The Death of Web Radio?

The Death of Web Radio?

On April 16, right in the midst of the NAB2007 broadcasters
conference, the Copyright Royalty Board upheld its earlier decision to
impose higher royalty rates on Web radio stations. The stations will
have to cough up these royalty payments – 300% to 1,200% higher than
the fees they are used to paying -- retroactively. Unless Congress
gets involved, that will mean the death of many Web radio stations,
whose revenues will fall short of these royalty payments.

[continued]
http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/techbeat/archives/2007/04/the_death_of_we.html

 

or move offshore.

 

So listen to the Beeb, or Radio(insert Non US country here)

xpost to soc.men removed


martin

 

Obviously you don't understand the issues involved or are quite happy
to see creative and diversity strangled by conglomerates.

http://www.savenetradio.org/about/index.html


Before this ruling was handed down, the vast majority of webcasters
were barely making ends meet as Internet radio advertising revenue is
just beginning to develop. Without a doubt most Internet radio
services will go bankrupt and cease webcasting if this royalty rate is
not reversed by the Congress, and webcasters’ demise will mean a great
loss of creative and diverse radio. Surviving webcasters will need
sweetheart licenses that major record labels will be only too happy to
offer, so long as the webcaster permits the major label to control the
programming and playlist. Is that the Internet radio you care to
hear?

As you know, the wonderful diversity of Internet radio is enjoyed by
tens of millions of Americans and provides promotional and royalty
opportunities to independent labels and artists that are not available
to them on broadcast radio. What you may not know is that in just the
last year Internet radio listening jumped dramatically, from 45
million listeners per month to 72 million listeners each month.
Internet radio is already popular and it is already benefiting
thousands of artists who are finding new fans online every day.

Action must be taken to stop this faulty ruling from destroying the
future of Internet radio that so many millions of listeners depend on
each day. Instead of relying on lawyers filing appeals in the CRB and
the courts, the SaveNetRadio Coalition has been formed to represent
every webcaster, every Net Radio listener, and every artist who enjoys
and benefits from this medium. Please join our fight for the
preservation of Internet radio.

 

I fear the days of pirate radio ships are over.
Maybe the freedom of the Internet as we have
known it is dying.

 

Obviously you don't understand that Martin Griffith isn't in the US
and probably doesn't listen to US radio stations, so it will not affect
him in any way.


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

 

The whole point of Web Radio is that its
irrelevant where you are listening from.

Like millions world wide his choice is being restricted, the
alternative genres available are being restricted.

This affects him whether he realizes it or not.

Are you so sanguine about the likes of Rupert Murdoch controlling all
media outlets?

 

Are you referring to the freedom to not pay royalties, stealing from the
artists, or do you have some other one in mind?

 

Well, I do listen to KUSC, even though I'm in Spain, but there are
plenty more choices that are not US based


martin

 

I don't really give a shit. There is nothing fit to watch on TV, and
very little to listen to on the radio. HDTV is coming? Who cares?
Streaming radio feeds from broadcast stations already pay royalties for
the music. WSM, the station I listen to on line replaces their broadcast
commercials with spots made specifically for their internet stream. A
lot of the music they play was recorded live in their studios over the
past 80 years, and they own all rights to air it.


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

 

Of course,I just think it's a shame that all the small independent
stations are being crushed with scarcely any comment .

It looks like Internet telephony is being crushed too.

Verizon ruling threatens all VoIP companies claim
If Vonage infringes, so does everyone, says expert.


Two Verizon patents that Vonage was found to infringe are invalid, and
if allowed to stand, could threaten all VoIP services, a telecoms
industry veteran has said.

Two of the three Verizon patents a jury upheld in a March decision
were described in a standards group called the VoIP Forum before
Verizon filed for the patents, said Daniel Berninger, who had a hand
in launching Vonage but now works as a telecom analyst for Tier 1
Research. The VoIP Forum described the name translation
call-processing step in an open standard developed in 1996, and
Verizon applied for the two patents in March 1997 and February 2000,
he said.

Verizon's patents focus on using name translation to connect VoIP
calls to traditional telephone networks. But without name translation,
no VoIP calls could be completed, and all VoIP companies are in danger
of getting sued, Berninger said. "If you translate these patents so
ridiculously broadly, then there's nothing left," he said. "Everybody
infringes."

[continued]
http://www.techworld.com/networking/news/index.cfm?newsID=8580&pagtype=all


Michael Geist warnedof this sort of thing but it'screeping in
incrementally under the radar IMHO.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/technology/4552138.stm

Towards a two-tier internet


The egalitarian nature of the internet is under threat, argues
internet law professor Michael Geist.

Internet service providers (ISPs) always seem to get the first call
when a problem arises on the internet.

Lawmakers want them to assist with investigations into cyber crime,
parents want them to filter out harmful content, consumers want them
to stop spam, and copyright holders want them to curtail infringement.
Despite the urge to hold providers accountable for such activities,
the ISP community has been remarkably successful in maintaining a
position of neutrality, the digital successor, in spirit and often in
fact, to the common carrier phone company.

Adopting this approach has required strict adherence to a cardinal
rule often referred to as "network neutrality." This principle holds
that ISPs transport bits of data without discrimination, preference,
or regard for content.

The network neutrality principle has served ISPs, internet firms and
internet users well. It has enabled ISPs to plausibly argue that they
function much like common carriers and therefore should be exempt from
liability for the content that passes through their systems.

Websites, e-commerce companies, and other innovators have also relied
on network neutrality, secure in the knowledge that the network treats
all companies, whether big or small, equally. That approach enables
those with the best products and services, not the deepest pockets, to
emerge as the market winners.

Internet users have similarly benefited from the network neutrality
principle. They enjoy access to greater choice in goods, services, and
content regardless of which ISP they use.

While ISPs may compete based on price, service, or speed, they have
not significantly differentiated their services based on availability
of internet content or applications, which remains the same for all.

In short, network neutrality has enabled ISPs to invest heavily in new
infrastructure, fostered greater competition and innovation, and
provided all internet users with equal access to a dizzying array of
content.

Challenges ahead

Notwithstanding its benefits, in recent months ISPs have begun to chip
away at the principle, shifting toward a two-tiered internet that
would enable them to prioritise their own network traffic over that of
their competitors.
Recent developments in the US and Canada suggest that ISPs may
go even further in developing a two-tiered internet that
differentiates between different types of services and content
Michael Geist, University of Ottawa

The two-tiered approach is taking shape in various forms in different
parts of the world.

In the developing world, where there is frequently limited
telecommunications competition, many countries have begun blocking
internet telephony services in order to protect the incumbent telecoms
provider.

This approach, which has occurred in countries such as Panama, Oman,
United Arab Emirates, and Mexico, reduces competitive choices for
telecommunications services and cuts off consumers from one of the
fastest growing segments of the internet.

In Europe, some ISPs have similarly begun to block access to internet
telephony services. For example, this summer reports from Germany
indicated that Vodafone had begun to block Voice over IP (Voip)
traffic, treating the popular Skype program as "inappropriate
content."

European ISPs have also faced mounting pressure to block access to
peer-to-peer systems such as BitTorrent, which are widely used to
share both authorised and unauthorised content.

The MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) and the IFPI
(International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) are pushing
European ISPs to implement filtering technology to block services and
sites that the associations believe are "substantially dedicated to
illegal file sharing or download services".

In fact, the content industries have even suggested that European ISPs
limit the amount of bandwidth that can be used by consumers.

Issues of priorities

Recent developments in the US and Canada suggest that ISPs may go even
further in developing a two-tiered internet that differentiates
between different types of services and content.

North American ISPs have also begun to use their network position to
unfairly disadvantage internet telephony competition. For example,
Canadian cable provider Shaw now offers a premium Voip service that
promises to prioritise internet telephony traffic for a monthly fee.

The potential implications of such a service are obvious. The use of
competing services will require a supplemental fee, while Shaw will be
free to waive the charge for its own service.

In the US, earlier this year at least one ISP briefly blocked
competing internet telephony traffic until the Federal Communications
Commission ordered it to cease the practice.

While ISPs once avoided content intervention, even that now seems
possible. This summer, Telus, another Canadian ISP, blocked access to
a pro-union website named Voices For Change during a contentious
labour dispute.

The company has since indicated that it was a one-time event, though
in the process it also blocked more than 600 additional websites from
the U.S. and Australia hosted at the same IP address.

Alarm bells

Canadian customers of Rogers, Canada's largest cable ISP, have
speculated for months that the company has begun to block access to
BitTorrent as well as the downloading of podcasts from services such
as iTunes.

While Rogers initially denied the charges, it now acknowledges that it
uses "traffic shaping" to prioritise certain online activity. As a
result, applications that Rogers deems to be a lower priority may
cease to function effectively.

Moreover, blocking services, websites, and certain applications may
not be the end game. Some ISPs see the potential for greater revenue
by charging websites or services for priority access to their
customers.

In the US, BellSouth Chief Technology Officer executive William L
Smith, recently mused about the potential to charge a premium to
websites for prioritisation downloading, noting that Yahoo could pay
to load faster than Google.

Reports last week indicated that BellSouth and AT&T are now lobbying
the US Congress for the right to create a two-tiered internet, where
their own internet services would be transmitted faster and more
efficiently than those of their competitors.

These developments should send alarm bells to internet companies,
users, and regulators worldwide.

While prioritising websites or applications may hold some economic
promise, the lack of broadband competition and insufficient
transparency surrounding these actions will rightly lead to growing
calls for regulatory reform that grants legal protection for the
principle of network neutrality.


Michael Geist holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and
E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law.

 

That's very nice to hear.

Isn't the US in the process of using trade agreements to force other
countries to enact the same copyright laws?

Regards,

Mike Monett

 

dont you mean

An Honest politician stays bought


martin

 

Very good

Regards,

Mike Monett