Internet radio dealt severe blow as Copyright Board rejects appeal

Originally posted by Stormrider
I have not as yet received any reply from either of my senators or my congressman. Hopefully, I will in the next 24-48 hours. How about everybody else?

I haven't recieved a word back from any of them, either.

If I don't hear anything by tomorrow, I'm going to call on the phone, fax, and snail mail.

I personally think people should go back to tapes if it gets to the point where "payola" comes back. If it gets really bad, it may be possible to make streaming music via hacked cell phones or moddified walkys.

Maybe this is also about XM satellite and the fact that its not as big as "they" hoped it would be.

If anyone has a facebook, join this group:

Fight the RIAA -- Don't let them kill internet radio!

Dan Mcswain from Facebook
I just got back from the National Assoc. of Broadcaster's conference in Las Vegas, where the webcast industry was holding a day of press conferences, panels, and speakers to discuss what's next for Internet radio.

First thing that morning, we found out that the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB), the panel of judges responsible for handing down this gnarly beast of a ruling, had denied all requests from webcasters to reconsider the ruling.

Believe it or not, this is actually really good news.

Also announced in Vegas was a new site: www.SaveNetRadio.org.... SNR, as we'll call it, has one very specific, tangible goal: Pressure Congress to sign a new bill to intervene on behalf of the webcast industry.

SNR is operated by a coalition of virtually every U.S. webcaster, in cahoots with the largest digital media lobby in the country. It is the be-all, end-all of Internet radio petition and education sites.

Obviously, we would have liked the CRB to come back and say, "Sorry, everyone. We were really, really stupid. Our bad. No more terrible royalty rates." That didn't happen. What DID happen is that now our industry knows precisely what we have to do to survive, something that was very vague and nebulous before the CRB denied our requests for a rehearing. They've handed us a very real, specific terribleness to fight against.

This guy works for AccuRadio and really seems to know his stuff. He goes on to say that we need to pressure our congressmen and spread the word as best we can.

I'm going to a concert in a week and I'll print out a whole bunch of fliers that explain the current situation. Hopefully it will get a few more voices to speak up.

And no reply from any congressmen yet.

TJ 11240

Originally posted by niteboy82
I haven't recieved a word back from any of them, either.

If I don't hear anything by tomorrow, I'm going to call on the phone, fax, and snail mail.

Go niteboy!

Don't give up people!

I haven't heard from my other senator or rep...so I'm going to have to hound them too I suppose...wondering if I'll get anymore correspondence from the first today though. But really what more could they say? I'm just glad I spelled things out for them in my reply yesterday.

I have been dj'ing for three years now,I have never once been told to pay any royalties what so ever,never by the owner of the station I worked at,or the streaming provider.

As long as I have the shoutcast source I can always dj,if my streaming provider gets the axe,I can still stream using my own net access.

I should also add,that I dont charge my listeners,I do not play commercials,and I make ZERO money off of what I do,I do it for the love of music.For that matter,I dont even advertise my station except for a couple of small forums,and most of my listeners are my friends or my other dj's friends.

You can't get blood out of a stone..

DONE! I am happy to help in this matter. Let me know what else I can do.

Well, I finally received a response from my Congressman, Henry Waxman; still nothing from my two Senators, Feinstein & Boxer.

Thank you for contacting me. I was glad to hear from you, and I look
forward to keeping in touch in the future.

If you would like to learn more about my work in Congress, please visit
my
website at www.house.gov/waxman.

Additionally, I encourage you to sign up for periodic email updates
about
my work. Your email address will never be shared, and you may
unsubscribe
at any time. This feature is available through my website's homepage.

Representative Henry A. Waxman (CA-30)

If the quantity and quality of responses to everybody elses email, faxes & letters is the same as this, I don't think we can expect much help from Congress. What a wonderful thing it is to know our elected officials are listening to us...NOT!

I received an email response from Senator Feinstein, today; It seems she is a little off on her calculations regarding the percentage of increase the new ruling would bring about, as well as how the ruling works.

Dear Mr.......

Thank you for writing to me with your concerns about the Copyright Royalty Board's recent decision on the statutory rate for music webcasting. I understand your concerns and appreciate the opportunity to respond.

Under the Copyright Royalty and Distribution Reform Act of 2004, Congress - at the behest of webcasters - created the Copyright Royalty Board which consists of three judges. By law, the judges are a venue of last resort and are required to periodically set rates for various statutory copyright licenses in the event that webcasters and copyright owners are unable to reach voluntary agreements. In the absence of an agreement, the judges set a rate designed to approximate the fair-market value that webcasters should pay to artists and performers for streaming their music for the years 2006-2010. The new rate that was established is less than a 5 percent increase of the rate in effect from 1998-2005.

Although a few webcasters have recently claimed that the process was unfair, it was not arbitrary and allowed representatives from all sides to make their cases. The judges began the proceedings in 2005, and heard testimony from dozens of witnesses and conducted a comprehensive review of tens of thousands of pages of evidence submitted by all interested parties over an 18-month period.

While some webcasters may choose to pay this rate, independent negotiations between the parties are still possible and this new statutory rate would serve as the ceiling. Additionally, if it appears that the new rate will reduce the overall amount of webcasting - as well as the overall income from this stream of revenue - the copyright owners may still have an incentive to offer webcasters a rate less than the statutory rate.

I am a strong believer in intellectual property rights and believe that artists and performers have earned the right to be fairly compensated for the broadcast of their works by webcasters who benefit - financially and otherwise - from their talents. Without fair compensation, these artists would not create their works.

Once again, thank you for writing. Should legislation addressing this new rate or the rate-setting process come before the Senate, I will be sure to keep your concerns in mind. In the meantime, if you should have any additional questions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact my Washington, DC staff at (202) 224-3841.

Sincerely yours,
Dianne Feinstein
United States Senator

Has anybody received a response from their elected officials that was the least bit encouraging? As I pointed out in my last post, if this email is a true indicator of how The House and Senate view this issue, we can just get used to the idea of no internet radio after May 15th.

Originally posted by Bootyac
I have been dj'ing for three years now,I have never once been told to pay any royalties what so ever,never by the owner of the station I worked at,or the streaming provider.

As long as I have the shoutcast source I can always dj,if my streaming provider gets the axe,I can still stream using my own net access.

I should also add,that I dont charge my listeners,I do not play commercials,and I make ZERO money off of what I do,I do it for the love of music.For that matter,I dont even advertise my station except for a couple of small forums,and most of my listeners are my friends or my other dj's friends.

You can't get blood out of a stone..

I don't know about the american copyright standards, but from my point of view you are certainly not well-informed.

The copyright is about "mental ownership". So basically if you make something public which was made by someone else, you pay.

I'm a DJ myself, although I can't spin since a long time due to money issues etc. You should actually know better, for someone who streams on webcasts.

The reason why no one "asked" you for anything in this regard is because you have to know the rights yourself. Law doesn't work in the way that you are excluded from it just because you did not know about it. Or maybe your broadcasting station simply pays the royalties and you dont know anything about it.

If you mix a liveset with vinyls or whatever it is considered as a "remix" of all the vinyls included. Naturally with transitions and effects 2-3 vinyls combined can sound completely different than the original vinyl, but still you recreate work from other artists.

It's basically a grey zone. You create something new from other artists, BUT you still have to pay royalties for publishing your own mixes; Be it over a stream or a mp3 on your website.

It is NOT enough if you bought the original vinyls and feel like publishing the mix. You will have to ask all of the artists and/or better to simply pay the royalty and register yourself an artist-name for your work and music.

Period.

From the Pandora Newsletter
Hi, Tim again,

First, I wanted to thank you again for the support last week. It was absolutely overwhelming. More than 200,000 Pandora listeners contacted their congressional representatives! The entire fax infrastructure on Capitol Hill ground to a halt. We had to deliver faxes manually - literally boxes full of them were delivered to every office in the Capitol building.

The result has been swift and dramatic: more than a million people have already joined the cause! There is now a bill just being introduced called the "Internet Radio Equality Act, H.R. 2060" to fix the problem and save Internet radio -and Pandora- from obliteration.

I'd like to ask you to do one more thing which is to call and ask your Congressperson, Jim Gerlach, to co-sponsor the Internet Radio Equality Act, H.R. 2060:

Jim Gerlach's phone number: (202)225-4315

This fight for our life is not over, but there has been a marked shift in momentum. Thanks to your efforts, this vital channel for musical diversity has a hope of finally being treated fairly and being allowed to grow and nurture a newly empowered class of independent musicians.

Your opinion matters to your representatives - so please take just a minute to call.

Visit www.savenetradio.org to continue following the fight to Save Internet Radio.

Thanks again for being such a wonderful supporter.


-Tim Westergren
(Pandora founder)

So everyone should take his advice and call up their representatives. At this point, we need votes, not sympathy.

As always, keep visiting www.savenetradio.org for updates.

TJ 11240

I'll *****bump***** this because i feel like doing so.

No responses from my emails, no responses from my faxes, no responses from my snail mail.

I did phone in, and got some dingbat people that took the calls. They all told me how they appreciated the phone call, and that they would forward the information on to my senators/representative.

Just wait til I get those letters/phonecalls from Mrs. Landrieu/Mr. Vitter's campaign funds, requesting that I donate money to their campaign. Mrs. Landrieu will probably hear it most, because I am sure sooner or later when she's here I will run into her.

I did have someone from Mr. Vitter's office try to explain to me that he is very busy with ensuring that Louisiana get's fair attention after Hurricane Katrina. Who here believes that either of my Senators or my Representative are spending every hour in Congress working on this one issue. :shk: