Does this effect WFMU?

[dave from knoxville]

http://www.crn.com/software/210101396

Reports: CRB Killed The Internet Radio Star Pandora
After an eight-year run, Pandora, the popular Internet music service, may be forced to shut down due to prohibitively expensive music royalties, according to reports.

"We're approaching a pull-the-plug kind of decision," Pandora founder Tim Westergren told The Washington Post . "This is like a last stand for Web casting."

The static involves Web radio stations, such as Pandora; the royalty collection organization Sound Exchange, which represents music artists, record companies and The Industry Association of America (RIAA); and The Copyright Review Board (CRB), an offshoot of The Library of Congress.

Last year, Sound Exchange won a decision from the CRB to increase Internet radio's royalties between 300 and 1,200 percent, according to the organization SaveNetRadio. Previously, Web radio services used to pay an annual fee plus a percentage of the profits.

[iAmBaronVonTito]

bummer.

[<<<<<]

Fuck the RIAA.

[<<<<<]

(And yes, I do not steal music, I buy it.  I think I bought 8 CDs last week alone.)

[John Junk 2.0]

Pandora is like the only place any of my bands get played.

[dave from knoxville]

So, uhhhhhh, does this effect WFMU?

[Chris L]

So, uhhhhhh, does this effect WFMU?

I think they've previously said no, although I don't understand why.

[iAmBaronVonTito]

(And yes, I do not steal music, I buy it.  I think I bought 8 CDs last week alone.)

i do a lot of both, but still...i spend more money on music than anything else i own.  and ive had to buy albums two, three times over.  when i read things like "Last year, Sound Exchange won a decision from the CRB to increase Internet radio's royalties between 300 and 1,200 percent", it makes my teeth grind.

[Spoony]

I don't think it'll affect FMU because Pandora (as I understand it... I haven't been on it for a year or so and am not familiar with it's current format) draws income through advertising and web banners. Their system is also a little more complex because with every song it plays, it's referencing four others, so that may effect pricing and creating a larger overhead.

Since FMU doesn't advertise, the legal climate that effects internet streaming and AM/FM doesn't have the same sway  (also another reason why DJ's don't talk about day jobs). No one is making money from FMU's broadcast, so income-wise, there's nothing to get a chunk from. So as long as they keep their ASCAP and BMI fee's in check, they can broadcast whatever they want, so long as artists are credited.

Also the big labels, like Sony/BMG, Universal and Warner don't have too much of their cash-cows played on FMU, they aren't inclined to pick fights with what they perceive as collage radio.

I imagine Donnie Ienner going over Fabio's playlist with a group of lawyers and collectively saying "what the fuck is this?"

[John Junk 2.0]

Also the big labels, like Sony/BMG, Universal and Warner don't have too much of their cash-cows played on FMU, they aren't inclined to pick fights with what they perceive as collage high school radio.

[Shaggy 2 Grote]

According to the article I read about it, the licensing agreement for broadcast radio is completely different from this (and much more reasonable), in part because the recording industry hates the web, but also because presumably everyone listening to Pandora is listening to a different song (and the RIAA or ASCAP or whoever wants it to pay a royalty every time a song is played).  Even though WFMU archives all of its shows on the web, it operates differently than Pandora or Last.fm or any "personalized radio" sites.

[<<<<<]

in part because the recording industry hates the web

And they wonder why their ship is taking on water.  Think they sit around the office reminiscing about the "olden days" too?

[Gilly]

I was on the exec staff of a college station about 7 years ago when all those letters went out saying that any station that was webcasting owed money to them with details of how much per song depending on how big the station was. I can't remember who sent them out... but anyway we stopped webcasting for a few months and chose to ignore the letter altogether since it was basically an extortion letter with the intent of getting settlements and then started webcasting again once we didn't hear anything about it again. I never heard if it was a scam or not but I don't think it was.

I would bet WFMU is not safe if Pandora doesn't eke this out. The recording industry is doing very little to adapt to the latest technology and they'll continue to drag their feet as long as they are allowed to keep finding untapped sources to milk money out of while using their outdated business model, and I don't see many people in power putting their foot down to stop the extortion.

[Steve of Bloomington]

Pandora was the only web music thingy I ever enjoyed listening to.  Interesting work being done there, too - it goes beyond the usual 'people who bought Who's Next also bought Bad Co's debut'.  So much for that.  The RIAA is ridiculous.

[<<<<<]

The recording industry is doing very little to adapt to the latest technology and they'll continue to drag their feet as long as they are allowed to keep finding untapped sources to milk money out of while using their outdated business model, and I don't see many people in power putting their foot down to stop the extortion.

Apparently suing teenage kids didn't turn out to be as financially lucrative as they'd hoped.