Most broadcasters were expecting percentage of revenue based model, like PROs
Cost of participating was in six figures, equally split, and not known to participants in advance.
Had to be a participant to contribute. (RIAA insisted this rule be followed)
Supposed to be based on a transactiona a willing buyer, willing seller would come up with.
The considered 26 deals, 25 rejected, on the basis they were negotiated under press by the RIAA, for the purpose of setting an expenses precedent for the CARP. The only example of a willing buyer/seller example is Yahoo. (more on this later).
Show PDF of CARP report, emphasize the many blacked out sections
3. CARP results - Feb 20
$.0007 per song per listener for Terrestrial (over the air)
Reporting requirements for each and every song: (show a slide and give a brief summary of this)
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)
Reporting requirements for each user:
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
Note: this is free market research. No limitations on how RIAA can use this data.
contrast this jounnal based reporting for ASCAP, BMI, SESAC. They keep logs a couple weeks per year.
comparison to the DJ in the next room
4. Reactions.
Shock. Broadcasters with revenue said this would cost them around 200% of revenue
Day of Silence/Save Internet Radio Marathon - May 1
The Day of Silence got the press coverage
The Marathon, got the listeners to take action
over 120,000 listeners
22,000 faxes
5. CARP rejected by Librarian of Congress - May 21. No futher explantion. final report due June 20.
6. Library of Congress announces final webcasting rates - June 20.
Cut internet only rate to $0.007, same as terrestrial
Kept the ephermal recording surchage at 8.8%
$500 minimum
7. I join Voice of Webcasters - VOW. A group which claimed to work for a broadcasters
8. Mark Cuban - letter to RAIN June 24, saying the deal with the RIAA was designed to stifle competition!
Cuban founded Broadcast.com, which was sold to Yahoo for 5.7 bn in 1999. This was at the height of the dot.com boom. He started the negotiations with the RIAA, but sold the company before they were finished.
Broadcast.com didn't want percentage of revenue pricing. They were afraid of being undercut my operations which had no revenue.
The deal was designed to give an advantage to aggregations of streams, and force stations webcasting to use Broadcast.com
Broadcast.com had a multicasting network, which Cuban planned to use to underreport listener numbers to the RIAA. "multicasting only sends a single stream from our server, so that is what we would record in our reports for the RIAA, and that is what we would pay on."
"The Yahoo! deal I worked on, if it resembles the deal the CARP ruling was built on, was designed so that there would be less competition, and so that small webcasters who needed to live off of a "percentage-of-revenue" to survive, couldn't."
9. VOW reveals negotiating with the RIAA
10. Internet Radio Fairness Act proposed, July 26, 2002
Two paragraph bill offering 6 month stay in CARP rates for ALL webcasters.
VOW and RAIN nag us all to support it.
We faxed and called congress, and encouraged our listeners, familes and friends to do so too.
VOW ordered by Susenbrenner (judiciary commiteee) to negotiate all weekend.
12. HR 5465 v2, Small Webcaster Amendment Act. Passes house. Oct 7, 2002
Became a 30 page bill
Allows and optional percentage of revenue deal, with a $2000/year minimum
Problems with:
1. optional deal never intended to become law. No representation of entire webcasting community (hobbyist, non-profit, or educational webcasters, only a subset of commercial ones)
2. congressmen who voted on it didn't know what they were voting for
3. closed off appeals to the CARP process
4. If congress approves, they'll think they've "solved the internet radio problem"
mention National Religious Broadcasters objections, and Helms
I do not blame the commercial webcasters for the disastrous result which resulted from these negotiations with RIAA. They are politically naive, and they were forced to negotiate under duress. They were under the deadline of the unbearable retroactive CARP rate payments being due on October 20th, and a mandate from Congress to negotiate a deal. Under those circumstances, I wouldn't expect anything but a deeply flawed result.
13. Webcaster reactions
Ann Gabriel's resignation letter from IWA over legal funds
Mass defection from VOW
Breaking the story in the media. Register articles, picking sympathetic reporters
LA Times interview
RAIN's biased reporting
Washington Post coverage
14. HR 5469 v3, renamed to Small Webcaster Settlement Act, Nov 14 - new version with RIAA, VOW and Helms
Dropped from 30 to 15 pages
Rather than specify rates for commercial and noncommercial webcasters like version 2 did, this one allows Sound Exchange to delay royalty payments until December 15, 2002 while negotiations are conducted for alternative rates to the original CARP ruling.
No mention of who is doing the negotiating, or how they are to be chosen.
This negotiated agreement would serve as an optional deal to the CARP rates, and covers the period from October 28, 1998 through December 31, 2004.
Once this is published in the Federal Register, this agreement would be binding on all copyright owners (even non-RIAA members).
For noncommercial webcasters, it postpones any payments due until June 20, 2003. It also uses the IRS definition of noncommercial, which is an improvement over the previous version.
There are two full pages of disclaimers saying that this agreement can not be used to challenge the July 8, 2002 CARP ruling or be taken as an example of a willing buyer/willing seller for future CARPs.
SE can recoupt all expenses from 1995 on up. Estimated from $9 to $18 million., versus $3.5 million in retro fees that webcasters owe from 1998-2002.
How long till artists get money under this plan?
15. WA tries to negotiate with the RIAA. They wait till the last mintue, then so no time to consider our proposal. (early December, 2002)
See WA site for our proposal and their response.
16. Next CARP. cARP reform.
17. Recent settmentment of College Broadcasters Inc (CBI) and non-profits under HR 5469.
18. AIRR (American Internet Radio Revolution) Campaign, "Revolution is the only solution". Webcaster Alliance Lawsuit against the RIAA.
19. Future - let's create the one we want.
III. Conclusion
Purpose of WA - work for fair settlments that benefit ALL internet broadcasters. Is IR a mass medium, or a does should it reflect the variety of genres out there?
Invite to join the WA and information on calls to action
