i read recently at http://www.savenetradio.org/ that this is hitting the Senate floor. Please vote for web radio rights now.

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http://ThinkDifferent.com

“If you use StreamRipperX you can download the content right from the stream at a high bitrate (if its offered) and with a lot of new stations they are including track headings so your ID3 tags are right in there for you when you import them into iTunes!”

Thanks Richard, for giving SoundExchange another excuse for charging internet radio broadcasters these exorbitant rates.

But hey, you’re getting your “free” music today, so what does it matter?

The webcasters are NOT the bad guys and neither are the listeners. Most independent artists, and there are tens of thousdans who will never get a contract from one of the four major recording companies that control the music industry are not the bad guys, because they realize that most AM/FM stations won’t play any “unsigned or independent artists” … Why? Because the RIAA will cut them off from receiving those promotional funds (used to be called payola). And they need those dollars to be able to compete for listeners which ultimately affects their arbitron numbers and that directly impacts their advertising revenues. Because, remember, it’s really all about the money.

The tens of thousands of small webcasters are nothing more than people sharing their favorite artists in niche genres that you probably will never hear played on any “over the air” radio station, and they’re NOT in it for money, because very few of them can find advertisers. And, if you’re hearing audio ads on your favorite webcast, those are usually inserted into their stream by their network (like Live365) which keeps every penny paid by those advertisers. Live365 stations listed on Apple iTUNES must pay all of the royalties owed to SoundExchange, Live365 pays nothing.

So, when the Live365 stations which previously paid $2,000 per year under the Small Webcasters Settlement Act of 2002, are now facing royalty bills of more than $2,000 per month retroactive to January 1, 2006, and over the next three years they will see those royalty rates increase two and one-half times over the 2005 rates per listener/per song. Yeah, most all of those stations will shutdown on July 15,2007.

Using PlanetMike’s illustration of 400 listeners only listening 8 hours let’s see what that would cost each webcaster (and right now would be a good time to remind you that NO “over the air” broadcasterpays anything). And, so as you look at the annual royalty amount, you tell me if there is anyway that any personal broadcaster can afford to pay $15,418 for what he broadcast in 2006, and another $21,199 in 2007, and yet, another $26,980 in 2008, and yet, even another $34,690 in 2009, and fianlly another 36,617 in 2010.

That’s a total of $134,904 for all five years. Now, please bear in mind most stations have listeners more than just the 8 work hours five days a week, and remember this doesn’t include one thin dime for broadband streaming costs, music acquistion, a local cable or dsl connection, the computer cost, etc. How many webcasters do you think will still be paying royalties in 2010? My guess, very few.

Do you care? Do those “unsigned” artists care that they no longer will be able to find any outlet where there music will be heard? Do the four multi-billion dollar recording companies care? The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) which is made up of the largest recording companies and their “signed” artists intends to shutdown any independeent webcasters and ultimately the indeependent artists that they playing. Why? Just a business decition to eliminate the Competition. It’s all about the money and absolute control of the industry, supported by huge poltical contributions to write the copyright laws to carry out their plan. Your comments will aid and abed the RIAA’s fight.

Your sense of fairness ought to take into account the unintended consequesnces. But, like John Simson (the SoundExchange CEO) who argues that if these rates will cost three times more than the most successful webcasters can earn, “just run three times the number of advertisements.” Does he think that it’s that simple, of course he does, his name is Simpleton, I mean Simson.

Patrick, well, the rights owners can set a ridiculous high rate so they get a ton of cash from webcasters this summer, and the nothing in the future. Or they can set a reasonable rate that will insure a revenue stream until at least 2010.

Patrick, Yes, I was told that the rates would be changing. The old rates were 10% of revenue, or $2,000, whichever is greater. I took “rates changing” to mean the new rate would be something like 12 or 15 % of revenue. I had no idea that they would entirely gut the percentage of revenue method used to calculate the royalty.

Making it retroactive is wrong - but did you have any notice that the fee change would be coming?

Now, alas, it all seems to be coming to an end. I’m heading to that link you provided right now to see if I can do my part to stop this.