Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Royalties Killed the Internet-Radio Star
The Copyright Royalty Board in Washington, DC upheld a ruling yesterday that will virtually be the end of internet-radio broadcasting.
The board decided on new fee rates for online broadcasters. The new fee schedule will increase the costs to streaming radio stations from 300% - 1200% according to SaveNetRadio.org. The old fee structure was based on a percentage of revenues a site generated. The new structure demands a streamer pay a fee for each song listened to by each user.
Personally, I use Pandora all the time to listen to tunes. It's a fantastic website, and a fantastic idea... but it's as good as dead now. The only alternative now would seem to be websites like Torrent Spy, ISO Hunt, BitTorrent, Torrent Reactor, and uTorrent.
The recording industry is thinking completely backwards here. The RIAA does nothing but gripe about loss of sales. But at the same time, they're trying to opt out of the greatest marketing vehicle in the world - the internet. There is no doubt that this decision will decrease record sales for the RIAA, decrease royalties received by the RIAA, as well as increase music piracy on the internet.
The board decided on new fee rates for online broadcasters. The new fee schedule will increase the costs to streaming radio stations from 300% - 1200% according to SaveNetRadio.org. The old fee structure was based on a percentage of revenues a site generated. The new structure demands a streamer pay a fee for each song listened to by each user.
Personally, I use Pandora all the time to listen to tunes. It's a fantastic website, and a fantastic idea... but it's as good as dead now. The only alternative now would seem to be websites like Torrent Spy, ISO Hunt, BitTorrent, Torrent Reactor, and uTorrent.
The recording industry is thinking completely backwards here. The RIAA does nothing but gripe about loss of sales. But at the same time, they're trying to opt out of the greatest marketing vehicle in the world - the internet. There is no doubt that this decision will decrease record sales for the RIAA, decrease royalties received by the RIAA, as well as increase music piracy on the internet.
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The average PC user still can't figure out how to use something like torrents. If it's not in the 'Ipod Accessories' section at future shop/best buy, they are lost.
Have you ever tried to walk someone through downloading from IRC... it's a nightmare.
Time to start using Russian sites... there are no copyright laws in Russia. They remix the shit out of almost every song in existence.
Then again, people could go out and start buying CD's again. The other day I saw an album for sale on 128MB memory stick, I forget the band name. Now that's cool, but not cool enough to remember the name apparently.
Have you ever tried to walk someone through downloading from IRC... it's a nightmare.
Time to start using Russian sites... there are no copyright laws in Russia. They remix the shit out of almost every song in existence.
Then again, people could go out and start buying CD's again. The other day I saw an album for sale on 128MB memory stick, I forget the band name. Now that's cool, but not cool enough to remember the name apparently.
Anti-everything, I agree totally. The industry should be innovating instead of trying to stifle their own product.
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