New Copyright laws may shut us down

[rfks]

I recently learned of this disturbing news that was just released this past Wednesday. It's mind blowing what they are trying to do.

The RIAA is trying to get those of us that stream music to pay some hefty fees in additon to BMI and ASCAP fees.

Anybody got an ideas how all of us are suppose to abide by these new proposed rules? Especially the reporting of the music since we all use Winamp to stream with. Winamp does not record what time the artist played and how many listeners at that particular moment.

The final judgement by the Library of Congress is due on or before May of this year. Time for all of us to email our Congressman. Use the link below to do that:
http://www.ruf.rice.edu/%7Ewillr/cb//sos/

What is scarry is that they are gonna try to collect for royalties for the last few years back to 1998 and you have to supply a list of artists that you played then.

Here are some links to view:


http://www.loc.gov/copyright/carp/webcasting_rates.html

http://www.kurthanson.com

[Shirow]

fucking. riaa. bastards. dmca. bullshit. goddamnit.

i sent the email

[TheFonk]

that's funked up man...the problem is that we have these old fart bastards making decisions about issues that don't affect them directly at all...if they took the time to hear what we're all about they might realize that the freedom to distribute information and ideas is really what amerikkka says they're all about. pisses me off.
-thefonk

[pullman]

I want to point out that March 11th is the date for responses to be filed to the Arbitration board. You can get the details from my editorial on http://inetprogramming.com These proposed rates will not only wipeout webcasting as we know it but it will make the need for software products like Shoutcast and Winamp a thing of the past. If this is allowed to become law there will be thousands of jobs lost - Sony, Panasonic, and Philips will have those AM/FM/Internet radio with nothing to play, Itunes will have no stations, AOL Radio will have no stations, websites will disappear that promote independent music - jobs jobs and more jobs will disappear and our economy will sink into the ground - these are big name corporations. With a dead economy there will be no record or cd sales and then the Big5 will see the writing on the wall - however at that point it will be to late. In fact this whole thing has the ability to totally ruin the internet - which is probably what the big record companies want so they can continue to rip off artists. Its not a pretty picture!

[matthew8]

Though I am not going to the CONXIS expo, this should definitely be addressed. So if any of you are attending (those in the forums), I think a new agenda should be in store....The preservation of webcasting. The ruling by the copyright arbitration would create non-competitive, anti-trust practices. In additional to the valuable links given above, here is another useful representative. The United States Department of Justicewww.usdoj.gov. This is bad news, and I think webcasters should try to relay this message to one another. Please reply to this thread, as it is a little more important than the usual.

[dojo]

Current rates on shortwave radio, broadcasting over North America, Asia, and eastern Europe are $40 per hour. One 1 hour show, once a week, prime time, for a signal that is just barely equivelent to am radio (for music). This is the place that people who used to dream of having their own broadcast were relegated to, by "The Man". We started on internet radio (live365), hoping to draw an audience with our pathetic/coolio little b-sides show. That didn't go so well. We just started trying to set up a shoutcast stream, hoping noone would bother us, and now this ruling. AArggh. The wierd part is, we've had more people find us through shortwave. There has to be some happy medium, but in the end, I guess there's no free lunch.

Doctor Doc Brown
www.lostdiscsradioshow.***********

[Shirow]

Question: Is this governed by the labels you play, or is it a blanket 'webcasting' proposal?

For example, if all the music I play is from some obscure label from Czechslovakia (for example) and they agree to let me play it royalty free - am I out of the hot water?

Or am I still totally fucked?

[theaftershock]

Fuck them... Downloading MP3 might be a crime BUT THIS FUCKING ISN'T

[pullman]

Originally posted by Shirow
Question: Is this governed by the labels you play, or is it a blanket 'webcasting' proposal?

For example, if all the music I play is from some obscure label from Czechslovakia (for example) and they agree to let me play it royalty free - am I out of the hot water?

Or am I still totally fucked?

It all depends on who owns the copyright....as a general rule most artists sign away there rights to the copyright and give them to the recording company (hence the term Recording in RIAA). The general justification for these proposals is that there are tens of thousands (to quote) copyright owners and it would be impossible to contact all of them. In actual fact the term top 40 ever come to mind? Well if you have about 50 cds you can meet all of the requirements of the DMCA as long as you play them in a random order (Note with the proposed rules the RIAA wants to know the sequence as well as start and end times of the music - this is to cover the loop hole in the DMCA rules). In actual fact if you negotiate with the copyright owners of the material you can bypass the RIAA - but remember that only covers the recorded material not the composition which is what is covered by your BMI, ASCAP, and SESAC licenses. The solution is artists that write, their own music, perform their own music exclusively, and control the recording process - then you can deal with them regarding the complete package eliminating all of the agencies and government. That is the direction we will move in immediately - we will start purging any material that has not been sent to us directly by the artists - and then we'll start examining who the copyright owner is and with the music is in the public domain (we program alot of Americana and Bluegrass so that part is easy - stations like our Golden are all covers and I see no way to keep it alive - we'll probably switch it over to Spoken Word or Religious broadcasting or sign it off completely. I see no other choices available at this time.

[Donni]

its impossible for them to illegalize teh small guys
The big streams may have a problem, but not us little stations
I mean, they aren't stopping me from using Kazaa to Download MP3's, I'm doing it right now,
there's no way they can stop us all
its impossible
have faith men, we're all in this together, and with jsut a little cleverness, we can get through anything

[Shirow]

Pullman,

I play predominantly Industrial/Synth/EBM, which is generally released on (rather) small labels. I was considering contacting the actual labels themselves (i.e. Metropolis Records) to beg for permission to promote their music.

Many of the small labels send me music with letters stating I am 'free to play the music' but I guess what I'm asking is.. if I send Metropolis (for example) a letter and they say 'Sure, go ahead!' am I in the clear?

There's no way in hell I can afford to pay more than a few cents a month for the priveledge of promoting other peoples music.. it costs me a fortune to run my station as it is, and I buy the majority of my CD's, and haven't made a single cent (and don't really intend to.) I just find this all rather aggravating.

[pullman]

Originally posted by Shirow

There's no way in hell I can afford to pay more than a few cents a month for the priveledge of promoting other peoples music.. it costs me a fortune to run my station as it is, and I buy the majority of my CD's, and haven't made a single cent (and don't really intend to.) I just find this all rather aggravating. [/B]

I am going to develop a simple form in plain English and run it by some lawyers to reinforce the letters from artists. Like you I get the same thing. Its the only way I know of to survive. I spend a fortune close to (30,000$ per year in time and money to keep inetprogramming.com running - I think we made $300 last year in revenue. This was the year the operation had to make money. The 11 formats are going to shrink shortly and cover music is going to disappear entirely never to be seen on any of my station again if this goes through. Maybe we can join forces. Drop me an email off line at pullman@pullman.net

[theaftershock]

Originally posted by pullman
I want to point out that March 11th is the date for responses to be filed to the Arbitration board. You can get the details from my editorial on http://inetprogramming.com These proposed rates will not only wipeout webcasting as we know it but it will make the need for software products like Shoutcast and Winamp a thing of the past. If this is allowed to become law there will be thousands of jobs lost - Sony, Panasonic, and Philips will have those AM/FM/Internet radio with nothing to play, Itunes will have no stations, AOL Radio will have no stations, websites will disappear that promote independent music - jobs jobs and more jobs will disappear and our economy will sink into the ground - these are big name corporations. With a dead economy there will be no record or cd sales and then the Big5 will see the writing on the wall - however at that point it will be to late. In fact this whole thing has the ability to totally ruin the internet - which is probably what the big record companies want so they can continue to rip off artists. Its not a pretty picture!

Jeez, two things are getting scary... that was a lot like what I was going to say and the Enron was already a bad ecnomic crash itself. What has became of this world's corruptions???

[freestiler7]

they really cant do anything about casting, b/c it's just like a regular radio station (it's true that radio stations do have contracts with certain companies to play their music, but they cant have a contract for everything they play).

also, what about dj's? i guess if they shut down casting, then they'll have to tell dj's to quit, cuz they haven't asked the companies if they can play their stuff...

just more food for thought

[Shirow]

actually, most radio stations do have contracts to play the music they play..

[pullman]

Originally posted by Shirow
actually, most radio stations do have contracts to play the music they play..

Here is an analysis of webcasting costs - it was an answer to a post on another listserv that I put together. I hope if fills in some questions.
At 04:05 AM 2/25/2002, you wrote:
<< . If I offended someone, I'm sorry. I am not
listening to music or broadcasting over the net so I might fail to feel the
import of the problem;<<

As I write this their are 79 stations online playing Jazz listed on Shoutcast.com alone. The number one station Smooth Jazz feeds out of Monterey, Calif and has 1876/2050 128 - thats 1876 people listening out of 2050 potential on their system at a bandwidth usage of 128K; They also have a second feed with 325/600 32 or 324 people online out of 600 potential on a 32K stream.
In order to give you an idea what the new fees will cost Smooth Jazz try these figures:
15 selections in an hour times .14 cents = 2.1 cents
Now multiple that 2.1 cents by 1876 streams = 3939.6 cents per hour or $39.40 for the hour.
Now the second stream -
15 selections in an hour (the proposed rules make take this as a different station even though its the same feed at a lower quality its considered to be another public performance) times .14 = 2.1 cents
Now multiple that 2.1 cents by 325 streams = 682.5 cents or $6.83 cents for the hour.
So lets combine those two and we get a licensing fee of $46.23 per hour
But Wait theres more - now you have to include the Ephermal License Fee (when you put music on a hard drive its considered to be an Ephermal Recording re duplicate and hence a copy) which is 9% of the performance fee
So lets take the $46.23 and multiply that by 9% and we get an additional $4.16 for the hour.
The fee for the RIAA just for that one hour is the combined two fees of $4.16 and the $46.23 which comes out to a one hour fee of $50.39

Got that? Thats $50.39 for one hour based on 15 selections playing (the minimum count allowed) so if they actually run more in this hour add more to the fee.

Now remember they are paying BMI, ASCAP, and SESAC fees on top of this amount. Also figure their bandwidth usage - a T1 line available from your local phone company varies in rates from $400 to $1000 per month. A T1 line is equivalent to around 1.6 meg bandwidth or based on 128K streams equivalent to 12 people. So just on the 128K feed they are running the rough equivalent of 156 T1's.....but they have count limit of 2050 which is usually based on the line limitation so they have the capacity of 170 T1 lines - that is some serious bandwidth. Now its obvious there are probably using some type of fiberoptic cable for bandwidth (either that or they have one hell of connection system - based on T1s and a $400 per month rate they would have a $68000 bill) but even if we took a low amount of $10,000 per month that is equivalent to a rough hourly fee of $14 per hour. Now they have to pay for bandwidth usage on top of the basic line charges so you add considerable dollars to the amount - ah yes you thought those were the final costs - wrong thats what its costs to get the pipe in the door to the establishment. Bandwidth usage is on top of that and can easily match the basic fees of line gear (eg. if you have a DSL line you know what I'm talking about - you pay the phone company say $88 per month in WA state and then you pay a base fee to the isp - as your numbers go up like 60 users you can pay a bandwidth usages charge of $800 per month (speaking from experience). So for good measure lets thrown in a $10 per hour fee.

So lets assume they pay $50 to RIAA, $3 to BMI, ASCAP, and SESAC combined, per hour fees for pipe and bandwidth of $13 and $10 and we are now up to a costs of $76 per hour.

But wait theres more........
We haven't paid for the electricity to run the equipment
We haven't thrown in the rent
We haven't thrown in the insurance for the gear
We haven't thrown in the insurance for the liability of visitors into the facility
We haven't thrown in an amount for replacing the gear when it breaks
We haven't thrown in money to pay for the current loans, heaven forbid
We haven't thrown in money to pay salaries
And last but not least we haven't thrown in the money for the music - you know the jazz that comes out of your computer????
Oh yah the RIAA doesn't want you to keep a digital copy (you know the one you made from the cd and placed on the hard drive to play back) for more than 6 months. Since the DMCA states that only one copy can be made off of a cd that means you can't keep a library, unless you keep buying new cds of the same material - not likely going to happen so its only the music coming in the door thats new that will get paid. So tell me how is an artist going to get paid in royalties if you've got to buy the same stupid cd every six months? Oh yes you have to record all this information and make sure the RIAA has a copy - you also have to tell them what you playlist is going to be for the next month and when the music is going to play, and then at the end of the month you have to tell them that it played and when and if it didn't you have to file a report showing why and explaining the discrepancy. Oh yah I forgot they are going to have to have money for this as well.
Now heaven forbid is Smooth Jazz has more streams like a Real Audio stream, or a Windows Media stream, or another low bandwidth stream that somebody on a poor phone modem can get......you can add a whole pile of additional charges to the figures.

So what are we up to per hour now?? $200 or $300 per hour? Oh yes I forgot we haven't budgeted for any promotion money - you know that stuff you do to build up your radio audience like in the real broadcast world so you can get advertising dollars to help pay the bills? Remember now that as Smooth Jazz increase their audience the RIAA wants more and more per song, per listener, per stream plus don't forget that 9% fee for the recording.................So lets play the math one more time...lets take the low figure of $200 per hour and multiply it by 24 hours and we get $4800 per day to play jazz over the net. Now remember the RIAA fee is going to be $1200 per day or 25% of the daily operating cost of the station.

Do you know anyone who gets 25% of the take before profits??? Search hard and wide....gong! Times over - nobody.

Now lets put the RIAA demands in perspective. Smooth Jazz is a big station so lets look at this with a small station.: I'll take one of my 16 streams - specifically I'll take my bluegrass stream which has 100 listeners on it out of 150 max. And to be specific lets just do the RIAA calculations for this one hour:
15 songs times .14 = 2.1 cents per hours times 100 listeners or $2.10 per hour or $50.40 per day or in a month or $1512 for the month. Now multiple that by 16 streams and you'll get a monthly fee of $24192 or a yearly fee of $290,304. We still have to thrown in the cost of operating $30,000 per year so it cost $320304 dollars to run for a year (remember now no one gets paid). so that mean the RIAA fee is 90% of the operating budget of the station.

Now if I calculate a projected amount for the next year based on listeners of this week on the bluegrass station which shows 30,000 listeners (including one that has set on the system for 76 hours we calculate as follows: 15 songs times .14 = 2.1 cents per hour x 24 hours = 50.4 cents times 365 days = 18396 cents per year or $183.96 per person per year. Now if we take 30,000 listeners times 52 weeks this is equal to 1,560,000 listeners over the year or the equivalent of an audience in a large city at prime time. The RIAA license fee would then be 1560000 times $183.96 per person fee of $286, 977, 600 per year . But if we allow for a 300% growth rate which in fact has been the growth rate over the last year we are looking at 860,932,800 + we must add the 9% fee of $77,483,952 to get a projected fee for the RIAA of $938,416,752 or if you figure for all 16 streams a total fee of $15,014,668,032. or roughly 100% of the operating costs.

So since the RIAA thinks this is only a reasonable fee then that would mean that this total must be only a portion of the value of the company. If we use the normal licensing fees as a comparison that would mean that Inetprogramming is worth somewhere around 50 billion dollars. If anyone wants to buy the company I’ll be happy to discuss details.

There is only one purpose in these proposed rates and that is to drive independents out of business. The arbitration board has been snowballed by the RIAA.

[Waltzking]

Why don't you think of moving your server outside USA, such as Canada?

Here in Canada, the Government adopts a "hands-off" policy towards internet broadcasting. Thus, you do not need any licence from CRTC (Canadian Radio and Telecommunication Commission) to operate an internet radio station. You do not have to follow the 30% Canadian content rule like the traditional radio stations, for instance. And your station do not have to be bilingal.

Royalties? There is only ONE agency to deal with, that is, SOCAN (Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada), not four. And they have proposed a modest fee of 25 cents (Canadian) per listener per month for internet radio stations, or 10% of the advertising revenue, whichever is greater, plus 7% GST. One listener can log on to your station for as many times as he wants and for as long as he wants, yet your royalties is atill 25 cents a month. You can play as many songs you like to him and the fee is still 25 cents per month per listener.

Also, you do not have to worry about playing an artist four times per three hours and that sort of crap - just play as many Celine Dion songs at any time you want and as often as you want, until you audience is sick and tired of her (or any other artists for that matter).

Well, Canada is a colder and quieter country, but life styles in cities such as Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver are comparable with a medium size Amercian city. And you can still enjoy McDonald's, KFC, and shop at Wal-Mart and Sears.

[matthew8]

Yes, the copyright arbitration royalty panel could have been snowballed. But they (the arbitrators) would have to be Retarded not to see this effort by the record companies to put small radio out of business. I mean, if these arbitrators are "experts" well, I would hate to see the amateurs. For example, if any of the several people who have replied to this thread were on that copyright arbitration royalty panel......our heads would have to be so far up our ass to come out with this royalty rate. Worse yet,The panel even declined considering a blanket style license in which you would pay a percentage of your gross revenue. If you ask me, it sounds like a team effort between the arbitrators and the riaa. This could sink music on the internet. Furthermore, I don't think anyone who has an internet station should bow out. That maybe easy for me to say....since I don't broadcast yet. Terrestrial radio sucks so bad. The DMCA was the worst piece of legislation (it's also a piece of something else) I would rather listen to an 8k stream on a cell phone than listen to regular radio. I have faith though...not in them, but in the webcasters and consumers. The product we present and the demand we have is greater than the powers that be. If I am wrong, than we can kiss many great up and coming products good bye, and webcasting itself. I have faith though.

[pullman]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Waltzking
[B]Why don't you think of moving your server outside USA, such as Canada?

I actually have been thinking about it - you see we already have a system in Victoria, BC and I do have a few friends in Ottawa and area (used to live there LOL).....The information you supplied is more than reasonable on the rates - we cover Victoria through our international coverage on our BMI and ASCAP licenses currently.

Here is what I need to operate - bandwidth with a preference for fiberoptic - we need about 5 meg usually when things are wide open and that would increase over time with normal growth. Cheap rent or colocation. A techy to keep an eye on things when a hands on person is needed - like kicking the computer.

Right now I can pretty well tell you there is roughly 10,000 stations that are looking for a solution if the fight against the RIAA fails. Webcasting will continue around the world even if the US falls into the Dark Ages - somewhere down the line the American populous will wake up but by then it won't matter. I'm just glad that there is a world out their to fight the fight and keep operations like Shoutcast and winamp alive - Competition is good - monopolies suffocate!

[leo_c]

Here's the deal in the UK if anyone's interested...

I made a quick phone call to MCPS in London -
They have a 'blanket trial' license available at a cost of
£250 + (VAT@17.5%) per quarter. You also need a PRS license, which at the cheapest is £1050 + VAT or a percentage of income.
The 'blanket trial' essentially means that they have thrown this together quickly to accomodate demand, and it's liable to change, hence it's charged quarterly.

So as far as I can see, the cheapest you can get licensed here is £2050+VAT per annum (about US$3000) . There appear to be no unreasonable restrictions (apparantly no listener count, etc), and they don't seem to care where the server is based, as long as you're a UK company (although I'm sure pricing on co-lo in telehouse is competitive).

Anyway, I'm no legal expert, so here are the links..

http://www.mcps.co.uk/
http://www.prs.co.uk/

..although the websites are fairly content-free =(


Leo

[NeoChichiri]

Originally posted by theaftershock
Fuck them... Downloading MP3 might be a crime BUT THIS FUCKING ISN'T

Actually...if you want to get technical...it is. Unlike MP3s, you do NOT have a right to stream copyrighted music that you own. The usage of MP3s for copyrighted material that you own a copy of, is legal....but only for private usage, not public usage, which is basically what the stream is.

I'm not arguing about whether it's RIGHT or not, just's just the way it has sadly worked out.

[Waltzking]

Besides, we have good hockey teams

[Shirow]

Anyone here want to give me a 70 listener server in Canada?