Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Taxing radio

In their haste to commit suicide, fresh from their defeat in suing their customers, the record companies now want to start taxing radio stations.

Presumably the radio stations will be smart enough to expand their promotion of independent music, and the people will be smart enough to expand their promotion of independent radio.



Keywords: lawyer digital copyright law online internet law legal download upload peer to peer p2p file sharing filesharing music movies indie independent label freeculture creative commons pop/rock artists riaa independent mp3 cd favorite songs intellectual property portable music player

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Talk about cannibalization. For decades, radio was the only means for the labels to get into the ears of listeners. With ad revenues declining, this is akin to stabbing your favorite uncle in the heart (after already accusing your friends of stealing). I just wish it was surprising.

It was a mistake for internet radio stations to cave into the industry by paying royalties beyond what traditional radio pays to songwriters. The medium (internet or FM) is irrelevant, radio remains a key avenue to consumers' ears. In a digital age it's the big 4 that are dispensable, not radio.

Ray, I hope that you're right, that stations see the light and go indie. Then we can stick a fork in the RIAA, preferably with the same pitchfork they've used to skewer innocent families.

lost in thought

Unknown said...

Don't they already collect royalties on radio airplay? How does the RIAA figure they're entitled to what amounts to "double taxation?"

Alter_Fritz said...

Tim, interestingly in america the labels get no money from traditional AM/FM radio as far as I understand it.
Some lobbygroups there get quite some time ago managed to not have radiostations pay labels anything when they play their records.

In europe that is different, there are collection agencies in place like GEMA BUMA STEMRA ect.
America has HARRY-FOX which is a member of BIEM too, but they don't get money from normal air play radio.
RIAA managed to get a foot in the system with SoundExchange that collects money from web radio and satellite AFAIR. But they are IMO a scam when you follow the articles about this guys on p2pnet.net ("tens of thousands of artists they collect royalties for they are "unable" to find")


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEMA_(Germany)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BUMA/STEMRA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_BIEM_members
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HARRY-FOX
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoundExchange
http://www.p2pnet.net/story/15742

Anonymous said...

Reverse payola! Damn what's next?

Anonymous said...

AFAIK, typical radio stations pay a small percentage of their ad revenues to the record companies. Internet radio stations were looking for a similar treatment (great for small broadcasters, bad for big companies), but the office in charge of this (I think it was the Copyright one) ruled that they should pay according to a formula (benefiting big companies instead of small broadcasters).

That said, this indeed is bad news for brick and mortar radio stations.