Public radio: No Webcast changes for us for now

The latest on the Internet radio saga bears some positive news for people who like to stream music from public radio's online presence.

Recall that starting on Sunday, new federal rules requiring higher royalty payments to the music industry from Webcasters--commercial and non-commercial alike--are scheduled to take effect. In recent days, Internet radio outlets have been stepping up negotiations with SoundExchange, the nonprofit entity charged with collecting the fees, over compromises aimed at blunting the increases' impact.

Now public radio says it has reached at least a temporary agreement with the record industry.

Thanks to a "productive" meeting with SoundExchange on Friday, National Public Radio and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting "are confident that public radio stations can continue their music streaming operations for the next three months as good faith discussions are ongoing about the structure and amount of the ultimate fee," NPR spokeswoman Andi Sporkin said in an e-mail message Friday night.

Sporkin said CPB has offered SoundExchange a payment believed to cover what it owes starting July 15, and the group has accepted that money.

"At this time, public radio stations will continue music Webcasting without a limit to visitors to their Webstreams or changes in their current operations," she said.

Meanwhile, large and small commercial Webcasters are still attempting to reach a final agreement with SoundExchange over the rates they owe, with those discussions expected to heat up again early next week. Some low-budget Webcasters have already shut down their operations out of fear they wouldn't be able to afford the new payments. Other industry representatives, including Pandora founder Tim Westergren, say they've been encouraged by the tone of the most recent negotiations and aren't planning to go silent come Sunday.

Check out our FAQ for more information on the conflict and the ongoing discussions.

[baldguy61]

Internet radio fees

What about the stations that have no music content? Why should they have to pay fees to the music industry? It appears to me that this is just one more example of how the US government is bound and determined to make US industry, in this case the internet radio industry, non-competitive. After all, if I want music, it is just as easy to tune to an offshore station, and they do not have to pay any royalties to these vultures at all.

[paulsecic]

Music

STOP BUYING IT. Listen to your local stations.

[`WarpKat]

To Broadcast...or NOT to Broadcast

One of the things that strikes me as odd is the fact that...streaming audio is a product of innovation of the internet. That 'innovation,' as we can see, is becoming stifled as more and more non-technological businesses (read: SoundExchange, internet marketers, Pfizer) try to take control of it and make the rules of what you can and can't do with it.

It's a sad period for the history of the internet when it used to be full of research, development, meaningful communications, and overall common sense.

Nowadays it's just a giant 'rent me' or 'buy me' space for zillions of billboards and I think I can liken this to any highway going into Las Vegas - the desert used to be a beautiful place until Wayne Newton and Carrot Top started popping up along the way.

Back to the topic at hand: SoundExchange has zero authority as far as I'm concerned to try and collect fees from public radio stations that do not broadcast any copyrighted material, even anything that is allowed by the original copyright holder. If I make an audio file that I want to post for free use on the internet, as long as the broadcaster is in agreement to cite the source, I have no problem letting it go. I don't want/require/need/desire SoundExchange going after money I'll never see.

That's like me trying to sell fruit on a public street corner and a guy in a silk suit telling me I need to pay a 'tax' to him and his boss or I risk losing more than just my business.

There are a few words to describe what is happening and they all imply organized crime mentality:

- Extortion.
- Racket.
- Blackmail.
- Swindle.
- Theft.
- Strong arm.
- Bleed.
- Intimidate.
- Muscle.

The sad part of this is that the United States Government, who is supposed to be for the people, by the people, is turning a blind eye to the people who just want to exercise their first amendment rights in the most inexpensive means possible.

If that's the case, then I want Hugo Chavez for president. At least you know where he stands.

[CNET BITES]

whats the dirference

between georgie boy and hugo. Both are criminalistic but-munchung ***** idiots. we know exactly where georgie boy stands, he stands directly on the us constitution and wants to stomp it into the dirt so it can never be legible again.

[seidolce1960]

FM Radio Stations

Ann -- nice story. Do you remember the idea of Payola? Do FM
radio stations have to pay a royalty now?

David Longstreet
www.SoftwareMetrics.Com

[ralfthedog]

Parasite VS symbiote.

SoundExchange, I am quite sure, thinks that they provide a valuable service to the community. Most of the community see SoundExchange as a blood sucking leech. Lets try an experiment to see who is right.

Let internet radio stations choose to sign up with SoundExchange and play major label music, or let them play only independent music from bands that have opted out of SoundExchange.

If the net stations and bands that fall into the SoundExchange camp do better, we know that SoundExchange is a useful symbiote. If not they are just another Parasite.

[enovikoff]

You're kidding, right?

Local radio, at least in the big markets like the San Francisco Bay Area where I live, is completely controlled my media conglomerates that are part of the system that's trying to squeeze internet radio out of existence. In other words, the local radio stations WANT you to stop listening to internet radio so you can be stuffed full of their repetitive, uninventive, top-40 which they think is the only way to make money from broadcasting.

If you've ever listened to internet radion, which it appears you haven't, then you'd know that it offers the joy of discovery of new music, artists, and ideas that our government and big corporations don't want you to have access to. This is also why they're after file sharing as strongly as they are: it's their way or no way - they just can't imagine anything else.

Ultimately the culprit is our capitalistic system: in a competitive market, you can't post the double-digit growth that attracts high stock prices and hence investors unless you buy up all the competition, and then you're left stuck trying to maintain your market share at all costs by preventing any competition. If the government doesn't regulate capitalism, you get oligarchy which is a lesson from the 1800s which apparently has been lost as W and his Supreme Crock tries to take care of his Fortune 500 CEO friends and nobody else.