tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post4862376677453820329..comments2023-11-03T06:02:02.128-07:00Comments on By Ken Levine: The little guys get screwed againBy Ken Levinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17305293821975250420noreply@blogger.comBlogger46125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-8049560170228267322016-02-05T09:17:34.250-08:002016-02-05T09:17:34.250-08:00QUOTE : Anonymous Anonymous said...
But corpo...QUOTE : Anonymous Anonymous said...<br /><br /> But corporate greed is good and the little guys are moochers, looters and parasites! Ayn Rand said so in her books, which are the Bible of the corporate world.UNQUOTE<br /><br />Your a piece of work. You must be one of the Corporate pigs !<br /><br /><br />BullsEye Radiohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16024712949547350910noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-12152424581269305792016-02-05T09:09:48.378-08:002016-02-05T09:09:48.378-08:00But corporate greed is good and the little guys ar...But corporate greed is good and the little guys are moochers, looters and parasites! Ayn Rand said so in her books, which are the Bible of the corporate world.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-60388859097234267722016-01-27T16:52:31.351-08:002016-01-27T16:52:31.351-08:00Perhaps this seems a bit off-topic, but I don'...Perhaps this seems a bit off-topic, but I don't think so. This whole situation is symptomatic of the increasingly diseased, and increasingly bizarre, system of intellectual property rights. The corporations that pay to pass IP laws bloviate about how they're after a fair deal for creators. Baloney. The only reason creators get royalties at all is because enough of them have kicked and screamed loudly enough to get a few crumbs thrown their way. Sure, some performers become multimillionaires. But for each of them hundreds of performers who've written songs, sold records, and filled auditoriums come away with next to nothing while their labels do just fine. It's not about fairness. It's about removing the creator from the loop as early as possible so that the rights holder can get about the real business: extracting as much money as possible from someone else's work.<br /><br />That's why making listeners pay royalties is no better than sticking it to broadcasters. In the long run the creator will still get his/her hundredths of a cent while the corporate entity--label, publisher, distributor, rights aggregator--takes home the lion's share of whatever cash is to be had. In a sensible system the "rights" would remain with the creator(s) and couldn't be bought, only rented. An entity making money from a work would have to first pay the people who created it, then fill their own pockets.<br /><br />Radio Dismuke, my favorite Internet station, plays records from the 20s and early 30s, a niche that interests very few people. It's safe to say that practically everyone with a hand in creating these records is dead. Composers, performers, even record company executives. Yet there are still those who claim the right to dictate who can use them (see the Nina Paley-Annette Hanshaw dispute).<br /><br />It's ridiculous that copyrights can outlive their creators. A case can be made for spouses/partners sharing the pie because they often play a part in a work's creation, such as paying the rent while the composer composes. But children, grandchildren, aunts and uncles have no more "moral" claim to the music than I do. The fact that they have LEGAL claim demonstrates my point. The goal of copyright "reform" is to make it easier for corporations to acquire, retain, and derive profit from work it had no part in creating. Now that corporations are people, it won't be long before one argues that its copyright should last for the life of the corporation plus a hundred years--in effect, forever.Smurfswackerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11807173070389349098noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-61501881121285204252016-01-27T14:36:05.319-08:002016-01-27T14:36:05.319-08:00Sorry, but this is very one sided. I had one of my...Sorry, but this is very one sided. I had one of my records receive about 45,000 streams in two months. I own everything and self release through tunecore. I get payed also through Sound Exchange and BMI. I received only about $650. I since ALL some artists get is streaming with record sales dieing, how in the hell is it proper for me to receive a few hundredths of a cent per stream? My music in NEW not legacy stuff. And I am a pro who makes my entire living through music. "Greedy publishers" some one said here, wow, how about just surviving. This will destroy all new music money making except for the top few artists. Streaming royalties place us as the lowest paid professionals in America. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02101975573364348640noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-64206109738030175632016-01-27T14:35:36.489-08:002016-01-27T14:35:36.489-08:00Sorry, but this is very one sided. I had one of my...Sorry, but this is very one sided. I had one of my records receive about 45,000 streams in two months. I own everything and self release through tunecore. I get payed also through Sound Exchange and BMI. I received only about $650. I since ALL some artists get is streaming with record sales dieing, how in the hell is it proper for me to receive a few hundredths of a cent per stream? My music in NEW not legacy stuff. And I am a pro who makes my entire living through music. "Greedy publishers" some one said here, wow, how about just surviving. This will destroy all new music money making except for the top few artists. Streaming royalties place us as the lowest paid professionals in America. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02101975573364348640noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-63686754136671215712016-01-27T11:31:41.640-08:002016-01-27T11:31:41.640-08:00Thank you Ken for writing this. I had five statio...Thank you Ken for writing this. I had five stations, now down to two. I am trying to stick it out. But it is very sad. So many people with great stations quit broadcasting. Some spent years building their stations and audiences. Very sad indeed.Michael Chttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06961720152552357795noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-25834419731733685002016-01-27T07:31:12.701-08:002016-01-27T07:31:12.701-08:00Hi Ken,
Thank you for raising awareness about this...Hi Ken,<br />Thank you for raising awareness about this issue. Unfortunately there are some inaccuracies here. The new rates don't have anything to do with publishers. These are sound recording royalties, not composition royalties. Sound recording royalties go to the artist and the sound recording copyright owner. Composition royalties go to the publisher and the songwriter. And I've been unable to find any evidence that anyone--labels, PROs, or anyone else asked for the small webcaster tier to be removed. It just expired because the legislation that created it also expired at the end of 2015. It's likely just a function of the CRB process, and the fact that no evidence was presented on behalf of small webcasters in the CRB, so the CRB could not take their needs into account. I am optimistic that a solution will be negotiated. Check out radiodiversity.org to get involved.Kevin Ericksonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-51264406705583393362016-01-27T05:31:29.418-08:002016-01-27T05:31:29.418-08:00Jeff P. - FWIW, Sirius DID go wall to wall Bowie. ...Jeff P. - FWIW, Sirius DID go wall to wall Bowie. They supplanted The Loft channel for two weeks. I know. I listened.Don K.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-90368545002393727732016-01-27T05:02:07.998-08:002016-01-27T05:02:07.998-08:00David Das, I completely get your point, but there&...David Das, I completely get your point, but there's a HUGE difference between a service like Spotify or iTunes Radio, and a small broadcaster like Chilltrax, or one of the channels of SomaFM,. Those are two small Internet broadcasters that I frequently play. <br /><br />Spotify SHOULD pay more in streaming royalties, partly due to the volume, and partly because of the fees they're charging some listeners for access.<br /><br />The stations I mentioned (and the stations I understand Ken to be talking about) are more niche stations. These are labors of love where fundraising was, before January 1, covering the expenses and maybe getting the DJ's lunch. No one was getting rich from it. But to have a station with 400-800 listeners at one time experience a 500% increase in fees....well, that's going to kill them. And since I'm not fourteen years old, almost none of the music in the mainstream is made or promoted for me, so the music I have bought (yes, I buy music, with money and everything) in the last several years has been music I've heard on stations like the ones I cite above. <br /><br />The rate system for music is all over the place. I want artists like you to be paid for their work, and paid fairly. But I think applying 20th century broadcasting standards to the NARROWCASTING space we are in now is not fair. Patricknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-62815989083069653682016-01-26T20:00:54.420-08:002016-01-26T20:00:54.420-08:00Great post, Ken! Excellent points. I'm includi...Great post, Ken! Excellent points. I'm including it on Net Radio Blog's "Updates on the American Webcasting Crisis:" http://netradioblog.blogspot.com/2015/12/updates-on-american-licence-crisis.html. <br /><br />Robin<br />Webmaster Robinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08522501894058291952noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-58411890055469809002016-01-26T12:30:56.449-08:002016-01-26T12:30:56.449-08:00Corporations are people-
What the Supreme Court d...Corporations are people-<br /><br />What the Supreme Court did was rule that the government does not have the power to ban books. This was the position taken by the government's lawyer, as long as it is published by a corporation<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-68153233992055851062016-01-26T12:29:02.730-08:002016-01-26T12:29:02.730-08:00Billy, that was my fist reaction, but read the pos...Billy, that was my fist reaction, but read the post again.MikeNnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-41520274690611959302016-01-26T08:36:16.333-08:002016-01-26T08:36:16.333-08:00Thought I'd share this reply to my Facebook po...Thought I'd share this reply to my Facebook post on this subject by my "Hollywood Hi-Fi" writing partner George Gimarc, who also programs the 24/7 Comedy radio format: <br /><br />"This is such an easy fix. Shift the payment of royalties to the USER and not the broadcaster. At the current rate, somebody listening to online streams 4 hours a day (16 songs an hour) would incur a payment due of about $3.50 a MONTH. It could become part of your cell or internet bill. The music is already metadata tagged and ready to be logged for SoundExchange. This is about shutting down the small voices so the big ones can prosper. It's not about valuing music. There are other ways to get payments to artists that keep multiple small streams open and healthy."<br /><br />And to Storm: <br /><br />Radio Dismuke is programmed by a friend of mine in Ft. Worth and is great. All pre-swing '20s and '30s music that nobody else plays. Several of the obscure songs my wife Laura has recorded were discovered by us on that station. Listen at http://early1900s.org/radiodismuke/index.html<br />Pat Reederhttp://www.hollywoodhifi.netnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-47685346670640599222016-01-26T08:31:56.032-08:002016-01-26T08:31:56.032-08:00We're bringing everyone together...webcasters,...We're bringing everyone together...webcasters, internet radio listeners, independent musicians/music labels, hosting companies, and any other services which will be adversely affected by the CRB Ruling. If we all WORK TOGETHER, change can COME! <br /><br />https://www.facebook.com/Save-Internet-Radio-742604289204489/<br />Save Internet Radiohttp://bit.ly/saveinternetradionoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-66328678150187587132016-01-26T08:05:45.981-08:002016-01-26T08:05:45.981-08:00A "cesspool of commercials"--it sounds l...A "cesspool of commercials"--it sounds like cable TV (in its inception the whole point of cable was to provide an ad-free alternative to the commercial ad-supported networks), which is nothing but reruns and commercials (that subscribers are forced to pay a small fortune every month to watch). Especially egregious in this regard are Chicago--based operations like ME-TV and Antenna--huge blocks of ads.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-54275576522542081022016-01-26T03:54:39.026-08:002016-01-26T03:54:39.026-08:00Friday (or any day) QUESTION:
Under the new Acade...Friday (or any day) QUESTION:<br /><br />Under the new Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences rules regarding eligibility to vote - does this mean you are no longer eligible to vote Ken? I notice that according to IMDB you have two film credits from the 1980's and one from the 1990's. I don't mean this as a criticism - it just occurred to me that you might be one of the members caught by the change in the rules? Nicknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-68123905987779579312016-01-26T00:12:03.271-08:002016-01-26T00:12:03.271-08:00Even if every radio station in the entire world st...Even if every radio station in the entire world stopping broadcasting tomorrow, no one will EVER forget David Bowie. His legacy is assured and indisputable. But I gets yer drifts, and I'm glad you wrote this post, because I had no idea this was going on.<br /><br />As I read this, I'm listening to a webstation devoted to 80's New Wave and synthpop; they play scads of obscure songs by obscure bands that I haven't heard on regular radio in years (Holy cats, they're playing Blancmange!). When a song is playing, they list the name of the artist, song, and album, with links to Amazon. I've bought a bunch of songs because I heard them on SomaFM and remembered that I needed to own them. How can that be a bad thing, for aging British weirdo musicians (that are only remembered by weirdo fans like me) to get such promotion? <br /><br />If only Dr. Demento had gone to webradio instead of just giving up on broadcasting; he would have had so much more freedom! No censoring for language or content-- old-time doper songs and raunchy blues for days! <br /><br />@Pat Reeder: I wish I'd heard of Radio Swing Worldwide and Radio Dismuke before now, because I adore 20's-40's music, and I woulda been all over it like a rash!<br /><br />Cheers, thanks a lot,<br /><br />Storm<br /><br />Stormnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-13521733638169906452016-01-25T21:37:17.894-08:002016-01-25T21:37:17.894-08:00Great post. Here's a link from one of those s...Great post. Here's a link from one of those stations.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.radioparadise.com/byrne" rel="nofollow">An open letter to David Byrne</a>mdv59https://www.blogger.com/profile/16110963117009209383noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-31012711170133160332016-01-25T20:59:06.417-08:002016-01-25T20:59:06.417-08:00Thanks so much, Ken, for this piece. I looked at a...Thanks so much, Ken, for this piece. I looked at about three dozen ways to continue Great Big Radio, and may have found a new home with Belgium-based Radionomy. Through an extremely arduous setup process since the first of the year which would make iHeart give up, we're just about fully functional with this new platform. Let's just say that crowd-sourced tech support sucks ass - but eventually, the answers do come. We have to provide two 2-minute breaks per hour for commercials, but it offsets the royalties dilemma.<br /><br />We may have found a happy ending, but sadly, too many small broadcasters we sent into the wilderness - people who loved radio so much that they made their own stations and studios. All us radio rats started out as kids with turntables, tape recorders and plastic mics in our bedrooms growing up. Some of us even had very low-power AM transmitters we built ourselves - overjoyed that we might be heard in the house next door. So planet-wide internet broadcasting is just mind-boggling to us.<br /><br />There are ways, and I hope all my fellow broadcasters find those ways to keep broadcasting their passions. For all its faults - and brother, there are lots - we still love radio and what great company it can be if done right.<br /><br />I'm still keeping four hours open for the Beaver Cleaver show if you want it. <br /><a href="http://listen.radionomy.com/GreatBigRadio" rel="nofollow">http://listen.radionomy.com/GreatBigRadio</a>Howard Hoffmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05377628524697677407noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-69857639912503802122016-01-25T17:39:22.111-08:002016-01-25T17:39:22.111-08:00I don't know enough about the minutiae of inte...I don't know enough about the minutiae of internet broadcasting to know whether this new royalty structure is fair. That said, I don't understand the argument that this was all arranged by nefarious interests in the recording industry. My understanding is that this was decided by the Copyright Royalty Board (NOT SoundExchange), which consists of three people appointed by the Librarian of Congress, who's not exactly known as a tool of Big Business. What am I missing here?Andy Rosenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-42415237407350496322016-01-25T16:26:41.034-08:002016-01-25T16:26:41.034-08:00"The next Howard Stern is going to be some ge..."The next Howard Stern is going to be some geek in a basement."<br />The FIRST Howard Stern started out as a geek in a basement. Now, he's a geek in the Hamptons.<br />Geeks who laugh last, laugh best.MikeK.Pa.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-87189620835302260982016-01-25T15:27:22.038-08:002016-01-25T15:27:22.038-08:00Though I would love to see a decent agreement for ...Though I would love to see a decent agreement for these guys, had they run their stations for profit (which would seem to be a possibility since many spend hours bragging on Facebook how many requests they get on request shows and how a station that gets a million total listening hours a month should qualify as a "small broadcaster"), one would think that someone would sponsor or underwrite them. And it is pure fiction that 50's-80's music doesn't exist on radio. The oldies format, in pure or hybrid form is on air on LPFM stations and even some non-commercial stations are playing them...as does music from the 40's, 50's and 60's. I teach radio at a college with an internet station and it looks as though we will likely pay around $1,000 a year or so for licensing fees. If small netcasters could get that kind of a deal, I would think it was fair. It would just mean you'd have to get serious about getting people to your site and getting backing for your station. Which if there's a demand for the product, shouldn't be that hard to capture. Kevin Fodornoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-66439374955860939772016-01-25T15:07:26.647-08:002016-01-25T15:07:26.647-08:00Stephen Marks...
50,000 subscribers x $10/month x...Stephen Marks...<br /><br />50,000 subscribers x $10/month x 12 months =$6,000,000/year + ad revenue??<br /><br />R U jus' pullin' our lariats??<br /><br />I don't know this except from comments Ken has made, but it seems to me that $6,000,000/year just might be $5,999,999 short of what Netflix is paying to air the originals...<br /><br />Barefoot Billy Alohahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04586870309250699505noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-57202439957801940402016-01-25T13:59:02.548-08:002016-01-25T13:59:02.548-08:00All I know is this. Karma will get back these comp...All I know is this. Karma will get back these companies one day. Maybe not right away and it will all come tumbling down on them. Their Hubris will be their undoing. <br /><br />That is all.swarlockhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04773111763484559286noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19336675.post-36631887700805149832016-01-25T13:34:14.412-08:002016-01-25T13:34:14.412-08:00I've been on Live365 for years and the day the...I've been on Live365 for years and the day the new rate structure was announced, I said out loud to myself "Game over". I live in the Binghamton, N.Y. market where corporate owned radio stations have over 90% of the local market. You can guess what the stations sound like. <br /><br />I did over-the-air radio legally under FCC Part 15 regulations. The state of New York killed that by making all unlicensed broadcasting a crime. I switched to net casting, and now that's been taken away from me. I'm upset, angry, and trying to figure out where to go from here.Kevin In Choconut Centerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06716028779815999846noreply@blogger.com