Ok I'm sure I'll get flamed for this but it's worth it: Not sure how many of you listen to internet radio, or stream your own but is you do you need to read this: The deadline is tommorow! The Impending Death of Internet Radio March 11 deadline Please Read! America's fledgling Internet radio industry continues to react in shock to the recent Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel (CARP) decision that Webcasters should pay "performance rights" fees to record labels that are so high that they are currently more than 100% of most Webcasters gross revenues! On October 28, 1998, following its passage in the Senate and House of Representatives earlier that month, President Bill Clinton signed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Among other things, the act established a new principal that the owners of sound recording copyrights (i.e., record companies) are entitled to compensation when their works are performed on Internet radio. Under current U.S. copyright law, broadcast radio stations pay royalties to the composers of the songs they play, but not to artists or record companies. For broadcast radio, Congress has always assumed that the promotional value of the airplay was sufficient compensation to those parties. DMCAs rationale for granting performance royalties in the digital world was based on the concept that digital copies are perfect copies and thus the sales of CDs (called "phonorecords" in the act) might be at risk in this new digital millennium. Most Webcasters had hoped that the CARP's recommended royalty rate would be based on a percentage of revenues somewhere between the 15% of revenues that the RIAA had been asking of Webcasters and the 3% that Webcasters had proposed (which would be more in line with their ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC royalties to composers). On February 20, 2002, however, the CARP arbitrators issued their recommendation .14¢ per song per listener for Internet-only webcasters, .07¢ per song per listener for broadcast radio simulcasts, and .02¢ per song per listener for non-commercial radio simulcasts. According to the folks at http://www.saveinternetradio.org , a site set up last week by Kurt Hanson, editor of the Radio and Internet Newsletter (http://www.kurthanson.com ), for a mid-sized independent webcaster (e.g., two or three people working out of a home office or dorm room) that has had, say, an average audience of 1,000 listeners for the past three years, the bill for retroactive royalties -- which will come due sometime early this summer if the CARP rate recommendation is approved -- would be $525,600! The reporting requirements are a related, and equally serious problem. Webcasters would be required to report 17 pieces of information on each listener to each song, with an additional 8 pieces of information on each visitor to the site. There is currently no software available that would collect that information, so the reporting requirements alone could shut down Internet radio even if there were no fees involved. Meanwhile, the subscription services set up by the record companies are completely exempt from the new royalties and reporting requirements. Rather than rehash all that here, I'm concentrating on the comments I'll be sending to the Copyright Office tomorrow (March 11th). If you'd like to send your comments also, the address is copyinfo at loc.gov. be sure to specify that your comments are in response to the proposed rates and regulations on webcasting. Here's the official page at the Copyright Office: http://www.loc.gov/copyright/carp/webcasting_rates.html And here's another site set up by Will Robedee at Rice University's KTRU in Texas; he's leading the charge for community and educational radio stations that stream online (and those that have already stopped due to the CARP rates/regs): http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~willr/cb/sos/ Writing your congresspeople won't make any difference with the CARP panel recommendations, because the law in question was passed in October, 1998, which is why the fee-to-be-named-later is retroactive to that date. The largest few interested parties have been wrangling over the details since then. Once the March 11 deadline has passed, those of us who are concerned about this should indeed write to Congress to ask them to take another look at the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and other changes that were made to the U.S. copyright law in the late '90s, as many things have changed since then and some provisions of the law now appear counter to the legislators original intent. Those who aren’t concerned can go on being unconcerned. The Impending Death of Internet Radio March 11 deadline Please Read! America's fledgling Internet radio industry continues to react in shock to the recent Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel (CARP) decision that Webcasters should pay "performance rights" fees to record labels that are so high that they are currently more than 100% of most Webcasters gross revenues! On October 28, 1998, following its passage in the Senate and House of Representatives earlier that month, President Bill Clinton signed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Among other things, the act established a new principal that the owners of sound recording copyrights (i.e., record companies) are entitled to compensation when their works are performed on Internet radio. Under current U.S. copyright law, broadcast radio stations pay royalties to the composers of the songs they play, but not to artists or record companies. For broadcast radio, Congress has always assumed that the promotional value of the airplay was sufficient compensation to those parties. DMCAs rationale for granting performance royalties in the digital world was based on the concept that digital copies are perfect copies and thus the sales of CDs (called "phonorecords" in the act) might be at risk in this new digital millennium. Most Webcasters had hoped that the CARP's recommended royalty rate would be based on a percentage of revenues somewhere between the 15% of revenues that the RIAA had been asking of Webcasters and the 3% that Webcasters had proposed (which would be more in line with their ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC royalties to composers). On February 20, 2002, however, the CARP arbitrators issued their recommendation .14¢ per song per listener for Internet-only webcasters, .07¢ per song per listener for broadcast radio simulcasts, and .02¢ per song per listener for non-commercial radio simulcasts. According to the folks at http://www.saveinternetradio.org , a site set up last week by Kurt Hanson, editor of the Radio and Internet Newsletter (http://www.kurthanson.com ), for a mid-sized independent webcaster (e.g., two or three people working out of a home office or dorm room) that has had, say, an average audience of 1,000 listeners for the past three years, the bill for retroactive royalties -- which will come due sometime early this summer if the CARP rate recommendation is approved -- would be $525,600! The reporting requirements are a related, and equally serious problem. Webcasters would be required to report 17 pieces of information on each listener to each song, with an additional 8 pieces of information on each visitor to the site. There is currently no software available that would collect that information, so the reporting requirements alone could shut down Internet radio even if there were no fees involved. Meanwhile, the subscription services set up by the record companies are completely exempt from the new royalties and reporting requirements. Rather than rehash all that here, I'm concentrating on the comments I'll be sending to the Copyright Office tomorrow (March 11th). If you'd like to send your comments also, the address is copyinfo at loc.gov. be sure to specify that your comments are in response to the proposed rates and regulations on webcasting. Here's the official page at the Copyright Office: http://www.loc.gov/copyright/carp/webcasting_rates.html And here's another site set up by Will Robedee at Rice University's KTRU in Texas; he's leading the charge for community and educational radio stations that stream online (and those that have already stopped due to the CARP rates/regs): http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~willr/cb/sos/ Writing your congresspeople won't make any difference with the CARP panel recommendations, because the law in question was passed in October, 1998, which is why the fee-to-be-named-later is retroactive to that date. The largest few interested parties have been wrangling over the details since then. Once the March 11 deadline has passed, those of us who are concerned about this should indeed write to Congress to ask them to take another look at the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and other changes that were made to the U.S. copyright law in the late '90s, as many things have changed since then and some provisions of the law now appear counter to the legislators original intent. Those who aren’t concerned can go on being unconcerned.