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Many broadcasters are worried that the law that passed
by the organisations within the Usa, known as Copyright
Arbitration Royalty Panel (CARP) and the Recording
Industry Association of America (RIAA), requesting a
fee dating back to October 1998, and a per-listener
per-song fee, will effectively bankrupt independent
webcasters.
Successful Webcasters such as "Shout"
and "Live365.com" that hosts over 80,000
music or audio based sites will have to close their
operations. The ones that manage to survive this will be
forced by the CARP proposal, to infringe on your right
to privacy. In short, your personal information will be
used by organisations such as the RIAA, for marketing
and anaylisis. If this law proposal if passed, it will
take effect on the 21st May, 2002.
Here's how it all works. Traditionally Internet Radio
Broadcasters have had to pay royalty payments each
time they play a certain artists record on
"air". Now this law extends on what Radio
Broadcasters will have to pay record companies that
these composers/artists are on.
Traditionally the law governing Radio Broadcasts has
meant that the promotional value of the airplay was
sufficient compensation to those parties. Now these same
record companies are now wanting to be paid.
Most Webcasters had hoped that the CARP's
recommended royalty rate would be based on a percentage
of revenues - somewhere between the 15% of revenues that
the RIAA had been asking of Webcasters and the 3% that
Webcasters had proposed (which would be more in line
with their ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC royalties to
composers).
On February 20, 2002, however, the CARP
arbitrators issued their recommendation - .14¢ per song
per listener (that's $.0014) for Internet-only
webcasters, .07¢ per song per listener ($.0007) for
broadcast radio simulcasts, and .02¢ per song per
listener($.0002) for non-commercial radio simulcasts.
While CARP's proposed royalty rate might be
manageable for Internet radio properties owned by
multi-billion-dollar corporations like AOL, Yahoo!,
and Microsoft, it seems as if it will effectively
bankrupt the vast majority of Webcasters.
For example, for a mid-sized independent webcaster
(e.g., two or three people working out of a home office
or dorm room) that has had, say, an average audience of
1,000 listeners for the past three years, the bill for
retroactive royalties -- which will come due sometime
early this summer if the CARP rate recommendation is
approved -- would be $525,600 (American Dollars!)
Written by - BY KURT HANSON, PUBLISHER,
RAIN: RADIO AND INTERNET NEWSLETTER (www.kurthanson.com),
to found on this page though - http://www.saveinternetradio.org/90seconds.asp
However some late news in about Internet Broadcasting
law could mean a last minute reprive for many Internet
Webcasters.
Dubbed "The Internet Radio Fairness Act,"
the bill would exempt from royalties any business that
makes less than $6 million in annual revenue, a group
that would include the vast majority of online radio
stations unaffiliated with a larger Internet or
broadcasting company. This bill was produce on Friday,
26th, July, 2002
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