Internet Radio Under Attack

[RestoreGore]

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070601-webcasters-ask-appeals-court-to-delay-net-radio-royalty-increase.html

Webcasters ask appeals court to delay 'Net radio royalty increase
By Eric Bangeman | Published: June 01, 2007 -

National Public Radio and a group of webcasters have filed for an emergency stay in the US District Court of the DC Circuit, seeking to delay the new royalty fee schedule for webcasts that is slated to go into effect on July 15. Filed by the Digital Media Association in conjunction with NPR, the filing requests that the Copyright Royalty Board's "radical and arbitrary" royalty rate increase be delayed.

In March, the CRB decided to significantly raise the royalties paid by the webcasters, making the new rates retroactive to the beginning of 2006. Under the new fee structure, webcasters will have to pay a flat fee for each song streamed on a per-user basis. Those fees would more than double over the next few years and are costly enough to knock many small webcasters off the Internet.

The webcasters appealed the decision and were dealt a setback when the CRB rejected their arguments. The only change the CRB made was to allow webcasters to pay royalties based on average listening hours through 2008.

Since the ruling, Congress has begun consideration of legislation that would roll back the CRB's changes. Introduced by Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA), the Internet Radio Equality Act would toss out the CRB's changes and mandate that the current percentage-of-revenue model used to determine royalty rates remain in effect. A similar bill was introduced into the Senate in early May.

Frightened by the prospect of Congressional action, SoundExchange (the body responsible for collecting royalties) backed off... a little. The licensing organization announced that it will allow "smaller webcasters" to continue paying royalties at the same rates through 2010, but said that larger operations would still have to pony up beginning in July. Webcasters were not impressed, saying that SoundExchange was throwing large webcasters "under the bus" and ensuring that Internet radio would never be able to compete effectively against terrestrial and satellite radio.

An emergency stay may be the best chance for the webcasters to delay the implementation of the new royalty structure. Although the IREA has been introduced in both houses of Congress, there is no guarantee it will be passed before the new royalty schedule goes into effect.

~~~~~~~
Big media giants won't have to pay these huge rate increases, so in essence I see this as an attempt to knock smaller voices off the Internet and that simply must not be allowed to happen. I listen to music on an Internet radio station and believe all who wish to have their voices heard should be allowed to be heard without exhorbitant and unfair fees being used as a mechanism to silence them. This stealth attack on the Internet to stifle music and voice is UnDemocratic. Please read up on this and contact your Congressional representatives to stop this assault on Internet radio.

[Buzz Clik]

1. An interesting aspect of this is one I hadn't considered -- such as Rhapsody.

I gave my mother a subscription to Rhapsody for Christmas. It allows her no download privileges but she can play any and all music 24/7. She absolutely loves it because it gives her access to the kind of music that is difficult and very expensive to buy. I'm guessing that, if this goes through, her subscription costs will increase considerably.

[RestoreGore]

2. That is a great possibility

If it doesn't disappear alltogether.

[nickyt]

3. Excerpt from fax I sent to about 80 Congresspeople:

What we stand to lose (a small sampling of stations):


Station Title Description Genre


Whisperings new age, classical, easy listening
659892 total listening hours in the last 30 days
Excellent (831 votes)

ElectricBlues Radio16 blues, electric blues
3254 total listening hours in the last 30 days
Excellent (95 votes)

WUMB folk, contemporary folk, folk rock
167986 total listening hours in the last 30 days
Very good (51 votes)

Absolutely Country contemporary, hits
131877 total listening hours in the last 30 days
Very good (394 votes)

CRIMETIME OTR old time radio, spoken word,
98373 total listening hours in the last 30 days
Excellent (160 votes)

EDGEWATER RADIO oldies, 50s, 60s
98014 total listening hours in the last 30 days
Very good (201 votes)

Club 80s With DJ Lex 80s, new wave
95146 total listening hours in the last 30 days
Excellent (242 votes)

Mike’s Texas Polkas polkas, cajun/zydeco
1482 total listening hours in the last 30 days
Excellent (60 votes)

Powerhouse Radio R&B r&b/urban, pop
63578 total listening hours in the last 30 days
Very good (252 votes)

A Classical Concert classical
23852 total listening hours in the last 30 days
Excellent (235 votes)


Please note the sheer number of hours and the wonderful variety of shows we are losing – have already lost, in fact.

Please co-sponsor H.R. 2060 so we can put this sad
situation behind us and keep these great stations on the air.

---------------------

As of now, there are 111 co-sponsors in the House:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:HR02060:@@@L&summ2=m

And 2 co-sponsors in the Senate:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:S1353:@@@L&summ2=m&

Looks like the Senate needs a little "contactin'" here!!!

Also see RAIN http://www.kurthanson.com/archive/news/060807/index.shtml for more info on this -

thanks, RestoreGore!

[RestoreGore]

6. Thank you!

Thank you for this information. I hope more people contact their Senators this week.

[jus_the_facts]

4. I posted about this in the lounge a while back...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x6535039

....maybe you'll get more attention here in GD...you'd think in the lounge where music is discussed...ad nauseum...would have cared more...but alas...this thread sank like a fuckin' stone.

[RestoreGore]

5. Yes, I know the feeling

Issues like this should matter because they are issues regarding Democracy. I guess that just isn't important or exciting enough to people to care about on the whole anymore.

[jus_the_facts]

9. Seems to be a recurring theme....

....in the 'not so grand scheme' of things these daze.

[givemebackmycountry]

7. Which is exactly why I don't feel guilty about this....

I too have a Rhapsody subscription - and have had one for a number of years.
I have download abilities but at 0.99 a song - it can get quite expensive.

Then I stumbled on a application called RePlay.
The greatest invention in the history of mankind for $39.00!

Load RePlay on your desktop.
Load Rhapsody on your desktop.
One song, twenty songs, a hundred songs, build a play-list in Rhapsody.
Hit the "record" button on RePlay and hit the "play" button on Rhapsody.
Viola! It records every single song that's streaming as an individual MP3 file.
It even tags the file with the name and album and length of the song in a folder you create.
FREE!

If it streams over the internet, RePlay can record it as a MP3 file no matter where you are playing it.
Check out a website called "Wolfgang's Vault" for vintage concerts recorded in the 60's - 70's and 80's.
It's free to listen to but you can also purchase concerts for download.
With RePlay I just hit record and it records the entire concert for free.

There is some GREAT stuff out on that site - some of the BEST concerts EVER recorded - most of them right off of the soundboards at the concerts.

It's the BOMB - I have seriously altered my collection of great music with this application, and combined with Rhapsody and Wolfgang's Vault - no one can even come close.

Check it out - it's a MUST HAVE!

replaymusic.com
Wolfgangs Vault (vintage concert site).

[RestoreGore]

8. Then please rate this up if you want more people to know about it

If they get away with taking Internet radio I believe that will only empower TPTB to go further, and we simply cannot allow that to happen.

[jus_the_facts]

10. k'n'r