From: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org (ecto-digest) To: ecto-digest@smoe.org Subject: ecto-digest V8 #181 Reply-To: ecto@smoe.org Sender: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk ecto-digest Sunday, June 30 2002 Volume 08 : Number 181 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Fw: CARP ruling limits your music choices... ["Angel's Shadow" ] Re: Fw: CARP ruling limits your music choices... [meredith Subject: Fw: CARP ruling limits your music choices... CARP ruling limits your music choices... - ----- Original Message -----=20 From: Sam Rosenthal=20 To: projektlist@projekt.com=20 Sent: Friday, June 28, 2002 12:44 PM Subject: CARP ruling limits your music choices... Projektlist#201 | Friday, June 28th 2002 from Projekt's Sam Rosenthal major label's machinations to further restrict your choice John writes: "I'm not sure if you heard, but SomaFM, one of the best = internet radio stations in the SF bay area, has stopped broadcasting = because it cannot pay the exhorbitant fees the Library of Congress put = into effect. This station played a lot of ambient music, stuff I enjoy = greatly, but the RIAA has silenced them, and i'm more than a little = upset about it. So, here's a serious question: Is Projekt affiliated = with the RIAA? If you are, can you give me your side of this whole = thing? All I see are my musical choices as a listener, and avenues of = performance as an artist, being limited by what the RIAA (with the help = of the US government) is doing. If you see things differently, please = illuminate me. Please explain why what the RIAA is trying to do is a = good thing." Hi John, First off... *anything* the RIAA (Recording Industry = Association of America) does is *not* a good thing for music lovers. = Their actions are only a good thing for the five major labels. Second, = Projekt is not part of the RIAA! The RIAA are lawyers and lobbyists who = bribe our government to do whatever it takes to make more money for the = Major Labels. It is misleading for their name to suggest they care about = "the Recording Industry" (or music), they only work for the big 5's = profit, they have no interest in benefiting small labels like Projekt... = and certainly no interest in doing what's best for music lovers. In his question, John is talking about the recent CARP ruling, which = basically requires internet radio to pay such a high rate to play music = that webcasters won't be able to stay in business. Note that this = doesn't apply to regular radio, where the majors have already locked up = what you hear. The idea behind CARP is that webcaster should pay two = royalties: one to the songwriter (through BMI, ASCAP, etc) one to the = performer (through their label). It also should be kept in mind that the = majors don't actually give this money to the artist, they generally = recoup it against the artists' advance. Bottom line: the Major labels = want to make more money (imagine that!). http://www.saveinternetradio.org/90seconds.asp (this site explains it in = much more detail) At $.07 per song *per stream* (what the Library of Congress recommended) = the average streaming radio station/college radio station online would = have to pay about $500 a day to stay legal, which is about $15,000 a = month . . . $180,000 a year!!!!! This is a royalty rates that exceed the = total revenues of the industry (how does *that* encourage business?). Personally, I think there is a deeper reason for this. The Major labels = want to KILL streaming stations. They don't like the fact that you are = streaming music from labels other than theirs. You should be listening = to Britney or N'Sync!!!! Every time you hear an alternative to major = label crap, you are more likely to NOT SPEND YOUR MONEY ON A MAJOR LABEL = RELEASE. The majors know that music being streamed is often alternatives = to their releases, so they pushed this through as a way to restrict your = choice. "Why doesn't this ruling apply to regular broadcast radio?" you might = ask? "Under 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." So, tell me.... what makes Internet Radio less of a promotional value? = The RIAA claims it has to do with pirates (they mean *you*) downloading = and burning cds from Steamed radio; of course that's not what is = happening (because of the low quality of streaming audio), but it is the = RIAA excuse (the ongoing "digital download is killing our profits" red = herring) to slap a death sentence on choice.... Just like when they = attacked people for taping music in the early 80s ("home taping is = killing music."). It's just a ploy to make more money, under the guise = of protecting your interest. Don't you just love how business rules every aspect of your life? Projekt is offering all internet webcasters the right to play our music = without paying the second royalty. Just pay BMI and ASCAP as you have = been doing. That's good enough enough for me..... /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////= ////////////////////// ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 29 Jun 2002 11:46:18 -0500 From: "JS News" Subject: cd sleeves storage etc. Meant to get this out in the string earlier. Better late than never?? One thing that might work storing cd's upright in sleeves sans jewel box, is to use a file "tab" label, like those on a file folder, as a visual /organization tool. Any gummed label could be made to work. You might even want to print them from the computer, rather than by hand. The color of the label, and/or it's position in height along the cd sleeve "spine" can be used to denote their place in the alphabet as well as giving the ol human fingers something to grab onto. You could print the artist name or use some numerical code that is cross referenced in a database to tell you who,what where the cd is . Try Listpro http://www.iliumsoft.com/listpro.htm by Iliumsoft. Be sure to check out the "Free Lists" tab for many other ways to use their product. Another nifty way to store cd's with or without jewel boxes ( warning, requires that you own the place you are living in,and are better with tools than Tim Allen!!!!) is .....if you have a very narrow hallway, so narrow that you wouldn't even hang pictures in it, you can put the space to good use by...removing the sheetrock from one or more sections and place 2x4's horizontally across the upright 2x4's to make a nice "built in" custom recessed shelf. Jim ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 29 Jun 2002 13:03:51 -0400 From: meredith Subject: Re: Fw: CARP ruling limits your music choices... Hi, Projekt's Sam Rosenthal's comments were thusly forwarded: >In his question, John is talking about the recent CARP ruling, which >basically requires internet radio to pay such a high rate to play music >that webcasters won't be able to stay in business. Note that this >doesn't apply to regular radio, where the majors have already locked up >what you hear. Well, regular *commercial* radio, anyway. Non-commercial radio stations that stream over the Internet have a few more choices. Public Radio stations will get help from the Corporation from Public Broadcasting to pay the fees, or they will charge their listeners to tune in online, or some combination of the two. Other non-commercial stations will find a way, I'm sure. To use two examples local to us: WFMU (wfmu.org) has already stated that they will continue streaming no matter what... they're just going to practically cease playing RIAA-owned music. They hardly ever play anything from the major labels anyway. I asked WPKN (wpkn.org) what their plans are, and they are still trying to figure it out -- though I imagine since they already play much more non-RIAA music than RIAA music, they will be able to continue streaming. If they have to play less RIAA music to do that, it's not going to adversely affect the listening experience much, anyway. The ruling only affects webcasters who are serving from the US, and who play enough RIAA music to add up to high fees. The way I see it, this ruling will open the door for webcasters serving from outside the US to step in and fill the void. Also, the US webcasters should just remove all music from the RIAA labels from their playlists, and then there will be no fees to pay and the quality of the music they play will go up dramatically. I realize that there are still some artists who make good music on the major labels ... but there are far more artists on indie labels or completely DIY out there who deserve exposure as well. Certainly more than enough to keep webcasters busy for a long time. Personally, I'm hoping that this transparent attempt by the RIAA to destroy Internet broadcasting will completely backfire, and that this will actually signal a renaissance in webcasting, so that even more independent music and music from other countries will get out there and be heard. (I wonder if the webcasters that have already ceased operations really understood the ruling before they panicked and closed up shop...) ============================================== Meredith Tarr New Haven, CT USA mailto:meth@smoe.org http://www.smoe.org/meth ============================================== Live At The House O'Muzak House Concert Series http://www.smoe.org/meth/muzak.html ============================================== ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 29 Jun 2002 14:04:57 -0400 (EDT) From: "Larne Pekowsky" Subject: Re: Fw: CARP ruling limits your music choices... Meredith Tarr wrote: > Other non-commercial stations will find a way, I'm sure. To use two > examples local to us: WFMU (wfmu.org) has already stated that they will > continue streaming no matter what... they're just going to practically > cease playing RIAA-owned music. Bob Westphal (http://www.theonebob.com) has written some things that lead me to believe it's not as simple as just not playing RIAA stuff. If nothing else, the webcaster is probably still responsible for filing the hellish reports on who is listening and what was played and so on. Jamie Zawinski has a great, but incredibly disgusting, summary of all this at http://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/webcasting.html. The paragraph that makes me sickest is at the end: And after all is said and done, what happens to your fees? The media conglomerates take your money, keep most of it for themselves, and then divide the rest statistically based on the Billboard charts. That means that no matter what kind of obscure, underground music you played, 3/4ths of the extortion money you paid goes to whichever management company owns N'Sync; and the rest goes to Michael Jackson (since he owns The Beatles' catalog.) All other artists (including the ones whose music you actually played) get nothing. Apart from contacting our representatives (which is useless, but we should do it anyway) I've been thinking about what we can actually do about this. My only thought, so far, is to play with the definition of 'stream.' Let's say there's a weekly show, playing only music from artists who have approved of their work being transmitted digitally. Further, say that the whole show is saved as one big-ass mp3 and made available via ftp, does that count as a stream? How about if the people who download it pipe the bytes from their ftp client to their mp3 player as they arrive, without ever saving them to disk? Low-bandwidth users would need something in between to handle the buffering, but that's true anyway. > Personally, I'm hoping that this transparent attempt by the RIAA to destroy > Internet broadcasting will completely backfire, and that this will actually > signal a renaissance in webcasting, so that even more independent music and > music from other countries will get out there and be heard. I would hope so too. However, I think the real goal of all this was specifically to limit the availability of non-mainstream music - I can't imagine the RIAA really cares about the webcasting fees, which would be a drop in the bucket for them. Call it paranoid, but I suspect that when the dust settles it will turn out that anyone playing anything will be beholden to the RIAA in some form. - Larne ------------------------------ End of ecto-digest V8 #181 **************************