FUCKING Copyright Royalty Board.

[metaltrekman]

Honestly I am ALL for every artist getting their due pay for their hard earned work. They deserve every cent they can get. Its their property and they should receive the royalties!

 

But the "Copyright Royalty Board" are crooks. Several years ago they tried to screw things up and now that the "Small Webcasters Agreement Of 2009" has expired they are at it again.

 

Personally I believe that ANY airtime whether on AM/FM radio or Satellite or Internet radio is very good for the artists. Isnt it logical that the more listeners/fans hear the music the more they will want to hear it? Or even buy it?

 

Here's how this insane system works:

The new royalty rates apply to EVERY COMMERCIAL BROADCASTER at .0017 per performance. If you had 1000 listeners on at all times, each song would cost you $1.70 to play. If you play 15 songs an hour, the royalties alone are $25.50 an HOUR! That's $612.00 per DAY and $223,380.00 per year.

Here's the reality:

In stream advertising rates are currently $1.69 per thousand impressions. That means if there are 1000 people on line and hear an ad (commercial), you make a whopping $1.69 (less 60%). That is the "going rate" nationwide. With 8 commercials an hour, (we will use 1000 listeners as a basis here). and 1000 listeners plus a 100% "fill rate" (meaning all 1000 listeners receive an ad), you would make $13.52 an hour, less 60% commission leaving $8.11 net revenue per hour.

It doesn't add up and it's designed that way:

Net Income is $8.11 minus SoundExchange royalties $25.50 = ($17.39)
That is negative income of ($17.39) per hour.. That adds up to a net loss of ($152,366.40) annually in negative cash flow.

No small business can survive this.

This does not include royalty rates from ASCAP, BMI, SOCAN or SESAC, music purchases, overhead, employees (really?), computer hardware, software, web and stream hosting costs..

The kicker?

AM & FM radio pays ZERO!! They are EXEMPT from these royalties. Could you imagine if an FM station had to pay over $2 Million in annual performance royalties for every 10,000 listeners in their market? The airwaves would be silent! The only difference between AM & FM and webcasting is how the audio is delivered. I don’t care how you monetize, a small webcaster can’t come close to breaking even under these rates and neither can AM & FM. (That's why they're EXEMPT)

We’d be better off sending our listeners each a check for $200 and telling them to go out and buy some CD's

Webcasting is the only businesses where a large audience is far more likely to be a liability than an asset. Who would possibly want that?

This is crony capitalism at it's finest. Internet radio was just regulated out of business in the dead of night just before the holiday break. We were told, " you're done." It shouldn't be like this. Everyone deserves to be heard.

RAIN news stated that deliberations were going on for two years.. Really? NO small webcaster knew.. No small webcaster was notified. NPR was notified, Pandora, Spotify, Sirius/XM, college and high school radio was represented as well. ( they receive special rates for royalties the small webcaster is not privy to)

The small webcaster was NOT represented.

 

You can sign the petition to help stop this insanity and read more here: https://www.change.org/p/u-s-house-of-representatives-u-s-senate-save-net-radio-we-need-your-help-to-petition-congress-100-000-stations-will-perish?utm_campaign=fb_dialog&utm_medium=email&utm_source=signature_receipt#_=_

[martinsane]

Obviously this is a terrible development and one that is well described in this post.

Thanks for sharing and petition signed.

[KarpetRydOFunk]

Who's affected by this? I mean, which countries? I've been listening, on and off, to Uncle Pete's latest show on ARfm all day. Are they affected, too?

[KarpetRydOFunk]

OK, I read the additional info on the link. Damn. Does this mean Dan's station is down? Isn't that on Live365?

[metaltrekman]

Dan doesnt play on Live365 anymore. And Im guessing it will be any station that cant afford it in this list and more. Probably Any country that plays the streams.

 

The THOUSANDS of companies and radio outlets affected:
All shoutcast stations,
All icecast stations
All live365 stations
tunein.com stations
iTunes internet radio.
Windows Media Guide
Car radios and players on the internet..
The list goes on & On

The execution has started already with live365 shutting down operations, firing their staff and vacating their offices, January 1 2016.

[heavyharmonies]

The royalty system and inequities has been fucked for quite some time now.

 

What makes it even more maddening is that all the money goes to major artists on major labels. Small labels and independent artists get squat. Plays of small artists actually subsidize the Beyonces and Jay-Zs of the music industry. It's an ecosystem that is completely upside down.

 

When I had my dustup with BMI a decade or so ago, I got a very good look on how the scam is constructed. BMI was ONLY interested in the volume of my website hits... not the number of plays of songs, and more importantly they wanted ZERO reports of actually whose music was being played at Heavy Harmonies. They just wanted a check.

 

So tell me: How could BMI POSSIBLY be paying all of the artists when they don't even know whose music is actually being played?

 

It's a cash grab and a ripoff. Additionally, the annual minimums are insane and prohibitively expensive for small sites/broadcasters.

 

That was when I decided to ONLY allow samples on the website that had been submitted to me directly by labels or artists, under the agreement that they forgo any potential royalties reulting from plays from my site. I'd love to be able to put up samples from everything, but without agreements in place, I cannot take that risk.

 

Live365 for the site station allowed me to play full songs from ANY artist, regardless of agreements in place for the main website, since the fees I paid Live365 included royalty payments. However, that kept getting more and more expnsive and the number of people actually using it was so small that it simply wasn't viable any more, so I shut it down about 2 months ago.

 

It's ironic, as with Live365 now closing down I would have had to shut it down anyway...

[metaltrekman]

The losers are the less heard from or hardly known artists. Never heard on mainstream radio. Great internet radio stations that do bring us so many amazing unheard of artists and great music we do love. And of course you and I.

 

Many of the large streaming sites being able to afford this and the big record labels and well known artists all benefiting. Its all about the mighty dollar$$. you would think that at least the artists would care enough to help the cause. I guess they forgot they all started unknown too.