This part is fascinating to me:
"Traditional radio stations pay no performance royalties for music played on air
because they have proven promotional value" (from
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,52211,00.html )
To me, webcasters do the same thing, but for much lower profits. I guess I can't
really concieve of an internet radio station that actually makes money much
above operating costs, although they supposedly exist, since my experience is
with all underground brodcasters who do it for love and not much else. I mean,
of course it has promotional value. Maybe the fight could be continued form
that angle.
There's a 30-day appeals period. Also, this raises some interesting ideas about
how to get around this. What about, in addition to jamming the streets with
boom boxes, =) forming a company or non-profit that works to fiarly compensate
artists without the bullshit...basically a nonsense-free RIAA, and launch a
letter-writing campaign to artists urging them to renegotiate their contracts or
trash them altogether in favor of small-business-friendly and web-friendly terms
in regards to royalties. It's so important for newly-signed artists to get
their heads out of the clouds and fully undestand what they're signing away.
What about all internet stations going not-for-profit? Would the rates still
apply? Maybe this will encourage play of more underground artists who don't
have the same royalty requirements?
You have to wonder, though, could this be a boon to the epic 10-minute song?
Since the fees are per-song, maybe this will encourage play of those monster
whole-side-of-the-record tracks that never get played. =)
> The big media conglomerates in the U.S. have gottent their way. Read all about
> it at:
> http://www.thestreet.com/_yahoo/tech/georgemannes/10028424.html
>
> Maybe we should all just take back the streets with boom boxes.
>
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Jun 21 2002 - 22:38:30 CEST