New Royalty Rates May Kill US Internet Radio

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Animal
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New Royalty Rates May Kill US Internet Radio

Post by Animal » Thu March 8th, 2007, 9:06 am

I don't know what effect this will have on WREKage, but I thought I should publicize this;
Save Internet Radio

Friday, March 2nd, 2007
If the RIAA and SoundExchange get their way, independent webcasting / Internet radio will soon cease to exist.

Why? Earlier today, the Copyright Royalty Board, the group overseeing statutory licensing for US-based internet radio stations, announced the new royalty rates for streaming radio performance rights. The board rejected the arguments made by webcasters and instead chose to adopt the proposal put forth by industry-backed SoundExchange, a royalty fee collection agency created by the RIAA.

The new rates are based on “performancesâ€Â￾ of songs. A “performanceâ€Â￾ is defined as one song being streamed to a single listener. In other words, a station with 1000 listeners is charged for 1000 performances of each song it broadcasts.

Further, the new rates, just announced today, are retroactive to 2006, and increase rapidly each year. The rates per performance are as follows:

$0.0008 in 2006
$0.0011 in 2007
$0.0014 in 2008
$0.0018 in 2009

At first glance, those seem like fairly small numbers: eight ten-thousandths of a dollar, eleven ten-thousandths of a dollar, and so on. When you actually do the math, however, you see the truth revealed. The average radio station plays 16 songs in an hour. Under this system, that would be equivalent to 16 performances.

0.0011 x 16 = 0.0176

Still a fairly small number - under two cents. But now assume this station has 1000 listeners. That means that, in one hour, the station would be billed for 16,000 performances.

0.0011 x 16000 = 17.60

That’s $17.60 an hour. Now we’re starting to see how expensive this truly is. Multiply that by 24 hours a day.

17.60 * 24 = 422.40

$422.40 a day. But there’s 365 days in a year.

422.40 * 365 = 154176

$154,176 for the year in performance royalties alone for a station with 1000 listeners. And that’s just for 2007: it gets even worse. In 2008, the cost rises to $193,536 for the year. In 2009, it goes up to $248,832. Even for a much smaller station, the royalties owed are huge.

Of course, these figures don’t include the other set of rights that Internet radio stations are required to purchase, which must be licensed separately from an agency like SESAC or ASCAP[/COLOR], or the cost of bandwidth and server capacity. When you add all these costs together, you can easily see why nobody, save perhaps a megacorporation like AOL or Yahoo, could afford to pay these rates.

But wait - what’s this? The new rates apply retroactively to the beginning of 2006. In other words, someone who has been happily (and legally) running their small internet radio station for the past few years is suddenly going to be hit with possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional royalties owed. These bills could easily cause a small, independent broadcaster (and his family) to go bankrupt.

Meanwhile, over-the-air radio stations are still not required to pay one dime to the record industry for public performance rights from SoundExchange or an equivalent group. They only need to pay the far more reasonable fees of BMI, ASCAP, and/or SESAC. This reads like another tactic by the recording industry and corporate powers to exert control over anyone involved with music and an attempt to destroy independent broadcasting.

Whether you don’t want to see your favorite internet radio station go off the air, whether you just hate the RIAA, whatever the reason: please, help us get this senseless, greedy policy designed to do nothing but line the pockets of the record industry overturned. Write to, or better yet call, your representative, your senators, and the Copyright Royalty Board. Tell your friends and family, write on your blog, digg this - help get the word out and help to Save Internet Radio!
I've already voiced my displeasure to the CRB, emailed my Congressmen, and posted this on every site I regularly visit.
The more people get involved, the better our chances of putting a stop to this shit.

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Mitch
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Post by Mitch » Thu March 8th, 2007, 9:42 am

Hmmm... Guess we'll be playing a lot more Opeth and Edge of Sanity.

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Mike
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Post by Mike » Thu March 8th, 2007, 12:26 pm

Yeah it's retarded because ASCAP and BMI are already getting paid.
The thing is, i doubt many of the labels we play are members of the RIAA.

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Post by BoB » Thu March 8th, 2007, 9:06 pm

As of now reading posts on this forum will cost you $0.003 per word. This ruling is retroactive back to 2003.

This of course is equally retarded and equally (un)enforceable.

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Post by Animal » Sat March 10th, 2007, 9:58 am

Mike wrote:Yeah it's retarded because ASCAP and BMI are already getting paid.
The thing is, i doubt many of the labels we play are members of the RIAA.
Apparently this asininity applies to ALL copywrighted music, meaning that unless the station is backed by someone with VERY deep pockets, it'd basically be limited to playing music that was recorded in someone's basement or garage.

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Post by holly » Sat March 10th, 2007, 12:49 pm

Mike wrote:Yeah it's retarded because ASCAP and BMI are already getting paid.
The thing is, i doubt many of the labels we play are members of the RIAA.
I think you'd be surprised at who is an RIAA member, dude.
I remember looking at the list a few years ago, and there were some small labels I never would have expected to be on there (like Trustkill).
I bet it's even worse now.

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Post by Metalfreak » Mon March 12th, 2007, 10:58 pm

bastards.
They had you do a drug test and the forgot to test for drugs???

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Post by WREKage-Paul » Thu March 15th, 2007, 2:38 am


Animal
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Post by Animal » Fri March 23rd, 2007, 1:26 am

Image

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Post by BoB » Fri March 23rd, 2007, 11:03 pm

WREKage-Paul wrote:http://www.riaaradar.com/
Great link.
So why not just avoid riaa material? Let the riaa setup their barricades and then rot within them.

Radio show hosts: I call on you to act on this! Do not play any riaa bands. Fuck it. This is metal, there's enough indie, underground material to keep your shows going. and be sure to report to CMJ etc. Tell the label reps who bully you to fuck off. Seriously, you're metal and you're college radio. You should be leading edge rebellion.

In other words, the beach chicks should impale riaa-dork with their umbrella pole and then rub love-smell on his head attracting sea-turtles to hump his eye sockets as he expires.

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Post by Animal » Sat March 24th, 2007, 3:42 am

BoB wrote:In other words, the beach chicks should impale riaa-dork with their umbrella pole and then rub love-smell on his head attracting sea-turtles to hump his eye sockets as he expires.
AMEN!!!! The only problem is, as I said earlier, is that apparently this rate hike applies to all copyrighted material.

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Mike
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Post by Mike » Sat March 24th, 2007, 3:30 pm

But Daath is an RIAA band....
And Mastodon...

Otherwise I'd agree. It's ok the major labels had their worst drop in years like last month.
And independent labels are doing better than ever.

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Post by Greg » Mon March 26th, 2007, 10:36 pm

BoB wrote:
WREKage-Paul wrote:http://www.riaaradar.com/
Radio show hosts: I call on you to act on this! Do not play any riaa bands. Fuck it. This is metal, there's enough indie, underground material to keep your shows going. and be sure to report to CMJ etc. Tell the label reps who bully you to fuck off. Seriously, you're metal and you're college radio. You should be leading edge rebellion.
Back when Fn Dan was the one who reported to CMJ I used to love to be the one to stand in for him and talk to the label people when they'd get all pussy hurt over us not adding their awful linkin park clone bands to Wrekage.

I remember the heavy hitter guy asking me once why we didn't add Bloodsimple, I told him something along the lines of "we're a metal show, we think it sucks, our audience thinks it sucks, where's the confusion?"

I think he quit sending us stuff for a while. Either that or he just kept sending us the like 20 Bloodsimple promos we wound up getting before they became microwave fodder.

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Post by Metalfreak » Tue March 27th, 2007, 10:01 am

Greg wrote:
BoB wrote:
WREKage-Paul wrote:http://www.riaaradar.com/
Radio show hosts: I call on you to act on this! Do not play any riaa bands. Fuck it. This is metal, there's enough indie, underground material to keep your shows going. and be sure to report to CMJ etc. Tell the label reps who bully you to fuck off. Seriously, you're metal and you're college radio. You should be leading edge rebellion.
Back when Fn Dan was the one who reported to CMJ I used to love to be the one to stand in for him and talk to the label people when they'd get all pussy hurt over us not adding their awful linkin park clone bands to Wrekage.

I remember the heavy hitter guy asking me once why we didn't add Bloodsimple, I told him something along the lines of "we're a metal show, we think it sucks, our audience thinks it sucks, where's the confusion?"

I think he quit sending us stuff for a while. Either that or he just kept sending us the like 20 Bloodsimple promos we wound up getting before they became microwave fodder.
:lol: Yeah I get shitty metal (well, it's really not metal) all the time and they do get offended when I don't add whatever it is.

at least yesterday I got a bunch of stuff from Candlelight and most of it was worthwhile.
They had you do a drug test and the forgot to test for drugs???

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holly
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Post by holly » Tue March 27th, 2007, 5:12 pm

Metalfreak wrote:
Greg wrote:
BoB wrote:
WREKage-Paul wrote:http://www.riaaradar.com/
Radio show hosts: I call on you to act on this! Do not play any riaa bands. Fuck it. This is metal, there's enough indie, underground material to keep your shows going. and be sure to report to CMJ etc. Tell the label reps who bully you to fuck off. Seriously, you're metal and you're college radio. You should be leading edge rebellion.
Back when Fn Dan was the one who reported to CMJ I used to love to be the one to stand in for him and talk to the label people when they'd get all pussy hurt over us not adding their awful linkin park clone bands to Wrekage.

I remember the heavy hitter guy asking me once why we didn't add Bloodsimple, I told him something along the lines of "we're a metal show, we think it sucks, our audience thinks it sucks, where's the confusion?"

I think he quit sending us stuff for a while. Either that or he just kept sending us the like 20 Bloodsimple promos we wound up getting before they became microwave fodder.
:lol: Yeah I get shitty metal (well, it's really not metal) all the time and they do get offended when I don't add whatever it is.

at least yesterday I got a bunch of stuff from Candlelight and most of it was worthwhile.
Candlelight packages are always nice to get because they send a ton of shit all at once and it almost never sucks.

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