[NewMusic] Save Internet Radio

[olorin at lmi.net]

so let me weigh in here on this discussion, though i've certainly  
never received royalties either for radio or internet play. i've only  
tangentially explored internet radio through pandora which i found  
pretty interesting overall. i've been reading various blogs about the  
situation and signed the petition as well and i hope something can be  
worked out.

this situation looks like a pure money grab on the part of  
SoundExchange, until fairly recently part of the RIAA, the same  
company responsible for shutting down illegal downloading of music in  
various legal and not-so-legal ways. the RIAA has got just about the  
worlds absolute worst reputation on the planet at the moment so any  
company formerly affiliated with them i'd tend to look at with an  
extremely jaundiced eye and a truckload of salt to boot.

the big deal with Sound Exchange is that they're now charging per song  
and per listener, whereas with radio it's just per song. i don't know  
what the copyright royalty  rate was like before but to increase fees  
retroactively between 3 and 12 times the original amount paid by the  
station will put mid and small size for profit internet radio stations  
like Pandora and Live 365 out of business, and i can't help thinking  
that that's what the RIAA basically wants, to kill any possibility of  
independent distribution dead.

except that's too glib of a situation. the real situation is more  
complex than this. this copyright royalty rate relates to the rates  
for a statutory license to play any RIAA artists' music on the  
Internet. this is so the station doesn't have to go through red tape  
asking permission of every artist on every label for  an individual  
license for a song. internet radio stations complain that this red  
tape is too inconvenient but it strikes me that a simple web based  
interface is all it would take to have an artist or a rep personally  
approve the use of the license on the site. it would slow the process  
of processing material for that site, but the result is that a license  
fee could be worked out individually. the only issue is that fees  
would very likely vary a lot.

there is of course the possibility that it could result in another  
licensing organization outside the RIAA which would manage all of the  
'indy' licenses for internet performance, but RIAA forbids any member  
to use another licensing company which means the vast majority of  
classic jazz and rock tracks would remain locked up due to the strong  
- arming by the RIAA.

oddly enough i don't see it affecting the experimental scene all that  
much. i think very few experimental labels are members of the RIAA and  
since there's not much money to be had from that sector i think it  
will largely get ignored.

however finding stations (radio and internet) to play the music to  
potential buyers will become more difficult as larger independent  
websites shut down operations or redirect their energies to safer  
possibilities. it's quite possible at that point that the companies  
could end up being bought by a larger conglomerate.

i am certain that some large companies will benefit from overturning  
the fee, but a lot of small and mid size companies will continue to  
flourish alongside and that's a good thing. SoundEXchange seems to be  
saying theat they're sticking up for the 'little guy' the artist's  
rights, but what they really mean is we want our 95/5  split (95 for  
them, 5 for the artist).

anyway that's my .02

scott