Posted on 05/02/2007 6:54:09 PM PDT by DesScorp
The future of Internet radio is in immediate danger. Royalty rates for webcasters have been drastically increased by a recent ruling and are due to go into effect on July 15 (retroactive to Jan 1, 2006!). If the increased rates remain unchanged, the majority of webcasters will go bankrupt and silent on this date. Internet radio needs your help! H.R. 2060, The Internet Radio Equality Act was introduced by Representatives Jay Inslee (D-WA) and Donald Manzullo (R-IL ) to save the Internet radio industry.
(Excerpt) Read more at savenetradio.org ...
That isn't RIAA music content. Your stations wouldn't be affected if I understand the complaint.
Explain that, provide proof and I'll change my opinion. I have no direct knowledge of the situation. I am first against any Bill in the House of Representatives unless a need is clearly proven and then it must pass the Constitutional test.
Second, it's not the RIAA that does the charging. Congress has declared that, rather than forcing thousands of Internet broadcasters to strike individual deals with tens of thousands of authors, there will be one, government-set royalty rate for all works. Since, again, copyright is not a function of natural law but is instead an artifact of the Constitution, Congress has every right to make this decision.
Congress has tasked the Library of Congress with setting this rate, and that agency is required to balance the public interest in access to the works against the fair market value of the authors' government-granted monopoly power. Again, copyrights are not property rights and have no place in the natural law; they exist to serve a specific public good outlined in the Constitution. Setting a royalty rate of, say, $1000 per song would obviously eliminate the entire medium of Internet broadcasting and reduce the public's media choices, which clearly does not serve the Constitutional purpose of promoting "Science and useful Arts."
The problem here is that the Library of Congress has flagrantly ignored its legislatively-mandated duty to balance these public and private interests. The satellite radio market is roughly 40 times larger than the Internet radio market ($2 billion vs. $50 million), so, presumptively, the satellite royalty rate is the fair market value—and the RIAA had no complaints about the satellite radio rate. Yet the new Internet radio rate is four times higher than the satellite rate. That can only make sense if the Library of Congress sees some specific public interest in crushing Internet radio, which is absurd.
No, the "government bailout" here is the Library of Congress royalty panel's selling out the public interest to the RIAA. This law is absolutely the right response. First, it corrects the LoC's malfeasance by pegging the Internet rate to the satellite one. Second, it sets new reporting and accountability rules for the royalty board, to prevent this from happening again. I would like Congress to go further and impeach all three current members of the royalty board, so that they're forced to testify under oath to try to explain their betrayal of the public interest, but that can come later.
And your "feeling" about traditional broadcast stations winning on the Internet is dead wrong, by the way. The most successful Internet broadcasters—Live365, Pandora and SomaFM—have no connection to traditional stations. Just think about it for a minute: Why would you sit at your desk to listen to a local FM station on your $1000 computer over a $50/month Internet connection, when you can listen to that exact same station anywhere you go on your $5 radio for $0 a month? Internet radio only makes sense when it delivers content you can't get via traditional broadcast.
Internet radio serves a public interest and can do so while paying authors their fair market value. Congress is absolutely right to slap down these three corrupt bureaucrats' attempt to wreck Internet radio.
You don't understand the complaint. The royalty rate applies to all works, not just those held by the RIAA. The RIAA petitioned the board for a higher rate, but it applies to non-RIAA works as well.
I also listen to Live365. Mainly, I listen to a western (cowboy music) station, but there is also an exotica/tiki station I sometimes listen to.
Here’s the western station:
http://www.live365.com/stations/mattmccor?play
Sure! Internet radio stations would love that deal: The RIAA doesn't charge standard broadcast stations anything at all. Your local AM or FM radio station pays no royalty whatsoever to the performer or record label, the entities repreented by the RIAA. There's a royalty paid to the composer, but that rate is collected by ASCAP and it's not the one under discussion here (though it is also paid by Internet broadcasters).
Broadcast radio gets a special deal, because broadcast radio plays a special role in serving the public interest. It's perfectly fair for Internet radio not to get that deal, but instead to get the exact same deal satellite radio has. That's what the bill in question does, and it's the right thing to do.
bump
Save the whales!
Save the whales!
But shoot them seals!
Seriously, I love ‘net radio. I like getting “good” radio stations from other parts of the country that we don’t get here in San Antonio, and I like Launchcast and Pandora type services where you “program” your own stations. More is better. I don’t want to hear the same 20 songs on the local radio stations.
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