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Webcasters Call Bunk on SoundExchange DRM Ploy
Posted by
Zonk
on Thu Jul 19, 2007 02:49 PM
from the that's-the-sound-of-the-other-shoe dept.
from the that's-the-sound-of-the-other-shoe dept.
RadioFan writes "The settlement between webcasters and SoundExchange is starting to come apart at the seams, because everyone is realizing that SoundExchange wants to force DRM on Net Radio. DiMA, one of the largest Net Radio lobbyists, has fired back at Sound Exchange, calling them out for leveraging high royalty fees to push through DRM requirements that they failed to obtain in Congress via broadcast flag and anti-recording legislation. Was this whole thing a ruse to get DRM on net radio?"
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Your Rights Online: Net Radio Appeal On Royalties Rejected 298 comments
Station writes "The Copyright Royalty Board has rejected a request to reconsider its March decision to impose an onerous royalty schedule on Internet radio broadcasters. '"None of the moving parties have [sic] made a sufficient showing of new evidence or clear error or manifest injustice that would warrant rehearing," wrote the CRB in its decision.' The recording industry and its royalty collection organization SoundExchange are jubilant over the ruling. '"Our artists and labels look forward to working with the Internet radio industry — large and small, commercial and noncommercial — so that together we can ensure it succeeds as a place where great music is available to music lovers of all genres," said SoundExchange head Simson in a statement. Noble words, but after today's ruling — which will take effect on May 15 unless the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit agrees to hear an appeal — there probably won't be much of an Internet radio industry left for SoundExchange to work with.'"
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Small Webcasters Offered a Rate Break, Reject It 123 comments
Pontifex minimus writes "Music royalty collection group SoundExchange has offered an olive branch to small webcasters. They are willing to delay the exorbitant new rates set by the Copyright Royalty Board until 2010 for small webcasters in hopes that they can keep Congress from passing the Internet Radio Equality Act. Larger outfits, like Live365 and Pandora would not be affected and would have to pay the new rates. '"Although the rates revised by the CRB are fair and based on the value of music in the marketplace, there's a sense in the music community and in Congress that small webcasters need more time to develop their businesses," said John Simson, executive director of SoundExchange.' SaveNetRadio rejected SoundExchange's offer, saying that it 'throws large webcasters under the bus.'"
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The SoundExchange Billion Dollar Administrative Fee 127 comments
palewook writes "On June 7th, Yahoo, RealNetworks, Pandora, and Live365 sent letters to US lawmakers emphasizing they owe SoundExchange 'administrative fees' of more than $1 billion dollars a year. These fees would be paid for the 'privilege' of collecting the increased CRB royalties effective July 15th, unless the Internet Radio Equality Act passes Congress. SoundExchange, the non-profit music industry entity, admits the levied charge of $500 per 'channel' is supposed to only cover their administrative costs. Last year, SoundExchange collected a total of $20 million dollars from the Internet radio industry. Under the new 'administrative fee' RealNetworks, which hosted 400,000 unique subscribed channels in 2006, would owe an annual administrative charge of 200 million dollars in addition to the retroactive 2006 rate hike per song played."
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Your Rights Online: U.S. Court Denies Webcasters' Stay Petition 264 comments
Michael Manoochehri writes "Reuters reports that a "federal appeals court has denied a petition by U.S. Internet radio stations seeking to delay a royalty rate hike due July 15 they say could kill the fledgling industry." This royalty rate hike, put forth by the US Copyright Royalty Board, will increase royalty rates for webcast music tremendously, in some cases to more per year than many webcasters bring in from revenue. Save Net Radio, a coalition of webcasters, is telling listeners that "We are appealing to the millions of Internet radio listeners out there, the webcasters they support and the artists and labels we treasure to rise up and make your voices heard again before this vibrant medium is silenced.""
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Internet Radio's 'Second Chance' Bogging Down in House 105 comments
An anonymous reader writes "Wired is reporting that the Internet Radio Equality Act is failing fast in the House, with negotiations breaking down over fair pricing for internet radio broadcasters. 'A legislative setback could make it harder to dislodge the new fees, which took effect last month after a federal appeals court refused to postpone the payment deadline. With the threat of congressional backlash fading, SoundExchange could find little incentive to budge from its current position ... SoundExchange has already proposed changes that could relieve small and custom-streaming sites from charges they could not possibly afford to pay, at least in the short term. Many expect a small-webcaster deal to be done by early September, when Congress goes back into session. But the deal on the table hasn't changed since SoundExchange extended an offer in May to charge them 10 percent of gross revenue under $250,000, or 12 percent of gross revenues over $250,000, with a revenue cap at $1.25 million.'" All very cushy for SoundExchange. Wired also points out that this is the same organization illegally lobbying for terrestrial radio royalties through 'third party' shell groups.
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A Commonsense Proposal On Net Radio Rates 94 comments
quark235 tips us to an open letter to the RIAA, proposing a fairer royalty structure for Net radio, written by Paul A. Gathard. Gathard is president of Barnabus Road Media, a company that provides streaming radio services to commercial and non-commercial stations across the US. He contends that his proposed rate structure, if implemented, would actually result in higher total revenues to SoundExchange than their current proposal would, after it kills off 90% of Net radio stations.
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SoundExchange Backs Off DRM for Webcasters 63 comments
Radio Free Europe writes "The big news is not that SoundExchange has repackaged the same royalty proposal that small webcasters rejected in May, but that SoundExchange has dropped its previous insistence that DRM be a part of any agreement. 'On the bright side, it doesn't appear as if DRM is part of the terms this time around. Previously, SoundExchange stated that webcasters who agree to the deal must actively "work to stop users from engaging in 'streamripping'." This began a war of words between the Digital Media Association (DiMA) and SoundExchange, with DiMA accusing SoundExchange of using rate negotiations to push mandatory DRM. SoundExchange's letter leaves the much-maligned streamripping issue out of the discussion, clearing at least that hurdle.'"
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Net Radio? What net radio? (Score:4, Insightful)
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How Could You Implement This 'Solution'? (Score:5, Insightful)
How in the hell could DRM prevent this?
But, then again, look at what I'm criticizing! I challenge anyone to list one technology or product that DRM has successfully 'worked' on (in that it prevents piracy). This is laughable and brings the phrase "defective by design" to whole new levels I never thought possible. Not only will it be defective, use cycles and memory on your machine but it will probably make the quality worse. Bravo, DRM, bravo.
Nothing I've found on this lays out the implementation so here's my prediction. SoundExchange wants the minimum offer/DRM model in place. Then they can prove it's possible to still streamrip. Then where does that put the web radio sites? At the mercy of SoundExchange, of course, because they implemented something that didn't satisfy a contract.
Re:How Could You Implement This 'Solution'? (Score:5, Insightful)
And similar tools exist on Linux to capture the ALSA buffers. There's absolutely no way to prevent 'streamripping' with any DRM. The broadcast has to be decoded at the time of play -- there's no way around it. For that matter, these same techniques work with any DRM.
The bottom line here is that DRM schemes are inherently broken and can't be fixed. So let's just get rid of all DRM and be done with it, 'k Mafiaa?
Re:How Could You Implement This 'Solution'? (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe the PTO should treat DRM the same as they (supposedly) treat perpetual motion machines, and refuse to assign patents or trademarks on DRM technology because it's physically impossible to implement a working system?
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The problem is that DRM is a technological "solution" to a sociological "problem". Usually, that sort of fix doesn't work out so well.
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I wish. If the government made every
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Two reasons. First, if there's no way to patent it, it becomes harder for a company to make a profit off of it, and less likely large companies will be dumping money into it. Second, if it's not patented, then if you develop an opensource version of it,
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Seriously, though, how does this make any sense at all? Lets suppose that your conjecture is implemented, and DRM is ineligible for patents. Companies would still be
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What they want is a cash cow. Something where if a user complies the user pays a lot of money to them.
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But don't forget that DRM also suffers from the "broke once, brok
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I just don't understand why they care so much about online streams; they're often lower quality than common radio
Re:How Could You Implement This 'Solution'? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Surely you're not insinuating that the other songs on the albums aren't worth listening to?!?
*Smacks face like McCauley Culkin*
Re:How Could You Implement This 'Solution'? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Pandora and Live365 both stop streamripping as any reasonable person understands it. Obviously blocking any possible "recording" isn't possible and it's FUD to suggest that that's what at issue.
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Well, you supply your own answer in the very next sentence-
"It wouldn't stop someone with a little know how to circumven
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DRM would effectively limit SOME features (Score:2)
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Consider DRM which works only with cooperating drivers that disable recording during play of protected content. Yes you still have the analog hole, but it's no longer *convenient* to record shows. Requires ano
Re:How Could You Implement This 'Solution'? (Score:4, Informative)
How in the hell could DRM prevent this?
They accomplish this through these restrictions:
1. They stop you from specifically being able to play a particular song or artist. Instead they'll create a station that you can customize based on genre, that will from time to time randomly play a song from the artist you chose.
2. You can't programatically find out what's playing. The radio player itself is flash-based, no handy Shoutcast stream tags here.
3. Even if you and a friend listen to the same custom station at the same time, both will be randomly playing through a different part of that station's universe --> no predictability.
4. You have limited ability to skip songs (something like 7 per hour).
5. You can't go back and listen to a song that's already played (fully or partially).
6. You can't restart a song that's just started playing.
7. You can't tell what going to play next.
Aside from these restrictions, it's actually a pretty cool idea and I listen to Pandora from time to time, but the music license effectively makes it so that there's simply no viable way to record the songs you want unless you're willing to sit there for hours, manually chopping up and labeling audio.
Does it matter (Score:5, Interesting)
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Rippers (Score:5, Informative)
Motives are simple (Score:5, Insightful)
Net radio gives opportunities to unknown/independent artists to reach potential fans, and this simply does not serve the interests of the "big five" (or is it "big three" now?) record companies who are responsible for all the crappy music, cross-fading and talking over we get on commercial, FM radio these days.
So, sure, they want to introduce DRM to net radio, as well as crippling fees that only allow big companies (like AOL, for example) to play. Anything to wring a few more dollars out of unsuspecting music fans and prolong their control over the choices available to us.
Re:Motives are simple (Score:4, Interesting)
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These "performance royalties" are collected for all songs played, regardless of their ori
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You may not have noticed, but the performance royalty groups are trying to go after terrestrial radio stations now too. It's possible that they never liked r
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Already done for Clear Channel (Score:5, Informative)
So...I'd say it's already here.
Re:Already done for Clear Channel (Score:5, Insightful)
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Sounds like a good move to
Ubj nobhg... (Score:2)
Re:How about... (Score:5, Funny)
We just encrypt everything with Rot13? It benchmarks favourably in terms of security with such industry standards as CSS and WMA, both of which are broken.
I reply - even better, we have the DMCA already on the books; so legally ROT13 is just as secure as any other protection mechanism, if you break it, you can be sued. This is the case, I propose DRM move to Double-ROT13. ROT13 is an old method, and like DES moving to TripleDES (3DES), ROT13 should update to 2ROT13 for increased security AND performance - even better, it works out of the box on existing players - zero compatibility problems, no need to worry about whiny users with old or new technology.
What about advertising? (Score:2)
Was this whole thing a ruse to get DRM on net radi (Score:4, Insightful)
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Might be a side effect of the new Discussion 2 thing, listed on the main article page.
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