AfterDawn: Tech news

SoundExchange greed kills Internet Radio

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 18 Aug 2008 3:44 User comments (16)

SoundExchange greed kills Internet Radio According to Pandora founder Tim Westergren, the hugely popular web radio site is about to go offline, citing new pressures from the record labels that will double royalties paid to the copyright owners.
To put this situation in stunning clarity, Pandora has over 1 million listeners per day but three quarters of all revenue for 2008 will got to paying off royalty fees. A recent decision by a federal panel will make those fees even higher by next year. By 2010, Internet Radio royalty fees will be about 180 percent higher than those of satellite radio.

Westergren adds,“this is like a last stand for webcasting, we’re losing money as it is. The moment we think this problem in Washington is not going to get solved, we have to pull the plug because all we’re doing is wasting money.”

The decision was pushed by music licensing authority SoundExchange, which demanded more money for the labels without even seeing that Internet Radio stations have proven to be the most efficient ways of promoting music.



I cannot even tell you how many new artists or old artists I have found using Pandora. I liked some of these artists so much that I went to see them in concert, giving the money to the musicians. Without Pandora I probably would not have known they even existed.

If Pandora goes offline, then this really could be the death of Web Radio as the site is by far the largest available and the best.

Let us hope that SoundExchange can see through the greed and allow the royalty fees to be dropped to a reasonable amount. If not, they will soon have no Internet Radio sites to even receive royalties from.

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16 user comments

118.8.2008 15:49

shut down and the music people get no money. had some now none. a little is better than none.

218.8.2008 15:56

Pathetic.

SoundExchange and the RIAA are pretty much killing themselves with greed. And why is it terrestrial radio is exempt from this? Internet radio, Satellite radio and other businesses have to pay royalties, but terrestrial is exempt? Talk about a double standard.

Pirate radio stations and illegal downloads will probably rise once again. They are surely giving these guys a compelling reason to come back.

318.8.2008 16:26
atomicxl
Inactive

Originally posted by BurnGod:
Pathetic.

SoundExchange and the RIAA are pretty much killing themselves with greed. And why is it terrestrial radio is exempt from this? Internet radio, Satellite radio and other businesses have to pay royalties, but terrestrial is exempt? Talk about a double standard.

Pirate radio stations and illegal downloads will probably rise once again. They are surely giving these guys a compelling reason to come back.
You say that as if illegal downloads was decreasing.

"The decision was pushed by music licensing authority SoundExchange, which demanded more money for the labels without even seeing that Internet Radio stations have proven to be the most efficient ways of promoting music."

Is there any factual basis behind this?
This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 18 Aug 2008 @ 4:33

418.8.2008 17:48

MMM...Interesting. i do not understand the motives of wolfs and fools.

518.8.2008 18:01

Isn't this the same company that demands royalties from any music regardless if it is licensed by the recording company or not?

I agree with DVDback23, I found a lot of good artist because of this. This is an excellent example of how to get people to buy music legally. It gives music challanged folks like me to use a band with a style I like and find/sample other bands of the same style.

I can't wait to see what happens when Soundexchange charges so much for royalties that no one can listen to mainstream music anymore.

618.8.2008 18:18

Originally posted by BurnGod:

SoundExchange and the RIAA are pretty much killing themselves with greed. And why is it terrestrial radio is exempt from this?
The real reason is when radio / P.R.O. (performance rights organizations) were formed, the formats were vinyl records, 8 tracks, and cassettes.

It was nearly impossible to track every AM/FM radio stations broadcast of each track. After several years of terrestrial radio and PROs battling over license fees, the PROs gave up on trying to charge them. Now, since the formats have been changed and HD radio is now emerging, I can see that changing in the near future.

All in all, I believe that radio stations (of all kinds) should have to subscribe to a PRO, which then delivers the music to the radio stations on a monthly basis. If the radio station doesn't pay the subscription fee, the music would be made inaccessible.

IMO, I don't think sound exchange is fair by up charging internet radio stations vs satellite as its very similar delivery system. I do believe internet stations that broadcast mainstream music should pay a license fee, but it should be based on the number of tracks a station pays within a given month.

Of course, more than 2/3's of all independent artists do not belong to ascap, bmi, or sesac, so those artists would need to negotiate independently the terms of their songs being played.

718.8.2008 18:24

No it should be left alone, no extra royalties. radio station have there own internet radio, Do they pay Extraordinary outrages Fee's, i don't think so.

so why these guys its, Robbery. its very plain and very bright florescent color's.

818.8.2008 20:50
cousinkix
Inactive

Radio stations are required to keep logs of those songs and artists which are played on the airwaves. Keeping track of their playlists is no harder than dealing with webcasters. Sound Exchane is jusat full of crap, by pretending that this is apples and oranges, when everybody has logs of their play lists.

We don't see them making the same kind of efforts to collect royalties from Billion $ companies like Clear Channel and CBS/Infinity which make money hand over fist. San Antonio Texas based C.C. was major contributor to both of the George W Bush presidential campaigns! It doesn't require a genious to figure out why the US Government doesn't appply the same rules across the board.

$ talks! American politicians are hoes, who represent whomever pours dirty money into their campaigns. The entire Kalifornia delegation takes dirty money from the RIAA/MPAA entertainment MAFIA no matter what their political party affiliations might be...

918.8.2008 23:04

This is horrible. I use Pandora, live365.com, and Sirius at work. They all offer different ways to listen, and by switching them around it made it more interesting. I learned about so many new artists because of Pandora, and I did actually buy music because of it. You can also use LastFM and Seeqpod, but you have to tell it what you want. Pandora was a beast that the music industry should have embraced, but they had to bite the hand that feeds them.

1019.8.2008 03:57

In Asutralia a radio station pays $30,000 for a 1 year lic to broadcast any songs from ARIA.

then you pay an extra $0.15 cents per song or a straight $5,000 for a month to play as many songs you want.

The sole lic is probably cheap it's probably the per song or per week/month feee that's the major killer.

I think the fee for a web stream is $10,000 or $15,000 but you have to pay per song, also you have to keep the boardcasting with in the Australia region can't go outside.

None of these fee include re-boardcasting those are seprate fees on top.

1119.8.2008 05:25
13thHouR
Inactive

Originally posted by ikari:
Isn't this the same company that demands royalties from any music regardless if it is licensed by the recording company or not?

I agree with DVDback23, I found a lot of good artist because of this. This is an excellent example of how to get people to buy music legally. It gives music challanged folks like me to use a band with a style I like and find/sample other bands of the same style.

I can't wait to see what happens when Soundexchange charges so much for royalties that no one can listen to mainstream music anymore.
It is, & soundexchange are the RIAA, which in itself is a trade body name to protect the companies from bad press, the RIAA are these companies:

# Sony BMG Music Entertainment
# Universal Music Group
# Warner Music Group
# EMI



Recording Industry Decries AM-FM Broadcasting as 'A Form of Piracy'

RIAA moves to reduce artist royalty payments

Webcasting royalties: indies v. majors


Senators to SoundExchange: Don't use negotiations to demand DRM


ok everyone read this next bit and understand why

RIAA Claims Ownership of All Artist Royalties For Internet Radio
Quote:
"With the furor over the impending rate hike for Internet radio stations, wouldn't a good solution be for streaming internet stations to simply not play RIAA-affiliated labels' music and focus on independent artists? Sounds good, except that the RIAA's affiliate organization SoundExchange claims it has the right to collect royalties for any artist, no matter if they have signed with an RIAA label or not. 'SoundExchange (the RIAA) considers any digital performance of a song as falling under their compulsory license. If any artist records a song, SoundExchange has the right to collect royalties for its performance on Internet radio. Artists can offer to download their music for free, but they cannot offer their songs to Internet radio for free ... So how it works is that SoundExchange collects money through compulsory royalties from Webcasters and holds onto the money. If a label or artist wants their share of the money, they must become a member of SoundExchange and pay a fee to collect their royalties.'"

Boycott RIAA Main


is this about total control of the distribution by forcing their protection racket? you can have music but you must pay us even if you do not want to have anything to do with us.....

Originally posted by sgriesch:
I learned about so many new artists because of Pandora.
The same with both me and my misses, but do the RIAA want you to know and listen and give your money to artists not signed by them?
This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 19 Aug 2008 @ 6:49

1219.8.2008 06:22
susieqbbb
Inactive

Greedy little moron's..

I am sorry to say that even if they go off line.

I would sue the Riaa the reason for copyrighting radio broadcast's that they do not own this is a illegal act period you dont go after the radio stations on your car radio so why are you going after a internet radio site that is just streaming radio through the internet this is just crap.

1319.8.2008 08:48

Because of this fancy little invention known as the internet, everyone has their panties in a bunch. You can either embrace change or fear it... we know where the RIAA stands on all of this.

Here's my two cents: Terrestrial radio stations have been using digital playlists for 10+ years now. They have software that looks just like iTunes or the Winamp playlist editor. Everything is programmed down to the second, so they can squeeze advertisements into their broadcast.

SoundExchange is full of it if they can't track what's played as compared to internet radio. Streaming stations on the web give me the advantage of filtering a genre of music I prefer, plus I can usually get the artist's name, song title and album so I can jot it down and hunt for the music later. If it's worth a buck, I'll buy it.

Therein lies the problem. They want me to buy the whole CD from a retailer. That puts more money in their pocket. They fear I'll buy from iTunes (less profit) or *gasp* download illegally. Another of their "concerns" is my ability to record the digital stream on my PC, play it back later and/or record, copy and do what I want, which only uneducated, cheap, non-audiophiles are likely to do.

Is it really any different than the cassette tape recording fiasco of the 80's? I remember when the Hi-Speed Dubbing feature was being groaned over. The music empire is crumbling and out of fear, they are taking desperate measures to save whatever scraps they can, instead of trying to explore new frontiers that may help them flourish.

1419.8.2008 20:33

Wow, I can't believe that I've have never heard of this online radio station before reading this article. This radio site is absolutely amazing because it gears the music types specifically to one's taste.

It's a shame this site my no longer exist. Well at least I can enjoy it while it lasts.

1530.8.2008 16:00

Pandora was only meant to be heard by an American audience because they were only allowed to transmit that way. I live in the UK but the only thing they asked for was a zip code which was a doddle to find so I enjoyed the best radio station I've ever heard. I probably listened on a regular basis for a couple of years or so. In this time I found so many artists I'd not heard before. This was a great way for new acts to be promoted worldwide and I'm sure they will mourn it's demise every bit as much as me. The greedy bastards at soundexchange should realize they're stifling new talent and as a result stand to collect less revenue directly as a result of their own greed!!!

165.9.2008 15:16
puppis
Inactive

Any Entertainment Cartel with their own POLICE FORCE, well, you can see where this is going. The RIAA Raided a place for selling bootlegs. On the local (Portland Oregon)news they hadthese guys dressed in full SWAT TEAM gear head to toe, Flack vests, and Kevlar helmets, and the velcro patch in yellow letters RIAA.. I laughed out of a desperate sick Irony of the whole situation, when they can have their own SWAT team, to protect their investments against piracy, what next?
I am a musician, and have my own Indie lable, I have long enjoyed the fact that the internet has been thwarting the efforts of the art Fascists. I had my own little radio dealie on pandora, not my music but others. But I encourage anyone, to boycot anything APPROVED(?) by the Riaa, Since when does Art ask for, or need,or want the approval of an Industry? Legitimate , art that matters has always rebelled against this type of oppression. so The RIAA and other like themselves have been force to Pull in the most homoginized worthless garbage over the past 10 years. I say let them continue, and in the mean time for every site they shut down, set up ten more and blatantly throw it in their faces.

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