I Won’t Let You Take My Internet Radio Away From Me
In Internet radio, RIAA | 17 comments | permalink
Late last Friday night, I logged on to the website of one of my favorite Internet radio stations to check on the goings on and got one hell of a rude shock. The RIAA, via their royalties arm SoundExchange, had just issued a death warrant that morning for much of Internet radio, as I have known it for the last four plus years.
I can’t possibly convey the utter horror this means to me after being able to listen to the incredible diversity of music that can ONLY be found on the Internet.
Around four years ago, I made a switch in my radio listening habits that can only be described as life-altering. Here’s my story:
I’ve disliked commercial radio for almost as long as I can remember. When I was a teenager on Vancouver Island, like most teens eventually do, I discovered music. Unfortunately, the only radio station we had there was the local AM radio station. Sorry – but that just didn’t cut it for a teen whose very first acquisition in life after a ten-speed was a decent stereo system. I quickly discovered I could pull in the Vancouver FM radio stations by just adding a chunk of wire for an antenna.
Now the Vancouver stations didn’t keep me happy for very long. Something was missing. Turning the knob on my receiver, I discovered KYYX out of Seattle, WA. Wow! These guys play great music! They play stuff I’d never heard of even on the Vancouver stations. Way cool. I was an instant fan of the station. Hell, I even went off to a t-shirt shop and got myself a nice bright yellow t-shirt complete with some add-on funky blue letters that said “I get my kicks on KYYX”. What a smug son-of-a-gun I was.
Fast forward to the 80’s, and I’m now in Alberta. Sure, the big FM stations in town have me interested in the tunes. But holy cripes, there’s sure a preference for putting the DJ and his huge ego first, before the tunes. And talk talk talk, do these guys ever shut up? I was now starting to understand the pattern of commercial radio – it’s all about building upon the personalities of the DJ and the station. And playing obnoxious commercials. Music? What’s that? Sure, I guess they play some good tunes, when they’re not busy yammering on and on while playing crap commercials every three songs. And could they remember to tell me what they just played please? But they were too busy stepping on the music with their DJ patter/blather.
Finding it time to rest my ears from all that noise and hearing the same tune played a couple of times a day, I turned to another FM station – an all news format. Yes, all news, all the time. Okay, so I’m also a news junkie. This worked for me for quite a while. Tune into some music until I could take it no longer, then back to the safety of my all news station.
In the evenings, I did find one local FM station playing some very cool stuff – but only in the evening, on just this one DJ’s show. There I was introduced for the very first time to the music of Andreas Vollenweider, Mannheim Steamroller and the amazing Canadian guitarist Gaye Delorme. Wow! This was new and interesting music – but damn, I had to wait until the evening to hear it.
Then one day, I turned on my radio to find my all news station had gone off the air – and for good. There was no money to be had in the all news format it seemed, because there wasn’t much in the way of commercials, due to lack of listeners (except us hiding out from the FM stations) … well you can see how that vicious circle works.
What to do, what to do? One morning, I found on the dial the special gem that is our regional public radio broadcaster – CKUA. On the air was Cathy Ennis with her show The Listening Room. She had a low-key voice (as did all the CKUA DJs) and she played wondrous music I had never heard ever before! I was instantly hooked. Hello Angelique Kidjo! Hello Shawn Colvin! This was finally my home. Sure Cathy’s show only ran for a few hours in the weekday mornings, but that’s where I was doing most of my listening. In exchange for this bliss, I just tuned out my ears when the aural cacophony known as the Call of The Land aka a prairie farm report came on during the noon hour.
And then one very confusing dark day, Cathy was no longer there. Shock. Horror. What will tomorrow without Cathy be like? Her eventual replacement was to be a DJ who for sure was low-key. But his choice in music made no sense to these ears. And he committed the ultimate sin every morning, with nearly every song – he repeatedly stepped on the music, just so we could hear his voice announce the track. Aggggghhhhh.
So four years ago, and now without a radio ‘home’, I found myself playing around with WinAmp. And there it was that I stumbled upon THOUSANDS of radio stations – all available at the click of a mouse. WOW! Look at that selection. And the rest you could say is history. I’ve been evangelizing all the goodness that is Internet radio ever since.
So here we are today, and once again, someone has decided they are going to take my music away from me. The music I enjoy each and every day - and the stations who have introduced me to new artists and music almost every single listening day. They want me to say my goodbyes as they prepare to take it all away.
I don’t know about you, but I’m NOT going to allow my favorite music to be taken away THIS TIME, not if there’s anything I can do at all about it.
Welcome to SaveOurInternetRadio.com. If you are like me and also not willing to have YOUR music and YOUR favorite Internet radio station(s) ripped from your ears and soul and want to know what you can do about it, then stay tuned. We have only just begun.
Sphere It
I am not going to go back over the same ground so well covered by Bill Goldsmith and Trevor Moyer.
This issue is about corporate and political greed, pure and simple; greedy corporations exploiting a greedy special interest political system.
I’ve been involved in music in a variety of ways my entire life, including as a performer and composer (although never a recording artist). I’m one of those people that once owned thousands of LP’s and then thousands of CD’s. I am an avid consumer of music who never thinks twice about opening my wallet to pay for music that inspires me.
The ironically sad thing to me about all this is that in the past 18 months or so that I’ve been listening to internet radio (primarily, but not exclusively Radio Paradise), I’ve spent well over 50% more of my income on a wider variety of recording artists than in any time during my 53 years.
More dollars going to more artists. Simple math.
That my dollars don’t typically go to support Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Puff Daddy, or the popular artist of the month doesn’t matter. I am supporting an industry that is in the business of profiting from the sale of commercially available music.
The argument of digital technology making it easy for me to copy music is, to me, absurd. I’m in my 26th year of a technology career and have the skills to exploit the recording of digital music. But I don’t for one simple reason - it’s a hassle, too much of a bother. I’d rather listen to internet radio, learn about new artists and be reminded of old favorites, and through that experience have my intense musical interests rekindled and BUY recordings of the artists that are special to me - just like I did as a kid buying 45’s and LP’s and later CD’s.
To the greedy music industry executives who are spending millions to put hand-crafted internet radio stations like Radio Paradise out of business - you are cutting off your noses to spite your face. If you succeed in burying the Radio Paradise’s of the world, my annual expenditures for purchasing your products will drop from the 150% (and growing) of my pre-internet radio spending to likely less than 50% of my former budget.
You are, simply put, spending millions of dollars in order to reduce the share of my wallet you can expect for years to come.
As a former executive in my industry, I will tell you that anyone who worked for me that would come up with a business plan that ensure my customers would cut their spending on our products by orders of magnitude would be promptly fired.
Reconsider. In the short run, it may be internet radio that is faced with extinction. In the longer run, it will be the bone-headed executives of the music industry who short-sightedly came up with a business plan that cut into corporate profits who will be flipping burgers for a living.
My loathing of commercial radio with it’s current sonic pap, repetitious moldy oldies and offensive advertising led me to simply turn it off… just like my TV for the most part. Then I found internet radio, in particular Radio Paradise, which has more or less become the soundtrack for my life. But it’s also something more: Exposure to exciting music new and old that I would otherwise simply not know to exist. Music that I’ve never heard anywhere else. And music that has caused me to buy CDs that I would, by extension, have never known existed. The shortsighted disparity between FM and internet radio aside, the record companies would simply not have made those sales if there were no Radio Paradise… no internet radio.
The record companies cutting off their noses to spite their faces will surely guarantee against their fears of piracy… because I won’t know those recordings exist in the first place… for purchase either. (I also happen to be one of those aficionados who can’t stand to listen to MP3s when I know there’s a high-fidelity recording available.)
Internet radio serves exactly the same business function for the record companies that AM radio did when I was growing up… opening my ears, exciting my soul and causing me to search out and plunk down money for the new recording I was passionate about.
This shortsightedness must not stand on the part of the government or the music industry!
Where I live there is NO radio reception. Internet radio is it. The soundtrack for my life is Radio Paradise (www.radioparadise.com), with occasional excursions into classical or news. To get music over the local cable system costs a $10 per month. I’ve bought more CD’s since I got internet radio than in my entire life beforehand. It’s time the government and RIAA stop thinking of internet radio as stealing music and look at it the way they’ve always looked at airplay — as promotion for their artists.
I’m no technophobe but I have no clue how I’d preserve or save the internet radio signals I receive. I’d suspect most other folks are the same way — why save it if its there and you can tune in anytime?
Keep internet radio available. Don’t limit my choices — let me hear your music and mayble I’ll buy the CD.
Allison MacLeod
www.chickenvideo.com
I’m sure that the three interesting and informative comments I read above are just the beginning of a ground swell of prolonged opposition to a misguided and ill conceived attempt to destroy independent internet radio. I support you in your attempt to put independent internet radio on a level playing field with other broadcasters. Keep up the this very necessary work. Mike
Please include a large button at the top of your website with something to the effect of:
What you can do to help save Internet Radio!
as a link to practical info like addresses of politicians and others responsible for making these decisions, maybe an Internet petition, etc.
Thanks!
Ditto to all above. My story applies to most of those comments above. Very upsetting news for me, i have come to accept internet radio, in particular Radio Paradise, as a part of my everyday life. I like the phrase ’soundtrack for my life’. I never bought a cd before tuning in and learning about the most diverse range of music ever available, now i buy them on a regular basis….isnt that what the RIAA want us to do??? well hello!
What can be done? What can we, as avid listeners, do to help this situation?
Greetings from Australia
Hi
Agree with all the above. Including my office never looked back once RP had been discovered. Local radio and CDs we all brought in just got boring and repetetive. Since discovering RP and getting the IT dept to feed it into the office sound system was the greatest. And as above, an introduction to artists I never knew existed, leading to increased purchases.
Bill Gates once said something like:- any industry that is not on the net by the year 2010 will be extinct. This is more or less true. And with the RIAA axe about to fall, the music industry as a whole is set to die a slow and horrible death, because they won’t be on the net.
We need to get all these arguments across to the right people. But first we need to know exactly who are the ‘right’ people. The men with the clout and the intelligence to understand.
Before discovering internet radio a few years ago, my music purchases were generally relegated to a few “Best Of” and new releases from old favorites. Since my discovery of internet radio, my purchases have increased tremedously. I now know more about music and music artists than ever in my 45 years on the planet. I have been able to steer my teenage son away from the payola crapola that spews forth from commercial radio and onto new, exciting, and meaningful music that will become the soundtrack of his life, as it has become to mine. Tell me who to write to, picket, or what house to egg, to get this fixed!!
I hate the recording industry of America. So short sited. They cried like this so many times in the past, then made billions. They price gouged for 40+ years?!?!?!?
Internet radio and whatever comes next will always exist. So so stupid… be a part of it or be eaten alive. Stations will just go underground, and pop up here and there. This will only hurt the “legitimate” stations like Paradise and SOMA.
Paris Hilton couldn’t stop her own porn tape from being released, what makes them think they can stop this movement.
I buy my music, because my bands are indie labeled, so stealing from them is like taking from them directly. But I swear, I may for the first time, start “sharing” large label music I don’t even like with the world.
Maybe its time “we” (the millions of listeners and growing) hit them were it hurts. Be careful who you screw with RIAA. Screwing with “computer geeks” at their own game is a bad idea. Ask Bill at Microsoft how it’s going? How much of their business is devoted to treating viruses, trojans, adware, bots?
I have already submitted my views about royalty payments to several other blogs and websites. I’ll be glad to add them here as follow:
I personally have always detested the idea of “extended royalties”. In addition to being in our business for decades, I have also been in the automotive business. I liken the royalties issue to that of car warranties and service work.
Just as car manufacturers have finite times for their warranty coverage, so should musical artists (and recording companies) have limits on royalty collection. The only exception to the artists rule should be in the case of compilations or reissues.
My proposal, which I have sent to the proper powers last year (and have no doubt been thrown in “File 13″ as soon as they saw it) goes like this:
1) Record companies, artists, and songwriters should be entitled to royalties on a CD, record, or song for 5 years only.
2) Beyond that point, they can only get additional royalties if a song is used as part of a compilation or on a different album by the same artist (such as a “Greatest Hits” or retrospective issue).
3) In the case of (2) above, the royalty payment on that work would extend (5) years from the point of reissue.
The current royalty system is basically the same as, let’s say, Toyota getting a cut of the sale of a 1975 Corolla by Joe Smith to Jane Doe in 2007. Why not? The car still runs, is dependable, and Jane Doe wants it. Toyota built it, so why shouldn’t they get a piece of the sale as long as the car exists?
It’s the same for music. A song that came out in 1975 is still good and entertains, but why should an artist get paid for it every time it’s played until the end of time? Let them do what the car makers do. If they want more money, they build new cars. If the musicians and songwriters want more money, they should put out new songs.
By the way, I feel the same about actors and their work, as well as writers, and I do a lot of writing. I have been in radio since 1969, so this isn’t the rant of an “outsider”. If the current and proposed royalty rates are “fair”, then they need to extend to the DJs as well, because what they do is also entertainment, so they should get money for every person who listens. Things would really get expensive if every business out there had salary structures patterned after the music industry.
This is one of the most absurd things I’ve ever heard of. I feel that they have taken away a basic freedom.
I have been at the recieving end of the RIAA internet station debacle since the time that I was Director of Programming at internet radio pioneer DiscJockey.Com from 1998 until its demise in 2000, a demise caused largely by the Sound Exchange launch and complete lack of understanding within the business community about internet radio.
Over the years, I have dabbled around with my own stations, and last year, in tandem with the launch of my movie oriented sites Popcorn N Roses (http://popcornnroses.com) and our podcast Subject:CINEMA (http://subjectcinema.com), I launched Marquee Mix (http://marqueemix.com) through Live365, a station devoted to movie hits from the 70s through today. And next weekend, because of its success, and despite the new threat hanging over internet radio, I will continue with the launch of two Marquee Mix mini channels, Marquee Mix Classix and Marquee Mix Scorz. Why? Because things are starting to change. Slowly, but they’re changing.
Sound Exchange’s rates changed with the tide, but mostly, this week’s decision was made because of the revelation in a Bridge Ratings study two weeks ago that internet radio listenership is up to 72 million people a week, more than double what it was a mere year ago. And they will continue to attempt to extort internet radio out of existance because they are now finally realizing, along with terrestrial radio, just how huge the threat from internet stations as become. We are on the verge of causing total collapse of the conventional station, not by our presence, but by their own refusal to do what we do - bring a sense of fun and adventure to radio, not over-repetition and a half hour block of commercial ads.
It is the hope of myself, and my podcast, PodRadioK, which plays podsafe music free of the devilish RIAA and its greedy backers, to help eradicate the threats of extinction from both internet radio and podcasting.
Internet radio stations around the world would do well to get involved with projects similar to Bum Rush The Charts, a campaign podcasters are planning to use to show the RIAA that we DO have power, economic influence, and that we mean business. Perhaps if internet radio were able to come up with such a plan, they too could show Sound Exchange that they mean business as well.
I am adding this blog to the links on PodRadioK’s site, and I hope anyone who is a fan of music, of internet radio and podcasting, and in just the basic freedom of choice to follow the developments that happen, keep informed with similar blogs and online newsletters like RAIN, and keep in touch with the government, NOT just your own congressional representatives, but ALL of them, to let them know how you feel.
I certainly have NO problem with artists recieving royalties, as they created their music. But the policies of “infinite indemnity” for recording artists for radio play that began over 100 years ago has now gone above and beyond the tolerable limits, and desperately needs to be modified for the digital age. If it’s not, the fat cats will continue to stomp on the little entrepreneurs of the world. And it’s time those little entrepreneurs stood up and STOMPED BACK.
In short, we must NEVER give up the fight to bring fairness and parity to online radio, podcasting, and peer to peer sharing. It is a battle worth fighting, and as the DRM rules begin to crumble around the industry (thank you Steve Jobs and others!), and despite setbacks like the Sound Exchange rate hike, for the first time since the wave started in the late 90s, it looks like the battle CAN indeed be WON.
Wow, where to even begin? Unlike a few of the folks that have posted comments, I don’t own a station. However, I am a DJ for a very small station called DnDRadio. We don’t have the listener count that Paradise Radio, or any of the larger stations do, but it is a labor of love. We all volunteer our time, we enjoy our interaction with our listeners, and gaming. I usually have shows that average between 30-40 listeners, and even with that, it will be too much for our CEO to continue keep our station open.
Consider, if you will, that on average, it costs approximately $5000 per station per month currently, and DnDRadio isn’t even remotly in the black right now. Our CEO, Relics, does all of this out of pocket. If these rates are approved and we have to pay the fees required by the RIAA and SoundExchange, it will be the death of DnDRadio and her two sister stations, MMO Radio and Linage Radio. I personally would hate to see this happen. I love what I do. I don’t get paid for it, but I do it anyway. Why? Because I get to play music that my listeners want to hear, interact with my fans in a game we all love and support the community for that very same game. Could we ever get something like this in terrestrial radio? Not even remotely. Everyone that loves Internet Radio needs to contact the powers that be and let them know, we love our Internet Radio, and such regulations will only drive them out of business!
Seven years ago, after a career in the music business that left me fed up with how little it had to do with music itself, I found a way to communicate what I felt made for good radio by creating Atlanta Blue Sky, an Alternative/Indie broadcast that constantly broke new artists to a wide and grateful audience. It was thrilling to hear from so many listeners with the thanks they sent for discovering an artist off of our play list that could not be heard anywhere else.
I sold 2/3 of Atlanta Blue Sky in 2005, and left it entirely at the end of that year. After taking this past year off, I was regrouping to launch a new broadcast, and now see that the RIAA has accomplished what it set out to do the last time these hearings were held - simply put, to eliminate the need to recognize a world of independent radio broadcasts.
The record industry spends hundreds of millions of dollars making sure that their product is played on traditional radio - there is no way they were going to be forced to also promote internet broadcasters, and I believe that is what’s really at the heart of this fight. Imagine how much it would cost them in cash, prostitutes, free trips, concerts, etc.. if they have to recognize a world of independent radio? If you don’t think that kind of slime is still being used to get airplay, you’re in for a shock. Sadly, some things just never change. But most sadly, the best thing to happen to radio since FM has probably just been destroyed.
I’m frustrated! I have been involved with a small scale internet radio station. Radio Ugly, for over a year. I started as a listener, worked my way up to staff, management and now am the owner of the station. It is small, averaging less than 50 listeners but it is a loyal and dedicated, close knit group, enjoying the closeness only a small station can offer. We focus on indie bands mostly but play any and all rock music our listeners want. I have a staff of about 15 and they are all voluntary positions. How am I supposed to pay for this? The station is funded only by donations and it just covers expenses. I am sickened by all this and wonder how little stations who are here just for fun, not for money or fame, are going to be able to continue? This is all new to me since yesterday and Im not sure where to go next!
I live in Germany, and like all of you love radio, and loath commercial radio. We have a whole lot of radio stations that all transmit the same “CRAP”, day, after day, after day. So like you I look for good web radio stations. In Germany to listen to radio in a place of work, we must pay a license, web radio is license free, so while working on the pc at work we tune in to web radio.
A good half of the normal radio stations transmit a new “Digital Transmission over FM”. This means you must have a new black box to receive, or a Notebook/PC with a radio card. The industry thought it was one way of making more money out of us, with another black box. So about two years ago a “Digital Reception Law” making it not legal to receive this new “Garbage” unless you had an extra license, this includes web radio. So if in the next two to five years all the radio transmissions at least in the EU go over to digital, then the argument about us coping the music and getting a 1 to 1 copy and not paying for it is out of the window! We can do this now by using a notebook and the USB output of the black box. The new thing will be coded cards for the black-boxes. What a future!!!!
This is not really as bad as it looks.
The only way the new royalty payment scheme could work is if broadcasters can provide precise accounting information about their listeners (actually about destinations of the network data streams). Switching to multicast (or pseudo-multicast similar to bittorrent) protocols would make such accounting practically impossible. This of course makes “advertiser’s fee” business model unworkable, but to my best knowledge most internet broadcasters work on “listener’s fee” model..
So it boils down to a need to develop a new broadcasting protocol. I would guess that you’ll have it available in a few weeks…