IP: interesting synopsis of the issues with webcasting and the music industry

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Joe Crawford <joe () artlung com>
Organization: http://www.artlung.com/
Date: Sun, 24 Mar 2002 12:22:42 -0500 (EST)
To: <farber () cis upenn edu>
Subject: interesting synopsis of the issues with webcasting and the music
industry

[possibly for ip]

Jamie Zawinski <http://www.jwz.org/> has an interesting take (as a coder
and as a nightclub owner) on webcasting and the music industry. I'm not
certain of all the numbers he runs, but his explanations of the rules
around webcasting seem like very practical advice:
http://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/webcasting.html

An excerpt...
|> The CARP proposal mandates that webcasters must pay 1/7th
|> of a cent ($0.0014) per song, per listener. That means that
|> a webcast that had an average of 100 simultanious listeners
|> would be expected to pay roughly $18,000 per year.
|>
|> Under these rules, if a webcast had only a single listener
|> -- the webcaster -- they would be expected to pay $184/year
|> for streaming music to themselves! This enormously high
|> rate was a ``compromise'': the RIAA was asking for an even
|> larger cut.
|>
|> Expect all college-radio-station-based webcasts to
|> disappear once this becomes law: no college broadcasting
|> program has the kind of budget needed to pay for this.
|>
|> Oh, and there are also apparently some egregious reporting
|> requirements that will be impossible for anyone to actually
|> comply with: for example, not only do they want a ``unique
|> user identifier'' for each listener, they also want the UPC
|> code from the CD the song came from! The complete list of
|> information that they demand be reported:
|>
|>    A.  The name of the service;
|>    B.  The channel of the program (AM/FM stations use
|>            station ID);
|>    C.  The type of program (archived/looped/live);
|>    D.  Date of transmission;
|>    E.  Time of transmission;
|>    F.  Time zone of origination of transmission;
|>    G.  Numeric designation of the place of the sound recording
|>           within the program;
|>    H.  Duration of transmission (to nearest second);
|>    I.  Sound recording title;
|>    J.  The ISRC code of the recording;
|>    K.  The release year of the album per copyright notice and
|>           in the case of compilation albums, the release year of
|>           the album and copyright date of the track;
|>    L.  Featured recording artist;
|>    M.  Retail album title;
|>    N.  The recording label;
|>    O.  The UPC code of the retail album;
|>    P.  The catalog number;
|>    Q.  The copyright owner information;
|>    R.  The musical genre of the channel or program (station
|>           format);
|>
|> In addition, webcasters must report information on the
|> audience as well:
|>
|>   1.  The name of the service or entity;
|>   2.  The channel or program;
|>   3.  The date and time that the user logged in
|>       (the user's timezone);
|>   4.  The date and time that the user logged out
|>       (the user's timezone);
|>   5.  The time zone where the signal was received (user);
|>   6.  Unique user identifier;
|>   7.  The country in which the user received the
|>       transmissions.
|>
|> This would make it impossible to have a free, anonymous
|> webcast: to comply with these rules, all webcasters, even
|> those who do not charge money, will have to force their
|> users to register before tuning in.
|>
|> Someone said to me, ``how do they expect the little guys to
|> survive?'' I replied, ``No Mister Bond, I expect you to
|> die.'' They're trying to legislate webcasting out of
|> existence, because it stands in the way of their progress
|> toward a completely pay-per-view economy. Remember: these
|> are the kind of people who once tried to outlaw the VCR.
|> (That was MPAA, not RIAA, but they're the same snake with
|> different scales.)

The whole thing @ http://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/webcasting.html

The issues of intellectual property, fair use, individual rights and the
like appear to be going nuts in this country. I'm nearly at the proverbial
tipping point in terms of my own activism on these issues. From the Dmitri
case, DeCSS, to Scientology documents issues, the DMCA, SSSCA, and many
others, I'm starting to think nobody is speaking up with effectiveness for
rational public discourse on these issues.

I think if people realized what was actually happening with this stuff
they'd be outraged. But we're all so numb from other national issues that
we're missing the fact that the Entertainment business is moving to create
an entirely pay-per-view culture as fast as they can.

What do you think?

    - Joe
--
Joe Crawford, web journeyman: San Diego California USA
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