p2pnet - rss feed: First payola, now Dark Payola
p2pnet.net news:- You know all about payola, the Big 4 record label way of making sure they get air-time for what they want, when they want. It’s routine.
Here comes Dark Payola, thanks to the Copyright Royalty Board.
“Bay Area leading light SomaFM faces crippling debt and insolvency along with many of its Internet radio peers including Pandora and Live 365 this Spring,” says the East Bay Express. “Late last March, the Copyright Royalty Board - three dudes in Washington - raised SomaFM’s webcasting rates from $10,000 in 2005 to $600,000 for 2006 (applying retroactively). The ruling is ‘fair,’ says the top honcho of SoundExchange, the royalty collection group lobbying for higher rates on behalf of the major labels and artists.”
But, “Staggering,” is more like it, the story has SomaFM founder Rusty Hodge saying. “We were expecting rates to go up 10, maybe 20 percent. It would be painful, but at least it wouldn’t put us out of business.”
According to SoundExchange, a spin off from Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), webcasters have all kinds of ways of making money so they can pay the new rates.
Like what? Oh, like, banner ads, pop-ups, video pre-rolls, audio commercials, says SoundExchange front man John Simson.
But, “Hodge says he isn’t interested in annoying his listeners, and exposure means more than gold to the indie bands he streams,” says the East Bay Express.
“One of the most frustrating things about SoundExchange is they’re allowed to recoup all their legal costs before they distribute any money to the artists and copyright holders,” Hodge told p2pnet, going on:
Which means all the money we’ve been paying into SoundExchange hasn’t gone to the artists like they say it does, but instead goes to paying SoundExchange’s legal bills - bills they run up fighting for higher rates for webcasters. The more we pay in royalties, the more money they get to fight for even higher royalties.
Michael Huppe, General Counsel of SoundExchange, says ‘It’s in everyone’s best interest to ensure a vibrant and thriving marketplace for Internet Radio and we intend to work with webcasters towards achieving that goal.’ But what he means by vibrant and thriving is saturated with ads, or subscription services that cost $13 a month.
Based on in-stream ad rates today, which are in the $1.50-2.00 per CPM rate, you’d need to run an average of 8 ads an hour just to cover your royalties. But Simson’s retort to that is that you can get higher ad rates by combining banner ads and video pre-rolls - those 30 second video commercials before the music stream starts - in addition to your in-stream audio ads.
Why would anyone listen to internet radio with all those commercials? We’d have to play more commercials than over-the-air stations play now … and tha’ts assuming they could actually fill all that ad inventory now.
The majority of Americans who don’t listen to netcasts should care about all this, because developments in that pond have ramifications for the on-air world, says the East Bay Express post:
“Terrestrial radio stations may soon face Internet radio’s two sucky choices: 1) Pay SoundExchange through the nose for whatever the station wants to play, or 2) Save money by making direct, legal deals with record labels to play a label’s free “Abomination of the Week.” I’m looking directly at you, Korn Unplugged.
It’s the opposite of payola but with all the effects, says Hodge. It’s Dark Payola.
“They’re going after the over-the-air broadcasters next,” he says in East Bay Express. “There’s no doubt. And if you think media consolidation is bad now, wait till it’s back to the old payola days.”
Old payola days? Who says they’re gone?
Meanwhile, Bryan Adams is among performers who say the CRB decision is bad, bad.
And, “I’m the lead singer for a local Northwest band called Come Back Maggie,” said a p2pnet comment post.
“The last thing I need is some guy in a tie taking away outlets for my music. How is it that some non-elected suit has the power to enact sweeping changes like this?”
Also See:
East Bay Express - The Age of Dark Payola, April 18, 2007
bad, bad - Bryan Adams slams Net radio hike April 18, 2007
If your Net access is blocked by governBryan Adams slams Net radio hikement restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at thIs the endSurvey: How Did Copyright Infringement Become Equated with Robbery? (of the Net) nigh?zze University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official download, here for the p2pnet download, and here for details. And if you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.
rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss | | Mobile - http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php | | And use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site
Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local politicians. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance. Don’t just complain. Do something!
April 18th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
lol, we wouldn’t. We’ll just download the songs if that’s all you can offer, why should someone listen to you.
April 18th, 2007 at 4:59 pm
If unsigned artists don’t have to collect royalties ( not sure how this works or if it’s possible ), then maybe they could let their music be played for free. Then they will be the ones getting all their music heard rather than the label artists. So maybe the stations can still be on the air without going broke, and new artists could benefit big-time.
Not that I really want to see the label artists themselves hurting on account of this but maybe this could be plan B for the stations that can’t afford the new rates.
April 18th, 2007 at 6:22 pm
Because how are you going to be constantly exposed to new and diverse artists if you’re searching specifically for them through P2P? At best you can find some mixes and collections of artists on P2P, and that doesn’t even come close to the breadth and quality found on stations like somafm. In your statement you are essentially supporting the limitations attempted to be put upon you by the RIAA. Clearly you are also missing the forest for the trees on this issue as well. For god’s sake lean how to punctuate as well (or perhaps you’ll suggest that why would you want sgood inglish skillz as well?).
April 18th, 2007 at 6:22 pm
Because how are you going to be constantly exposed to new and diverse artists if you’re searching specifically for them through P2P? At best you can find some mixes and collections of artists on P2P, and that doesn’t even come close to the breadth and quality found on stations like somafm. In your statement you are essentially supporting the limitations attempted to be put upon you by the RIAA. Clearly you are also missing the forest for the trees on this issue as well. For god’s sake lean how to punctuate as well (or perhaps you’ll suggest that why would you want sgood inglish skillz as well?).
April 18th, 2007 at 9:28 pm
Listen TROLL… I have enough music that I get off of p2p networks to keep me satisfied…why whould I want to dig through the GARBAGE on radio, when I have a decent collection of songs?
And if you think new music is so great, then YOU go and listen to it!
Go lean how to use p2p orr keep your mouth SHUT, because YOU obviously don’t know what you are talking about when it comes to p2p!
April 19th, 2007 at 9:27 am
Have you considered broadcasting from a proxy server somewhere the copyright laws are a little friendlier? Probably not the greatest solution, but when you look at the big corporations — including the media conglomerates that make up the RIAA — headquartering themselves at a mailbox in the Cayman Islands or Vanuatu or Liechtenstein when they don’t feel like following U.S. commerce laws, it might be gratifying to beat them at their own game.
Well, it’s just a fantasy of mine, at least….
–Jay in New York
April 19th, 2007 at 5:07 pm
I like it, but chances are you’d only see the US courts allow China-style url/ip blocking at the service provider level. Though something like that might scare enough people outside the indie stream to lead to change.
I hereby call all indie bands, netradio broadcasters and indie lovers to live with me in Vancouver. We can be nomads! And if Canada f’s it all up, we’ll just move on, gathering the sympathetic as we go! Very digital pied piper.
~christopher~
April 21st, 2007 at 11:46 pm
“How is it that some non-elected suit has the power to enact sweeping changes like this?”
hahahahaha —- it’s called beaurocracy.
June 12th, 2007 at 10:19 pm
Dark Payola Investigation launched by the above writer.
See blog link to real-time investigation here.
http://blogs.sfweekly.com/shookdown/2007/06/internet_radio_investigation_a.php