19 replies to this topic

[water]

This would really hurt our radio station.

http://computerworld...7&intsrc=kc_top

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Groups criticize proposed music DRM legislation
Bill would block use of MP3 tech for audio streams, broadcasts



January 18, 2007 (IDG News Service) -- Consumer rights groups have voiced opposition to legislation introduced in Congress last week that would require Internet broadcasters to deploy DRM (digital rights management) technology to prevent listeners from making unauthorized copies of music files.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, and three other senators introduced the Platform Equality and Remedies for Rights Holders in Music (Perform) Act on Jan. 11. The same piece of legislation failed to pass through Congress in 2006. The Perform Act would require all satellite, cable and Internet broadcasters to deploy "reasonably available" copy-protection technology and to prevent listeners from using recording devices to copy specific songs or artists.

The bill would not prevent listeners from recording at specific times, such as a news show at 9 a.m., but it would require broadcasters to use copy-protection technology that would prevent listeners from recording all the songs by one artist played on a broadcast, Feinstein said in a news release.

"New radio services are allowing users to do more than simply listen to music," Feinstein said in a statement. "What was once a passive listening experience has turned into a forum where users can record, manipulate, collect and create personalized music libraries. As the modes of distribution change and the technologies change, so must our laws change."

But the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Public Knowledge oppose the legislation. The bill would be a "backdoor assault on your right to record off the radio," the EFF said. The Perform Act would prohibit digital and satellite radio services from offering TiVO-like recording options, the EFF said.

The Perform Act would prohibit streaming music formats that don't use DRM, such as the MP3 format used on several Internet radio services, including Apple Inc.'s iTunes streaming radio stations, said Fred von Lohmann, senior intellectual property lawyer at EFF. The bill sets a "bad precedent for our copyright laws," von Lohmann wrote on the EFF blog. "Over the course of a century, our copyright laws have responded to changing technology not with government technology mandates, but rather by letting new business models evolve ..."

Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, said she agrees with parts of the bill that streamline music licensing fees. But the DRM provisions place limits on consumers, she said.

"This bill looks to the past rather than to the future by limiting the ability of consumers to use material to which they have subscribed and by limiting future innovations in electronics," Sohn wrote on the Public Knowledge Web site. "It confuses a radio service, in which a consumer can only record what is currently being played, with a download service, in which consumers pick the material to download.

But Feinstein argued that musicians and songwriters need to get paid for the music they produce, instead of having consumers record it for free. "I believe this legislation is a good step forward in addressing a real problem that is occurring in the music industry, and I encourage discussion to ensure that this law will fully serve the needs of our emerging technologies," she said in her statement.

I REALLY REALLY hope this doesn't go through.  

[resopalrabotnick]

so basically you would have to implement some form of DRM that would not let me record the digital stream directly, only the reanalogized result off my sound card? and there would have to be a way to prevent me from using the song info given by the station to program my comp to record selected files, like all files by a certain group or all files from a certain album or whatever?

i would hope that if that is passed that the mechanism is transparent and the player plugins as well as the software changes you would need to make are transparent enough to not affect the stations.

the internet broadcasters should maybe get together with the riaa and the artists to find a solution to the problem of pick and choose and direct digital stream recording. it seems to me like cooperation on this issue will be more effective and better for all concerned than turning it into a fight about legislation.

[Atnevon]

The most direct reaction most people will have to this is: "Why would it be so hard to change over to a streaming format that supported DRM?"  Here's my (overly) detailed answer to that:

On the listener end of things, changing over to a DRM protected format would very quickly limit the number of different music players that could actually play the station.  Instead of having the freedom to use Windows Media Player, XMMS, Winamp, XMPlay, and an endless slew of other media players that could listen to a stream, you would instantly be taken down to just one or two players that could support it.  Because linux currently does not support DRM, we would instantly lose all of our Linux listeners.  It's also very likely due to DRM format wars that we would lose all of our Macintosh listeners at the same time because we would have to stick with a format that would work for the greatest number of our listeners, and that format would likely not be compatible with OS X.

To further complicate things, our streaming server would need to be capable of broadcasting in a DRM format as well, which would probably mean switching from a linux based streaming server to a Windows streaming server.  Aside from the fact that this would have huge impacts on us in terms of pure stability (though it's made a number of improvements since Windows NT 4, all windows servers really do require reboots every so often - especially when performing security updates), this would mean that we would have to find another machine to host our website itself on, because there's not a lot of support for professional forum software on Windows.

Lastly, the remote DJ system that we have worked very hard to develop over the last few years (which allows DJs to choose which songs play on the station and in which order, along with being able to upload voice clips to go between songs for introductions and dedications) would have to be completely scrapped, leaving several of our DJs without any means to broadcast with us, as they either don't have a fast enough internet connection or don't have the personal CD collection required to broadcast live.

Aside from the custom made remote DJ system we have, our station is by no means unique in the technology it uses.  Virtually every other station with a small budget would either have to completely re-work its broadcasting system or shut down operations in order to comply with this legislation.

[tommie gorman]

Now that is a whole lot of crap. Next thing you know they will want it digitally changed so you cannot even record it on a tape recorder of the old style. Talk about petty. Someone stop the RIAA! Please.  

This has given them way too much power. Where will it end?

[water]

The good news is tht this will impact itunes just as bad. That's going to be enough to get them to fight it hard.

[resopalrabotnick]

atnevon, thanks for the insight. however, i have to maintain that there must be some middle ground that everyone can settle on. while the riaa doesn't want their files directly copied off of internet radio i am sure they do not mind the airplay revenue internet radio gives them. so they might have a vested interest in keeping internet radio stations alive. to do so they would need to help find a workable solution.

[tommie gorman]

I am sorry Reso. but the more you post, the more you make it sound like the music industry owns the RIAA, which in my book makes it a bit illegal.  NO ? ?

[water]

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atnevon, thanks for the insight. however, i have to maintain that there must be some middle ground that everyone can settle on. while the riaa doesn't want their files directly copied off of internet radio i am sure they do not mind the airplay revenue internet radio gives them. so they might have a vested interest in keeping internet radio stations alive. to do so they would need to help find a workable solution.

I understand what you're saying, and if I didn't personally recognize how this will impact the intermet radio community I might agree with you. But let's break this down:

We pay for the priviledge to stream music to people for free. We have a limited number of advertisements on our site that brings in a small amount of money from google.

We do take donations, and usually get about 100-200 dollars per year. Everything else we pay for ourselves, and/or Atnevon designs. Our DJ's work for free.

We are one of the FEW small internest radio stations online that are 100% legal.

Do you really think the pirate (illegal) stations are going to give a shit about a bill if they don't pay the RIAA, ASCAP and BMI now? No, it's the legit people that will suffer, and eventually close down.

I don't want people copying the music I play, I don't think thats fair use. But is it fair to make me pay through the nose to play it?

They'll just download off P2P if they can't hear it from me.

[mudmanc4]

Unfortunatly , this is the direction this is heading. Not to say I agree with it.Why not impliment a device that creates "pink or white" noise, during transmission encoded,to avoid capture, the player decodes Individuals Id on a specific MD5  would log useage, why stick it on the broadcasters?

[Atnevon]

You bring up a good point resopalrabot.  However, the RIAA is already directly compensated by online radio stations in the form of higher royalty payments than those made by terestrial radio stations.

That's right, online radio stations actually pay more money to the RIAA than terestrial radio stations do in royalty rates.  Terestrial stations (AM/FM) have to pay ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC (the three agencies responsible for the right to public performances of the notes and lyrics of songs) fees that are a percentage of the profit that they make.  If you make the minimum payments (ie - you're not making any profit off of broadcasting), you're looking at roughly $1500 as a minimum yearly cost to broadcasting, with your number of listeners limitted only by the amount of physical area you can cover with your broadcast.  So, as long as you're not making any money off it, you pay the same in royalty rates whether you broadcast to 10 people or 10,000 people.

Now, if you're an internet broadcaster, you have to pay all three of these agencies fees that are a percentage of your profit, but you also have to pay SoundExchange (a branch of the RIAA itself) royalty rates either on a per performance basis (you pay 7 tenths of a cent for every song you play and every listener who listens to that song) or as a percentage of your profit.  The reason that you have to pay this fee?  Very specifically, the reason this was put into law was because the RIAA felt that more than terestrial radio stations, broadcasting on the internet was more like distributing an exact replica of the song that was on the CD, and they knew that some listeners might find ways to record this, so the online stations have to pay this fee as a kind of 'expected piracy' that will take place from broadcasting online.  This is semi-acceptable logic; however, the MINIMUM yearly payment to SoundExchange alone is $2000 a year, when done as a percentage of profit.  The percentage itself is 10% of revenues, so you pay the same minimum whether your online station makes $0 per year or $20,000 a year.  If you decide to pay them instead as a flat rate of 7 tenths of a cent per song per listener, you'll very quickly top that $2,000 mark with any significant amount of listeners once you do the math on a year's worth of 3 to 5 minute songs.

As one final note here, I really need to point out that recording tracks off of an online radio station is very much illegal, and anyone who tries to download a program that can do so is always told this very clearly during the installation of such a program.  That quickly leads to a debate about how easy it is to record songs off of an online radio station, and 'because it's so easy, online stations need to go through extraordinary measures to prevent it from happening'.  There are huge holes in this argument for a few reasons.  If you followed this logic for AM/FM stations, you would have to require them to develop technology that would actually prevent people from using tape decks to record off the radio.  This is just not a reasonable expectation.  If you wanted to look at this on an even broader basis, think about whether or not you think it would be right to make a law that would *require* all mom & pop general stores to pay to have 24/7 video cameras linked directly to feeds that played in the police station because it's 'too easy' to stick a candy bar in your pocket and walk out with it.

[fikester]

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Do you really think the pirate (illegal) stations are going to give a S#!t about a bill if they don't pay the RIAA, ASCAP and BMI now? No, it's the legit people that will suffer, and eventually close down.

Seems this is the way 99.9%  of the laws work. People don't want to get involved so the suits will win again.

[resopalrabotnick]

that's what i'm saying. don't yell and then cry when the law is passed, seek dialogue now and try to make legislation fair for everyone.

[Deltamusic]

A lot of people do not know that this is the Perform Act of 2007,not the one that failed last year. I found this from another site

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Don't Let Congress Shackle Digital Music

The new Congress has barely begun, but the major record labels are already up to their old tricks.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein has re-introduced the PERFORM Act, a backdoor assault on your right to record off the radio. Satellite and digital radio stations as well as Internet webcasters would have to adopt digital rights management (DRM) restrictions or lose the statutory license for broadcasting music. Letters from constituents like you helped beat this dangerous proposal last year -- take action now to block it again.

This bill aims to hobble TiVo-like devices for satellite and digital radio. Such devices would be allowed to include "reasonable recording" features, but that excludes choosing and playing back selections based on song title, artist, or genre. Want to freely move recordings around your home network or copy them to the portable player of your choice? You'll be out of luck if PERFORM passes.

This bill would also mess with Internet radio. Today, Live365, Shoutcast, streaming radio stations included in iTunes, and myriad other smaller webcasters rely on MP3 streaming. PERFORM would in effect force them to use DRM-laden, proprietary formats, so you can say goodbye to software tools like Streamripper that let you record programming to listen to it later.

[tommie gorman]

The RIAA seems illegal in itself. Just that they exist. Why do we legally have to pay taxes just so they can exist only for the sole purpose of the music industry? That is my question. Why do we pay for this vigilante squad?? It shoulddsolely come out of the music industries pocket, and not be able to create any laws for $monetary settlements at all.

I just don't get it. 

[fikester]

Its what we the people have allowed the suits to do and they will continue to more and more dictate what,when, and how you will do things. This would be no different than Chevy or Ford telling a buyer no allowing your neighbor or friend to use car.....and by the way you can not resell the car either. Why not just sell books only at the library....its hurting the author by allowing people to read the book not having to buy it. This DRM deal is just another twisted money maker for the suits, that we the people will allow to tell us how we will obtain entertainment. Free music does not hinder the artist from success.

[resopalrabotnick]

sorry fikester, it is not like ford or chevy saying you can't lend your car to someone else or sell it. if you lend your car to your neighbor you give him the original, not a copy of it. you and your neighbor cannot use the car at the same time. (unless you are both riding in it to the same destination, but that is like listening to music with your neighbor.)

by sharing music on p2p you keep your original (or copy) while letting others create a copy of it. multiple people can be in posession of a file and use it as they see fit with the owner of the rights to the file only gets paid once.

[fikester]

My point was it would be no different than Ford or Chevy proposing that any of those actions are costing them sales.The other point is the government is more everyday making our "choices" for us. What about the library.....are they paying the author for each book per use? 

[resopalrabotnick]

the auto companies couldn't claim sharing a vehicle costs them sales because you can't copy a vehicle. sharing music however means that you copy it.

and libraries don't pay for per reading on the books because they are not for profit. blockbuster can't just buy off the shelf dvds, they have to pay a price to get the right to lease them out.

[tommie gorman]

No but the automakers could say we cannot buy aftermarket parts. Then where  would we be I still say it is crap. Now that is the same thing. And no I should not have to be paying for the music industries detectives to do their dirty work. They should have to pay for it out of pocket, and they should not have any real authority. They should have to sue the same as you or I. I have to hire a lawyer. Why are they so different?

Again, I say the RIAA is illegal. Period. 

[fikester]

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the auto companies couldn't claim sharing a vehicle costs them sales because you can't copy a vehicle. sharing music however means that you copy it.

and libraries don't pay for per reading on the books because they are not for profit. blockbuster can't just buy off the shelf dvds, they have to pay a price to get the right to lease them out.

Its a word game but the theory is right there....the music listener or the persons sharing the file is not profiting either, exactly as the library. I can sell my neighbor a used car, but not an iPod with music on it...   And the rules will never stop