Difference between revisions of "2007-03-02 US webcasting rules"

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==Overview==
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Great site. Good info.
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[[category:timeline]][[category:events]][[category:United States issues]]On March 2, 2007, the {{USA}} government, through the [[Copyright Royalty Board]] (CRB), announced a new set of regulations for [[internet radio]], including higher rates that are retroactive to the previous year (2006) and which escalate steeply (more than doubling) up through 2010. There is also a $500 minimum fee per channel per year
 
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===objections===
 
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Given the rates currently paid for advertising on webcasts and the low demand for advertising airtime, these new rates make webcasting essentially commercially non-viable.
 
  
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The $500 annual minimum is especially prohibitive for sites (such as [[Live365]]) offering subscribers the ability to run their own stations: although some of the stations make money, the majority of them are non-commercial and extremely low traffic, with listener-counts in the single or double digits.
 
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Furthermore, the new regulations require webcasters to pay these rates ''even if they only broadcast content whose license allows free broadcasting''. This is problematic in a number of ways.
 
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For one, it is not clear where the dividing line, if any, is between a "webcaster" and an artist 'casting their own material. Even if the regulations still permit individuals to 'cast their own material without paying royalties, there are some entirely legitimate in-between situations which now might (or might not) trigger a requirement to pay tithes to the record industry without receiving any significant value in kind:
 
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* an artist who streams their own original music but whose copyrights reside with a publishing company (which the artist may or may not own in full) rather than with the artist personally
 
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* an individual who streams original music of bands who are her/his personal friends, with the bands' permission
 
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* a record label (such as Magnatune) which streams the original music of their artists, with the artists' permission
 
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* a web service site (such as [[htyp:Jamendo|Jamendo]]) which provides a service allowing artist-clients to stream their own music, and which may publish streams of music from multiple artist-clients with the artists' permission
 
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These new regulations seem very much like another power-grab by the [[music industry]].
 
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===possible solutions===
 
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====direct licensing with independent artists====
 
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One possible response which doesn't seem to be getting much mention is that the webcasters should start soliciting music directly from independent artists. The music could either be broadcast entirely royalty-free, or the webcasters could provide a choice of (reasonable!) licensing schemes from which the artists could choose when they provide their music to each station. (Even better, there could be a central licensing site from which all 'casters could select content whose licensing meets their budget and needs.)
 
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This would provide a fall-back position of using only directly-licensed content, completely boycotting music-industry-controlled content, in case the music industry proves uninterested in listening to reason, and also a bargaining tool (the longer the music industry waits before becoming reasonable, the more prepared the webcasters will be to go through with a boycott) to use in negotiations.
 
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It has been pointed out that the rules as they stand now require royalties even for streaming directly-licensed content; this is, however, clearly in violation of [[freedom of speech]]: if that rule is upheld, what is to stop the music industry from demanding that my internet provider pay royalties for streaming content to which I myself own the copyright (e.g. because I wrote and performed it)? How reasonable does this rule sound when applied to other media, such as text &ndash what if book publishers had to pay some central authority when publishing a book, or a newspaper had to pay a central authority when publishing a letter I wrote to them? It does not seem likely that this rule could be upheld in court, and it might even be a powerful weapon towards demonstrating the illegitimacy of the legislation as a whole if the webcasters were to focus on challenging just that part of it.
 
 
==Links==
 
==Links==
 
===News===
 
===News===

Latest revision as of 18:10, 22 July 2009

Great site. Good info.

Links

News

Projects & Statements

  • SaveTheStreams.org: "Internet radio may be driven out of business within weeks by a Copyright Royalty Board decision that gives record companies a royalty rate that exceeds 100% of most webcasters' total revenues..."
  • Save Internet Radio at Live365, possibly the largest webcasting company, with thousands of subscriber-operated streams

Opinion

Related Pages

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