/low revenue industry.

This will remove a lot of stations that would cater to niche markets. I'm guessing that this will hurt sales for newer acts.

I wonder if many of these stations may migrate out of the US? Perhaps an opportunity here created by short-sightedness? A lot of internet radio listeners will be looking for replacement internet stations.

[DuffMan]

RP had a funding drive last month and last I saw they were about 50% target on the last day.

[nfotiu]

Do I ever hate everything about the RIAA and MPAA. I'd imagine non-RIAA labels will not be subject to this.

If everything works out well in the universe, there will be a whole infrastructure dedicated to non-RIAA bands, including sites selling non-drm music, and internet radio stations paying non-RIAA bands a fair royalty. Who knows, the artists themselves may actually make more money when the obsolete labels are not involved.

Hopefully, one day the only "artists" represented by RIAA are American Idol graduates, and Britney/Nickelback wannabes.

[Bobblehead]

Originally Posted by nfotiu

Do I ever hate everything about the RIAA and MPAA. I'd imagine non-RIAA labels will not be subject to this.

If everything works out well in the universe, there will be a whole infrastructure dedicated to non-RIAA bands, including sites selling non-drm music, and internet radio stations paying non-RIAA bands a fair royalty. Who knows, the artists themselves may actually make more money when the obsolete labels are not involved.

Hopefully, one day the only "artists" represented by RIAA are American Idol graduates, and Britney/Nickelback wannabes.

I think this will apply to everything. It isn't the RIAA who are deciding this, it is just the RIAA's recommendation that has been used.

The decision came from a sub-committee of the Library of Congress.

[Boreal]

I'm waiting for my RockRap email to come out about this. I wonder how this is going to affect places like MySpace. I think that is RIAA's big fish.

[blayn]

wow that sucks, i love finding new bands that way, i doubt myspace will go down without putting up a big fight

[Bobblehead]

On the other side of things, anyone try the music site Amie Street?

Artists upload their music (DRM free), and the music is initally free to download. But as downloads increase (and is there for "popular") the price automatically begins to increase. The maximum price for a song is 98 cents (US$).

It sounds like an interesting concept.


(BTW, the site just made the front page of Digg.com and, as a result, is getting hammered with traffic right now)

[ericschand]

Originally Posted by blayn

wow that sucks, i love finding new bands that way, ....

And that's the whole point. If you can find bands/music that way, then
you will not buy the advertised-overly-hyped music from the RIAA members.
So, RIAA makes it tough for you to find other avenues for music, they
gain because other competition is gone.

ers

[mykalberta]

I wonder if this has anything to do with XM Canada's decision to increase service charges by 8$/year by September 2008.

On the XM boards its labeled as an Internet radio price hike yet you cannot opt out of being able to listen online.

MYK

[Bobblehead]

Originally Posted by mykalberta

I wonder if this has anything to do with XM Canada's decision to increase service charges by 8$/year by September 2008.

On the XM boards its labeled as an Internet radio price hike yet you cannot opt out of being able to listen online.

MYK

I'm not sure. I know the new fees do NOT apply to terrestrial radio stations that stream their signal on the net, but I don't know what category XM falls into.

But this is a US fee, Canadian web casts are not affected by this (other than the impending American pressure on the Cdn gov't to adopt similar rules).

[DuffMan]

Bill Goldsmith from Radio Paradise wrote a good article on this, and it is posted here.

PS
His wife looks like Edie Brickell's younger sister.

[mykalberta]

Originally Posted by DuffMan

Bill Goldsmith from Radio Paradise wrote a good article on this, and it is posted here.

PS
His wife looks like Edie Brickell's younger sister.

Is Edie Brickwell's younger sister a coke addict dating a much slimmer Santa Clause

MYK

[troutman]

New hope for internet radio:

http://www3.capwiz.com/saveinternetr...679516&type=TA

There is a bill just introduced in Congress that will save Internet radio from the devastating royalty fee increases that will put thousands of Internet webcasters out of business on May 15th. Please call your Representative in Congress as soon as possible and urge them to co-sponsor H.R. 2060, the Internet Radio Equality Act.

[Titan]

Originally Posted by mykalberta

Is Edie Brickwell's younger sister a coke addict dating a much slimmer Santa Clause

MYK

Or THE santa clause. (unless of course you were actually refering to Tim Allen in your post and in that case I think he was a coke seller not a coke addict? May be wrong)

Also I was going to say that saying someone looks like Edie Brickell is a guarantee to get click throughs!! At least i think she is nummy!!

[La Flames Fan]

Diaf Riaa.