Fri Apr 27, 2007 9:22 am

Yet another assumption that the sherriff has the right to milk the population. Why don't all internet radio stations just move offshore like the pirate stations did in the 70's? I'm a musician and sound engineer but I refuse to even join the leeches who call themselves performing rights societies. Let music be played freely as they do in south america, then let the artists make their money from concerts... This does however, mean that the big guys selling cds and online music will take a dive but, hey, the needs of the many against the profits of the few!!!

Fri Apr 27, 2007 11:07 am

Making a living is one thing. You as an artist can't make a living if you drive all of your sponsers who play your music for people to hear into the ground. So people in turn can't go out and tell there friends and buy your CD's or downloads. Without radio many artists would never be recognized or be famous. There has to be a balance here and right now charging 125% and double that in the future isn't going to cut it.

The RIA is making to much money as it is. Why don't they give a little more compensation to the artists themselves instead of driving internet radio out of business who was in fact helping them sell there recordings. It makes no sense at all!

Fri Apr 27, 2007 6:24 pm

	Biff wrote:
	I'm not sure you are qualified to speak for those who make music for a living. Although your heart is certainly in the right place.

I don't see how qualifications come into it - what are your qualifications? How do you speak for me (a different anonymous "guest") as a performing and composing musician? The thing of it is, it doesn't take any qualification, just a little common sense and a little research.

A musician can't make money from music that no-one hears. Quashing the smaller independent internet radio stations restricts exposure to only those channels that can afford to do so, and the large broadcast networks will not explore as broadly as the independents. When you're paying such onerous penalties to do so it doesn't make sense to play anything that isn't already known. You play the top artists. You choose them from what you're given by the label representatives, who show up every so often with new product and encourage you to play it on your station.

Those working for the CRB and RIAA know beyond a shadow of a doubt that these royalty rates will shut down independent internet radio. They're not stupid, they just don't care. I can only imagine that this is what they want to happen. They are not in the business of protecting the musician, they represent the record labels. They're not in the business of making music for a living, they're in the business of publishing. They're not interested in artists, they're interested in superstars. That mentality is served best by fewer artists and fewer avenues of exposure. In other words, selling 1,000,000 units from "Band X" is better than selling 500,000 from "Band Y" and another 500,000 from "Band Z". There's less money spent on marketing and touring.

(There's a good piece on this at http://www.bit-tech.net/columns/2007/04/21/can_you_hear_me_now/.)

CD sales aren't slumping as much some might think, but the spectrum of artists selling CDs is broadening. And even the numbers reported by the RIAA show that their slump began after Napster was shut down (which is an issue parallel to Internet broadcasting, but by no means identical). And, further, their numbers show that much of the "lost" CD sales revenue is shadowed by revenue gains for music on DVD and download sales. Not to mention the CDs sold and not tracked by the RIAA or their ilk, stuff sold directly by the musician, at their concerts, or digitally from their websites. Or by music publishers not affiliated with the corporate collectives.

In Canada, there is a schism between growing between the independent and major labels. Recently, 6 of the independents have dropped out of the CRIA.

Speaking of publishing ... how about the opinions of Nettwerk CEO Terry McBride? Nettwerk artists include Sarah McLachlan, Avril Lavigne, and The Barenaked Ladies. He's qualified. Nettwerk is opposed to DRM and the only artists that have DRM files for sale under Nettwerk do so because they are restricted by co-signed deals with other labels (such as Avril Lavigne). Terry McBride said in interview (on G4TV's "The Lab") that the label and the artists make more money when exposure to the material is not limited. I think it's fair to examine Nettwerk's deal with the social radio and music network Mercora. The press release is at http://www.mercora.com/pressreleases/release_09052006.asp.

But what about the musician's perspective?

John Rzeznik of the Goo Goo Dolls said in an interview: “Our last record sold maybe 800,000 copies – we didn’t make any money. None. Not one penny from record sales. Imagine if we weren’t able to go out and tour and make money on tour. What would we have done? We would have had a gold record and go out and get jobs.” Rzeznik knows where his money is coming from, and it's not from radio royalties or retail chain sales. That's just not how recording contracts are written.

[quote="Biff]You might wanna pop open a history book and take a look at why socialism tends not to work, my friend.[/quote]

I don't agree that the very first post is not saying that music should be given away for free on demand. What it says to me is that the cultural and economic benefits of allowing the music to be played free outweigh the economic benefits and cultural penalties of usurous royalty fees. It's the balance between more artists making more money by getting more exposure and the large corporate labels making more money from publishing royalties and less from diversified music sales. Frankly, radio exposure isn't socialism it's free advertising. And if capitalism can't profit from free advertising. Personally, I don't see that a reasonable royalty rate paid by a broadcaster is unreasonable, but still even without a royalty structure the publishers and especially the musicians benefit.

I've rambled a lot, and I've skipped over some connections. I've touched upon some issues that relate more to DRM and P2P issues but that is because I see how they are connected, and that is partly due to RIAA releases stating that their official concern is that digital broadcasts can be recorded, subverting the DRM distribution models. Effectively, the RIAA has expressed that Internet radio enables digital theft. This is not a perfect essay, but merely an educated opinion with a dash of rant.

But I say - don't be fooled. What the RIAA and CRB are pushing for is not about protecting the musician, it's about controlling and defining the market. I encourage everybody to do their own research.

A few websites and blogs you might find interesting (if you found any of this interesting):

http://excesscopyright.blogspot.com/

http://www.digital-copyright.ca/

http://www.digmedia.org/

http://www.savenetradio.org/