CRB proposes retroactive royalty hike!!!!!

Posted at congress.org today....

As your constituent and a fan of Internet radio, I was alarmed to learn that music royalty rates were recently determined by the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) which, if enacted, would certainly silence most or all of my favorite online listening services. For most webcasters, this royalty rate represents more than 100% of their total revenues! A large number of internet broadcasters are hobbyists and enthusiasts who do not profit from their endeavors and should not be burdened by any royalty fees,let alone a retroactive fee.

The shuttering of the webcasting industry would be a loss for not only independent business owners, but also for musical artists, for copyright owners, and for listeners like me who enjoy the wide variety of choices available via Internet radio. We need to look at where these monies are going,as I am sure the artists and composers don't get their fair share. The middleman is writing his own fortune here and we need to put a stop to it. Why don't the regular radio broadcasters have to pay this fee?

I respectfully request that your office look into this matter and initiate action to prevent it. As the CRB rate decision is retroactive to January 1, 2006,which is totally unfair,please understand that time is of the essence -- as the immediate impact of this decision could silence many Internet radio stations forever.

Feel free to copy and send.... Regards,Lee

Heh, I'm famous 🙂 That was me who posted that.

We're scrambling to figure out what we'll do if the appeal(s) fail. Most likely we will close doors as an internet broadcaster and then just produce a 3 hour weekly show for distribution (and let others worry about licensing).

It's BS to put it nicely.

I didn't think anyone here cared so I didn't post much about this.

http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=263230

I have been told that this will never effect us, so we will not bother doing anything about it. That's when I stopped trying to find other ways to get our station heard.

Here's the skinny:

On October 6, 2006 a new amendment went into effect that states all streams must submit a report of exactly what songs were played, how many times they were played, and how many people listened to those songs. Data includes Artist, title, disk catalog number, and a bunch of other things that would be impossible to pull from a server log. For non-com and educational streams, they require these reports for a twoo week (14 day) period every quarter year (3 months).

Now if that isn't bad enough, they've been arguing about the new rates for almost 3 years, leaving 2006 in limbo. They are doubling the flat fee to $500 for non-com and educational, lowered the aggregate tuning hours by about 40,000 hours, and doubled the fees for above the aggregate hours of 152,xxx hours (roughly 212 listeners connected 24/7). With the rates increasing every year.

Also you should be aware that ASCAP, BMI, and probably SESAC have special web use licenses that they expect you to be paying, though if you are an educational facility and you pay their flat blanket fee, you will already be covered for the artists side of things.

Now if you are using a service to host your stream that also offers to pay the licensing fees, you are legal but they will probably need to raise the rates to cover 2007 and the back log of 2006.

I've around radio for a long time. This is nothing new about charging to play music etc. I remember back when they (record companies) paid the radio stations to play their music (payola) which became illegal. So the tables have been turned now they require radio to pay to play their music. Why shouldn't it be illegal for them. If the artists start losing sales because radio can not afford to pay these fees and stop playing their music and go all talk or whatever how are they going to be promoted then. You can't have concerts or have million sellers if you can't be heard so be careful......ASCAP, BMI, etc.....not to bite the hand that's feeding you............most of the large corporations that are buying up all these stations are beginning to feel the pinch and are switching formats. Just a thought to those who are fed up with all of these price hikes etc.....

by MRAM 1500 kHz

Fortunately, I run a recording studio. As such, the music I play on my Part 15 and my webstream is original music by local artists that are thrilled to be heard.

One of our clients is a BMI member, but he has given us express rights to play his music which I believe is within his rights.

Now, you're not gonna hear top fourty on my station but, where do they come from? I might be playing the next "Beatles" or other fantastic undiscovered talent. Wouldn't you like to be able to say "Hey, those guys got their start on my station!"

Just one comment, ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC are pretty reasonable in their rates, and most of the money does go back the the artists. Money to RIAA goes to record companies, the same companies that are charging $20 for a CD.

Also note that broadcast radio does not pay the RIAA, they were grandfathered out of payments. The ONLY time they need to pay RIAA is when they stream. Commercial stations do still get charged a large amount for BMI, ASCAP, and SESAC, but non commercial and educational rates are pretty reasonable.

And there is the final "loophole". Written into the copyright laws is a clause that says you can seek an independent contract with all copyright holders to perform their music. That includes record companies. So if you obtain a contract from the artist and their record label to perform their music for free, then you need not worry about this. Our station can't even be bothered to do this last step even though it would also mean that the record companies would most likely send us free music to play. If you want to obtain a contract with the record companies, I would start sooner than later. As the volume of requests increases, they will stop being nice and start refusing to give you a contract, or refuse to even reply to your messages.

There's a lot of music out there that is very listenable, but gets little or no airplay. Not saying "public domain" so much for music, but lots of unsigned bands and artists where airplay on even tiny stations is great for their morale (not to mention their promo pack, if they write it up right). More performers/composers/bands are also going for "creative commons", especially if the station is non-commercial. If you do a streamed program already (or even have some friends on the net who like new music) sometimes you can the performer or a band member or two in to a chatroom when you're going to debut their material. If you have a couple local listeners so there's a call-in or two, it can make for a very cool evening.

I have my small home studio, so when I wanted xmas music that was non-RIAA/ASCAP/BMI I just checked to see what of it was in the public domain (the song, the version done by any given famous performer usually isn't) and would record a version. Sometimes conning musician friends into coming in or passing files back and forth via internet with ones that live across the country and do home recording themselves. By the week before xmas when I wanted music with a holiday sound in very heavy rotation, I had over 70 pieces from the combined non-RIAA/ASCAP/BMI/etc sources to bring in. With reads from Dickens and the sections relating to the holidays in other classic works in the public domain, it made for very nice program with different moods for different times of day/night.

It's a simple fact of life that a lot of great talent is out there, unsigned and wishing they could be heard. The RIAA only represents a few hundred of the thousands of record companies, not "artists and composers" in general.

It's more work, but yes, it *can* be done.

Daniel

"A new ruling by the Copyright Royalty Board threatens... thousands of... legitimate internet broadcasters by annulling the Small Webcasters Settlement Act (SWSA), a document... signed, in good faith...

'After the March 2 ruling by the Copyright Royalty Board which, essentially, annulled my Small Webcaster Settlement Act (SWSA) agreement, I'm not sure what I'm going to do. This decision has the potential for ruining the businesses of thousands of broadcasters, including minority-owned stations, in one fell swoop, and many may be forced into bankruptcy because of this ruling,' said Dianne Lockhart, owner of Meander Comedy Radio."

More info in this PR WEB PDF file:

SWCA.pdf

Experimental broadcasting for a better tomorrow!

We may actually close down as well.

One saving grace may be an independent label, we're hoping they agree to let us use their inventory. We've used it in a podcast we produced before very inexpensively ($8 an album, unlimited distribution rights. Audible credit and links provided on our site as part of the agreement).

More of the same kind of greed. Check out this humorous article:
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=38678