http://blog.wired.com/music/2007/07/polka-players-w.html

By the way, does anyone read these old comments?

By focusing on the price I think the bigger issue is being overlooked, which is that SoundExchange has, via its unholy influence on lawmakers, appointed itself caretaker of all streaming content royalties, not just those owed to the majors.

Who cares how much the majors want to charge? If they price themselves out of the market, so much the better. However, this new legislation is anti-competitive because it squashes the little guys who never assigned their rights to SoundExchange in the first place. It seems obvious that independents and unsigned artists will never see a cent from these grand larcenists of the music industry. The U.S. opposes taxing the internet? Yeah, right…

Unsigned artists who wish to retain the freedom to stream their own content for promotional purposes should band together. I propose Artists Rejecting SoundExchange (ARSE) under a charter which declares that all members retain the rights to exploit their own compositions and recordings as they see fit, and to continue to stream such content on the internet in defiance of “the man”.

Right now, yet again, it’s the old suits versus change that they don’t want to happen. So they are doing what they always do when faced with unpleasant circumstances. They are using their financial clout to patch the decrepit, barely relevant, and barely functional old system. They are doing this with the hope that the patch will stifle change and protect their interests long enough so that they might figure out a way to take control of everything again. The old suits know that a bureaucracy benefits them, and that is why their support of it is lavish and aggressive.

Again, mortgages, car loans, student loans, clothes on backs and shoes on feet that are not paid for — most folks are in debt. So most people are not in a good position to argue, because primarily many of them would be arguing with the agencies that are paying their bills. This is why most folks continue to support a bureaucracy. If they can live with a bureaucracy at work, then they can live with a bureaucracy that they only have to deal with for a minute and a half on the ten o’clock evening news. Many folks do not like the policies that are in place at their jobs, and most do nothing about it because they have bills to pay. They learn to live with that which they do not want to live with. Those that do become whitsle-blowers face increasing odds that their concerns may not even be legitimate to begin with, never mind their actions bringing about needed change. So most folks tow the line because, to start, they don’t even know how their miserable working situation came to be legally permissible. But the lobbyists know first hand how it all came to be, and lobbyists have bills to pay, too. Ever see the movie Thank You For Smoking?

And all we want is for Internet radio and listener supported Internet radio to remain in business for the benefit of everyone involved. We’re not talking universal healthcare, or ending world poverty, or mandatory four weeks paid vacation per year per worker. All we want is to be able to continue listening to the music that we want to listen to over the Internet. And look how messy a simple problem with an available simple solution has become. We’re asking for a pacifier and we’re being offered a kick in the ass. And, barring a real miracle, we’re going to get that kick in the ass come Monday. We’re going to get that kick in the ass because we have become quite used to doing as we’re told.

Can you blame corporations for taking advantage of legal and political maneuvering with our government that we, the people, have allowed to persist? Corporations have bills to pay, too. We, the people, have been blinded with finance, so to speak. Okay, that wasn’t very good, but you get the picture.

Sound Exchange is in the process of trying to get artist performance royalties from terrestrial radio too. As an artist I think that’s fair.
One reason why the laws are so slow in being enacted is that there has not really been a clear answer that works for everyone. As I said before I believe the artist should have the right and ability to opt out of any use that they don’t want to be a part of. This has not really been taken into account. Clearly this would still need some kind of agreement between the broadcaster and the artist or someone who is representing them (e.g. ASCAP, BMI, SoundExchange). Anyone can offer their work under Creative Commons, as many do. When an artist signs with a record company they may give away all or part of their rights to the music and most always give up the ownership of the actual recording. Thus it is the record company’s right to allow or not allow it to be used however they see fit. They can decide “this artist needs exposure let’s give it away” or “this band is so hot people will buy it” They may be right or wrong but, it is unarguably their right. They are after all in the business of making money from music. In every area of the music business the pay for music services has either stagnated or even dropped for musicians. Maybe if our government had better funding for the arts like some other countries this wouldn’t be so bad but, as it is, the current and future state of the professional music world is suffering from this devaluation of creative works.

The way I see it there is just so much incredibly boring litigation and legal nonsense to all this that the only people who really have the patience for it are lawyers politicians, lobbyist and businessmen. You cannot legalize revolution! Go ahead, mash up, remix, burn copies…long live pirate radio! Most great things come from bucking the status quo. It’s not usually the pioneers who get rich doing it but, it is a necessary part of our evolution. There are things we must do within the system to survive but for any meaningful change we must take risks.

The entire issue here is control. If anyone could really control the use of music on the internet, or peoples computers for that matter, this wouldn’t even be an issue. Clearly the P2P issue showed that it is still not practical, possible, or productive to prosecute individuals for this even if what they are doing is against the law. Does this mean the law should be changed? Does someone’s inability to stop someone from stealing from them mean it should be made legal? I don’t think it is necessarily right for laws to be changed solely because they cannot be enforced and I believe that is the general underlying faulty reasoning and atmosphere that surrounds this topic. Clearly I don’t have one simple answer for this either. It is a complex issue, which will require long and detailed dissection. I hope someone has the patience to get it right. I have heard arguments from both sides first hand and my feeling is that the topic is just too polarized. And as you pointed out before Peter, everyone is fighting for a piece but no one is looking out for the musicians. For me this is purely an intellectual subject as I rarely listen to any radio, internet or otherwise, and don’t ever really expect to see more than my crappy $25 dollar a quarter from Sound Exchange!

One last thought to meditate on. No one ever wants to pay for something they already get for free and just about everyone, except perhaps those who are independently wealthy, wants to get the most they can for what they produce.

I do spend some time trying to understand the byzantine licensing rules; the real problem is now we’re rapidly getting into uncharted waters and no one knows *exactly* what will happen next, especially once we broach the issue of who will actually be the subject of enforcement, or how stations will respond.

But I think there are reasons to be concerned about the emerging situation, and to think that maybe this *isn’t* a big boon for the indies. The thing is, a lot of artists are on some kind of label or another, and it may not be economical for stations to license their work. It’s not the artists choosing what to charge; that’s the whole problem.

And the idea of survival being contingent on back-room deals with the major is even scarier. That means that we’ll wind up with a world where the Internet side is dominated by a few sites with the power to negotiate (hello, CBS-owned Last.fm) and the labels being licensed are likewise dominated by the ones with big pockets. Already, we’re seeing a shift toward musical content being the result of promotional fees.

Just this week: Warner signs a deal with imeem. Recently: Sony BMG signs with Last.fm.

What happens to independent sites? What happens to independent webcasters? What happens to the labels not owned by the big parents to sign these deals? Why does a lot of this seem to involve preferential treatment of promoted bands? I’m all for labels paying for promotion, but if you shut down the other outlets, then we’re actually talking about organizing around … what, institutionalized payola?

I don’t know that it’s too late to stop a slide down that path. But it makes it harder to get excited about individual deals being the norm.

Rather than the death of net radio, this might instead be the birth of the REALLY indie scene.

My interpretation of this, and it may not be correct, is that in the long run, raised royalties will mostly only effect the big label releases that want more money from it. Therefore, a side-effect is that small labels and independent artists could get relatively more exposure through Internet broadcasting as the radio stations reduce the amount of relatively expensive content.

By the way, terrestrial radio is supposed to pay royalties. I was at a meeting the other day and several local musicians were angry that they were not getting any money even though their music was being played on local stations (Hawaii). Even bars and restaurants are supposed to pay. Poor reporting by the stations and/or failure to register their copyright with ASCAP or another agency seems to be a problem.

As for congress, I guess they have more pressing issues to deal with. . .

But you’re right, of course, the people making music deserve to be paid. The problem is that the internet is so new no-one really understands it yet — and the people making the laws and the decisions least of all. There is a frightening tendency in the music industry, so burned by P2P, to automatically see the internet as “bad” even when the net is driving their sales these days.

Finally, even when the laws do change, they take so long to pass that by the time they take effect everything has changed… and so the battle begins again.