More RIAA love

[brudus_maximus]

The RIAA wants to increase royalty rates for internet radio stations. They plan to increase rates over the next few years with it being 0.0019$ a song in 2010. Read it here

sorry, mis-type

[Shigy]

Did you even read the article you posted?
2010 - $.0019 per performance != 0.19$ a song in 2010 as you said
there talking about .19 as in 5 songs gets you 95% of a single sent.
Its quite a increase from the current amount though.

[Tarryk]

They're gonna keep shafting us every chance they get.

I should've gone into law. What I wouldn't give to have the know-how to defend public broadcasting. Money-hoarding bastages.

EDIT: Did you know that SoundExchange, one of the primary members of the RIAA, actually demands a percentage of the HIGHER number between expenses and income?

THAT MEANS: If your internet radio station makes 5 bucks a year but spends 3000 bucks a year, you have to pay the percentage off the 3000 because it's the higher number.

and THAT means: If you run a free radio station (like GridStream) and you don't have the benefit of a loophole, you have to pay SoundExchange monthly based off of your expenses. The more you have to pay to keep your station running, the more you have to pay for them to ALLOW you to keep your station running.

How's THAT for cockeyed B.S.

[Jassel]

That's rediculous! How can they do that? You aren't making money, but you still have to pay them even more?

That's a whole bunch of BS if you ask me!

[Chaimera]

wooooohoooo for the powers that be!!

[Tarryk]

That's rediculous! How can they do that? You aren't making money, but you still have to pay them even more?

That's a whole bunch of BS if you ask me!

It is exactly that, massive amounts male cow manure. It sounds like an unbelievable joke, but I assure you it's not. And they've been getting away with it since the dawn of the RIAA, without rhyme or reason, and no-one has spoken out against it without getting snubbed.

Anyone know a REALLY good internet media lawyer?

[Nexeus]

one word: http://www.saveourinternetradio.com/

[Tarryk]

Thanks, Nex, I'm rejoining that tonight on behalf of GSP.

[Fishi3]

It strikes me that the only real difference between a comercial station and a internet station lies in the source used to play the music. For an internet station you have to rip the music to the HD before you play it or you get skipping due to the manner that information loads off of cd's on a computer.
Obviously comercial stations play the music directly from the cd. The solution would seem to be for someone to come up with a cd reader with a smooth transfer rate so that music could be played directly from a cd. The actual manner of transmission doesn't seem to be touched upon by the law at all as many comercial stations also broadcast over the internet now without having to pay any of the digital use fees.

Unfortunately I don't have the technical expertise to do more than envision whats required.

Am I missing something? I'll admit to not being overly familiar with the issue.

[Nexeus]

I wish I could get into the legalneese of it, but... here's a full definition http://www.dwt.com/practc/broadcast/bul ... tRadio.htm

@ Tarryk - no problem man these issues are important to us all!

[Jassel]

Is there a way to rig it so that you guys aren't costing more then like $100 to run every month? I don't know what it actually costs, but just thinking there may be a loop hole somewhere that you can work it into the paperwork so you aren't getting hit on a larger amount.

[Gridfan]

Obviously comercial stations play the music directly from the cd.

I'm not in the "biz" but no, hardly any commercial stations do that.
They use a HD/system of sorts.
Tarryk has probably more knowledge on how this works though

[Kyrros]

I really hate the RIAA, I really do.

[Gridfan]

No idea Jassel, my guess would have been that when
income and expenses are added up and you stare at a big fat 0 (zero)
then this would be the best case scenario in which the greedy bastards
can such the least blood from GSP. Then again I'm no lawyer so who knows.
Currently GSP is pretty much all expenses!

[Kyrros]

Here's the really messed up part.

Short summary from what I read of that link Nex posted:

The RIAA (basically SoundExchange here) has the ability to charge royalties -retroactively- from Jan 1st, 2006 to now for whatever the new rate is set at because the original rates expired at the end of 2005 and we're all still using them cause we got nothing better to go by.

Long story short, if they do what I think they're gonna do (assuming nobody puts on the brakes) our monthly bill could be somewhere around..

{Math}
1440 minutes per day / 4.5 min average song length = 320 songs played per day as a very rough guesstimate.

320 songs x $0.019 per song x 60 (avg # of listeners tuned in 24/7) = oh..

$36.50 or so per day to stream.
{/Math}

That gives us a monthly bill of around $1100, assuming a 30 day billing cycle and we'd have to pay from 2006 to whenever they get around to making the new rates law, minus the amount paid already per the '05 rates.. which are about 1/4 these new ones.

Like I said.. I really hate the RIAA.

What really bugs me is that SoundExchange (read RIAA) collects all royalties from all sources but will only pay those royalties to people that ask for them and can prove they own the music.

For example, Tarryk makes his own music and plays it on GSP. GSP pays royalties on the music, even if he owns it and plays it here cause that's how the rate structure works. In order to get the money owed to him out of those GSP dues, he has to contact SoundExchange and claim whatever amount they've decided is his portion of the pie. This holds true for every artist on an independent label or artists that self-publish.

[Cryonic]

Kyrros,

So what you're saying is if noone claims the royalties Sound Exchange just pockets the cash for the good of the recording industry?


Cry,

[Kyrros]

Exactly. They've already expired the payments to unclaimed royalties for people owed for '96-'00. If the people didn't register with SoundExchange by Dec of last year, it's too late to get thier money for that time period. '00 - Now is still claimable.

Read the Unpaid FAQ

Unpaid Artist List

Admittedly, most of the artists on there aren't people I've ever heard of.. but some of the names do ring a bell. Abraxas Pool, Blood Sweat & Tears, Cherry Poppin' Daddies are on there. There's something like $50-60 mil outstanding to these people.

Oh, here's a fun sidenote for ya to think about: Instead of using ghost singers (ala Milli Vanilli), ghost writers (you think bands have time to write, practice and record music while touring?) or lip syncing (lotsa names here), the recording industry came up with technology like Autotune a while back that allows mixing software to correct the waveform of a singer's voice while they sing. In other words, they could sound half as bad as William Hung before the software and afterwards they'll sound like oh... Britney Spears. They've been using amazingly talented singers to sing a track as a guide for a B grade singer that looks like a million dollars on stage. The software corrects the B grade singer when they miss notes to the A grade's waveform or an established norm for the song.

Basically, if you think it's fake it probably is when it comes to things like MTV and the RIAA's artists. Looks > singing ability, because they can 'fix' singing ability now.

Edit: Oh yeah, and if you didn't see this already.. here's an old clip of Enrique Iglesias singing.. kinda.