By SN
Tuesday June 24, 2008
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Tech Dirt – June 24, 2008:
It would appear that the recording industry now likes to call any sort of business model it doesn’t like “piracy.” At least that’s the only explanation I can come up with in its latest battle, where it has referred to traditional radio as “a form of piracy.”
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With the recording industry confused and struggling to adopt new business models, it wants to force radio stations to pay it, rather than the other way around. What’s funny is that, normally, it’s the party that has more leverage that gets to demand payment. Yet, here we have a case where it’s the weakest party demanding payment because it’s so weak. Despite all those years of payola as proof that radio is a promotional vehicle, the RIAA actually tried to put out a totally bogus study claiming that radio play decreased the demand for recorded music. Apparently, that wasn’t convincing enough, so now it’s claiming that radio is actually a “form of piracy.”
Of course, the recording industry is wrong on just about all of this. The idea that radio is a form of piracy is simply laughable. We’ve already pointed to the industry’s own proof (payola) that radio helps promote artists. As for the definitional difference between fees and taxes, fees are agreed upon between two parties. A tax is a fee required by the government. Since the recording industry is asking the government to set this new rule, it would seem that the NAB is correct again that this would represent a tax, rather than a fee.
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You know that a business is in steep decline when a company/organization is suing their business partners and customers. That’s how it goes when you want to hang on to an “old and proven” business model.
Of Course playing copyrighted material on the radio is piracy. Retarded to think otherwise. Thats why in the past it has been done only with the agreement of the copyright holders.
Of Course playing copyrighted material on the radio exposes the material to a buying audience. Retarded to think otherwise. That model is challenged by the internet that streams and shares this material free of royalties.
Its up to the business model of the RIAA, its members, and radio stations to agree on where the business interests are best served.
I want all music to be free. I want all drugs to be free. Doesn’t mean I can’t understand that they are both in fact illegal to use free.
Don’t radio stations already pay royalties to ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC? This is why they keep playlists.
2. “Of Course playing copyrighted material on the radio is piracy. Retarded to think otherwise.”
Nope. Piracy is by its very definition the illegal use of a copyrighted material without permission. Because federal law specifically allows radio stations to play music without paying the artists, it necessarily cannot be piracy.
3. “This is why they keep playlists.”
Radio has to pay songwriters and publishers. Not arrangers, performers, or the labels.
The RIAA and MPAA are the biggest bunch of idiots to hit the planet. It’s getting very close to the time where they are defunct. They’re still struggling to get every last dime they think they’re owed.
ROFL.
#4–SN==Sorry, I assume you are right. Interesting distinctions the law makes there.
Keep us honest.
“What’s funny is that, normally, it’s the party that has more leverage that gets to demand payment. ”
Actually, its the part whose property is being used that usually gets to demand payment…
If I make a painting and you put a picture of it on your website to attract traffic (so you can sell advertising space) I get to demand payment, not you who has the website. What is your degree in, basket weaving?
“Despite all those years of payola as proof that radio is a promotional vehicle, the RIAA actually tried to put out a totally bogus study claiming that radio play decreased the demand for recorded music.”
I think they may be on to something with this – I now that hearing the same five crap songs all day long makes me less interested in buying the CDs.
Its like the last gasps of dying animal. Why do animals go extinct? Failure to adapt to a changing environment. Such is the fate of the RIAA. I doubt few will shed a tear when they’re gone.
9. “Actually, its the part whose property is being used that usually gets to demand payment…”
But copyright is not a property right. It’s a government granted monopoly with plenty of statutory and common law limitations.
Fair use under title 17 U. S. Code 107 is one limitation. The Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 is another, it gives people the right to create and give mix tapes to friends and family. Sony v Universal is a Supreme Court case that gave people the right to time shift TV shows onto Beta tapes.
Another such limitation under the law involves radio. From the early days of radio the government only compelled stations to pay song writers and publishers. The artists and labels were not paid because radio acted as advertising.
Heck, if either the RIAA or radio has a right to demand payment, it’s clearly radio: right now they’re advertising for RIAA labels for free.
Radio should be pushing to eliminate those outrageous anti-payola laws and start demanding large fees out of the major labels.
I say the NAB should call their bluff. Any artist/band whose contract is with an RIAA member label will not be played on the radio. Instead, the radio will play Creative Commons licensed music.
Well, I stopped listening to the radio years ago.
Most of the radio stations in my area decided to play maybe 20 minutes of music per hour, and fill the rest of the time with commercials and annoying banter between the idiot DJs.
So I guess I’m doing my part to fight music piracy.
14. “Well, I stopped listening to the radio years ago.”
A couple of years ago on lark I turned on my local top forty radio station to hear their morning show. It was a fricken infomercial. The station’s “DJs” (I use that term loosely since they never touch discs nowadays) were interviewing some guy about his weight loss program. They kept giving out his 1-800 number.
Just to be clear, this is not some rinky-dink station. It is the number one station in my area on a weekday morning commute. Prime time for radio because people are trapped in their cars. I haven’t listened to radio since.
More proof that the RIAA is trying to get blood out of a stone.
I suppose that if they demand and get the royalties they’re screaming about, the crappy excuse for “music” we’re being subjected to nowadays on American radio will stop and will get miraculously better to reflect this fresh, massive inflow of cash. Remember, you get what you pay for!
Right?
Fuck Iran, I think they should call in an air strike on RIAA and MPAA.
Feed them to the raccoons!
Why is this news? If the RIAA doesn’t want us to hear their music without paying huge fees well tough luck! Stop the whining and stop listening. It’s their music, let them enjoy it. And if by some ridiculous chance you are willing to pay their incredible fees to hear their music, stop complaining. Every time I see these kinds of stories I wonder why this is news. The news worth reporting will happen when the RIAA and the music mafia is out of business.
When I opened a new mayonnaise jar today, it made kind of a f-below-c-toned sound. I immediately ran to my writing desk and dashed off a check to the RIAA.
I suspect the buggy whip manufacturers went out kicking and screaming as well.
What the RIAA doesn’t seem to understand is they are in the entertainment business, and there has never been more variety. They choose to promote all the rap & hip hop crap for years, and as a result, their non-rap audience moved on.
I used to buy 3 cd’s a month 10 years ago. I think I bought 2 last year, but it could have been the year before.
It would be funny, if it weren’t so sad. An entire industry headed to the refuse pile, because of the decisions of a few idiots.
Not too long ago remember how we talked about how the terrestrial stations (in particular Clear Channel) is destroying modern music?
Remember this about Bruce Springsteen? “Clear Channel seems to have sent a clear message to other radio outlets that at age 58, Springsteen simply is too old to be played on rock stations. This completely absurd notion is one of many ways Clear Channel has done more to destroy the music business than downloading over the last 10 years. It’s certainly what’s helped create satellite radio, where Springsteen is a staple and even has his own channel on Sirius.”
http://www.dvorak.org/blog/?p=14332
Now here is the point: Now that it has become clear that conglomerates such as Clear Channel are no longer in the business of promoting the artist, but now are in the business of using the artist to bring in more revenue to their stations, even if it hurts the artist.
Therefore, they should pay royalties.
HaHa !!! The RIAA sent the NAB a can of herring, so the NAB should send the RIAA back a CAN OF WORMS AND A BAG OF DOG S**T – that’s a can you don’t want to open, cause if you do, you will find yourself stepping in DO-DO !!! But I guess the RIAA is so desperate, they are like a dog with rabies, attacking anything in sight !!!
Here’s my analogy: You know when someone is just standing there and talking with you, or maybe walking around a room and then suddenly starts to fall? You see their hands, regardless of what’s in them, shoot out to reach for something to catch themselves even if they aren’t sure what they are reaching for as it is just instinct of them to reach in hopes of a saving grab out of nowhere. That’s what this RIAA is doing. They are failing horribly to create a new revenue stream through legal action against their consumers and they are losing their support from the labels. They are just trying to find that one win to keep them in the game before the labels tell them to take a hike and find that new business model they are so desperately in need of in order to survive.
The music will live. However, the RIAA may not.
#20 – Mister mayonnaise
Damn, I laughed so hard I made a little “eep-eeep” noise in my throat – can you give me the RIAA’s address to mail my check to?
Oh oh, I may have ‘tooted’ the opening bars to a Gordon Lightfoot song after that bean burrito – anyone have the address for CRIA?
How long will it be before the RIAA declares that you can purchase music, but actually listenig to it is piracy?
Doesn’t airplay on radio stations actually help sell those CDs? You hear a song on the radio, you like it and buy the CD. Maybe they don’t see it that way anymore.
# 13: if that means never having to hear Jimmy Buffet or Wind beneath my wings again, I’m all for it.
Also can we do something about Delila?
dude, if this nation’s government doesn’t wake up, i am going to have to pay these shitbags to make copies of my own home movies.
think i’m paranoid? look it up, they want (and already have) a tax just for them to “pay the artists”
think that’s noble? look it up, record labels screw artists out of money as a matter of normal operations, only the very most popular artists ever see a dime, most wind up in debt.
think that’s okay? look it up, the only difference between the riaa and the mob is that the mob threatens physical violence – the intimidation is the same.
well, that’s america, if you are a business and have lots of money, there’s a republican for sale.