Now RIAA considers AM and FM radio piracy...

[lostfan]

ARTISTS have always been getting screwed - by the recording industry. I don't feel any sympathy for the recording industry, they put themselves in the situation they're in.

[FlaSoxxJim]

Artists are getting screwed. I can't believe stations can't cough up a bit for the recording industry.

 

ASCAP dues are still being paid and are stil being disbursed to member artists.

 

I'm from the camp that thinks that if the RIAA would have had the least bit of forethought, they would be at the vanguard of the digital distribution rather than chasing it.

 

But the radio issue is another matter entirely. The airwave radio stations continue to play cuts from commercial releases that listeners can buy at the store, legally download for a fee, or acquire through some other means (e.g, record off the radio, which is legal, or unauthorized download, which is not).

 

The radio stations are still doing what they have been doing for years, and what has changed is that now that the RIAA is taking in less revenues from physical unit sales they want to rewrite the rules the stations play by.

[knightni]

What's next? Syndicated radio only?

 

"Here's the Top 40 Countdown on the Capitol Records Radio Network!"

[Rex Kickass]

Most commercial radio stations have ASCAP AND BMI licenses IIRC. In major markets digital monitoring by ASCAP and BMI helps ensure artists get the proper royalties as well.

 

When times were good for the RIAA, labels were paying commercial rates to air songs on radio stations. Most notably, Limp Bizkit did this in 1997.

[The Critic]

Then why do they "advertise" songs for free and charge to advertise a car dealer? Would they give entertaining car ads lower rates then the boring, annoying ones? They are using the music to draw an audience to the advertising they can sell.

 

I obviously didn't mean that it's direct advertising like a car dealership ad would be.

The radio station uses it as programming content, but the recording industry gets the benefit of "advertising" their product free of charge. Nobody's buying a radio station as a result of hearing a song on it, but someone may (and often do) buy a record as the result of hearing a song on the radio.

 

[StrangeSox]

And where would many radio stations go if there was no musicians? The markets would support just so many talk shows. They need each other.

 

Imagine if someone could publish a book and anyone could immediately copy it and print their own copies for sale next to the author's version, and call it advertising for the original owner. Has anyone ever said, I want to listen to that station that advertises Classic Rock? How many stations claim to play the most commercial free music?

 

Why can't two or three television stations head to US Cellular and cover a game as a "news story" with live, as it happens, play by play?

 

Artists are getting screwed. I can't believe stations can't cough up a bit for the recording industry.

 

You don't need the RIAA for there to be musicians. Look at Radiohead or any other number of bands that are self-producing now. I would not be sad to see the likes of Columbia and the other mega producers go the way of the dodo while more efficient self-producing methods (MySpace/ Amazon/ other internet sites) become more and more the norm.

 

None of this money (or at least very, very little of it) would get into the artists' hands. That is what the other fees are for. These new fees would be for the dumb-as-dinosaur executives.

Edited June 24, 2008 by StrangeSox

[Texsox]

I obviously didn't mean that it's direct advertising like a car dealership ad would be.

The radio station uses it as programming content, but the recording industry gets the benefit of "advertising" their product free of charge. Nobody's buying a radio station as a result of hearing a song on it, but someone may (and often do) buy a record as the result of hearing a song on the radio.

 

It just seems wrong that while radio stations make millions of dollars the musicians and the companies that market and manufacture CDs etc, are left out in the cold. Here is another example, I am a t-shirt manufacturer and I start making Radiohead T-shirts and sell them to "advertise the band". People buy my t-shirts and are then encouraged to buy the albums, so it doesn't really hurt the band, it helps them. Of course downloading the songs for free should also be allowed, so we get back to this, are the artists deserving of compensation for their music, or should anyone be allowed to profit from their work?

 

And let's look at another group of dumb as dinosaur executives. If you want to slap a Chicago Bears logo on a hat and sell it to advertise the Bears, and this bringing in more fans, the NFL will sue you in a heart beat. How is that different then the RIAA protecting the intellectual rights of their members? You want the industry to give away free air play and free downloads. Movie theaters pay fees to play movies, why? After all it's advertsing as well. When the movie comes out for home DVD more people will buy it if they have seen it before. Those dumb as dinosaur executives will not allow people to buy the DVD then play it for paying customers.

 

What the executives have to adjust to is downloading and sharing. There is no way for the artists and industry to make any money off that. So who is making money and who can they get it from? People balk at paying .99 to download a song. How would you make money for your artists?

[EvilMonkey]

It just seems wrong that while radio stations make millions of dollars the musicians and the companies that market and manufacture CDs etc, are left out in the cold. Here is another example, I am a t-shirt manufacturer and I start making Radiohead T-shirts and sell them to "advertise the band". People buy my t-shirts and are then encouraged to buy the albums, so it doesn't really hurt the band, it helps them. Of course downloading the songs for free should also be allowed, so we get back to this, are the artists deserving of compensation for their music, or should anyone be allowed to profit from their work?

 

And let's look at another group of dumb as dinosaur executives. If you want to slap a Chicago Bears logo on a hat and sell it to advertise the Bears, and this bringing in more fans, the NFL will sue you in a heart beat. How is that different then the RIAA protecting the intellectual rights of their members? You want the industry to give away free air play and free downloads. Movie theaters pay fees to play movies, why? After all it's advertsing as well. When the movie comes out for home DVD more people will buy it if they have seen it before. Those dumb as dinosaur executives will not allow people to buy the DVD then play it for paying customers.

 

What the executives have to adjust to is downloading and sharing. There is no way for the artists and industry to make any money off that. So who is making money and who can they get it from? People balk at paying .99 to download a song. How would you make money for your artists?

Tex, your logo vs song anology doesn't quite work. You can't look at the Bears logo and tell what kind of team you will see play on the field. Just because the shirt looks cool doesn't mean the running back will rush for 1400 yards. However, you hear a song on the radio, you know what it sounds like before you buy it. Stop with the downloads already, that doesn't really fit into general radio play. What station(s) are giving away free downloads? And I can't believe that if they are doing that, that somebody isn't getting paid for it. I don't go searching on the internet for what new songs are out, I don't get newsletters from bands letting me know they have new music for me to check out, I rely on radio, both regular and my XM, to find out what is out there. And when I hear something I like, I buy it. As I said, I have no problem with the radio stations paying royalties, it just isn't going to be this huge windfall that the RIAA makes it out to be. Most of the stations can't afford that much, and if they kill off the stations, they will die a quick and painfull death.

[FlaSoxxJim]

I think it was Alpha who who brought to attention a couple of months ago the money-grubbing plans by cash-strapped local governments in college towns to try to tax university endowments to fill their depleted coffers. Tex, I see this RIAA move as being in the very same vein. Economics have changed and the revenue streams the industry used to get fat off of are slowing down, so RIAA is getting creative in their greed and trying to change the rules of the game to the detriment of the radio outlets, the listeners/consumers, and teh artists themselves when the radio stations pull the plug on commercial music broadcasts.

 

There are at least four other instances I know of in the last 25 years where RIAA has tried to extort money from consumers, music outlets, or artists through legislation and litigation, and none of them involved digital download piracy. Tex, you're arguing that the RIAA is standing up for the artists, but the Recording Artists' Coalition certainly sees it differently. That group was formed specifically to lobby for the repeal of the onerous Digital Content Protection Act of 2006 "work made for hire" legislation that had secretly stripped thousands of artists of their copyright interests and handed them to. . . the record companies.

 

Does that sound like an industry association looking out for the artists?

Edited June 25, 2008 by FlaSoxxJim

[bmags]

Oh, poor RIAA, the poor, lazy, incompatible to the new millenium RIAA trying to hang on desperately to an old inferior business model by suing everyone in sight. Huh, they used to pay radiostations to pay their songs illegally, now they want to sue them for paying their songs? We are talking about the dumbest industry in the world. The one that gone stupid by their own greed, would be paying 450 grand in bad music videos and millions in marketing before a band would even record an album and would be in debt for many before they'd get their star just to break even. They deserve no sympathy. They are protecting no intellectual rights. Thankfully, now bands hold their destiny in their own hands. Bye bye capitol records.

[Texsox]

Alpha, I bring up downloads because it has killed a major revenue stream, record sales. On one end everyone says they have to adapt to a new business model, but when they do adapt and look at additional revenue streams, they are idiots?! Amazon, iTunes, etc. are not going to want to deal with 100,000 different bands, businesses want to pare their supplier bases, not increase them exponentially. It is too expensive to deal with that many suppliers (bands). Therefor, there will always be companies between the artists and the consumers for the vast majority of music.

 

OK, for the sake of discussion, the hat does not offer a clue to how the team will play. Then why can't other TV station film inside an NFL game? After all, it would be promoting exactly what the NFL is selling?

 

How is this different then movie theaters who pay a fee to the movie companies?

 

And if radio stations are helping increase sales so much, why don't they just stop playing those songs until the record companies pay them for the advertising? Why are we not reading about the radio industry demanding advertising money? A radio station product is their programming, in this case, the songs they use for free.

[jackie hayes]

So, just a question for anyone in the know -- The article says the fees would be negotiated (in most cases). I'm assuming that means in the 'big' sense, RIAA negotiating with NAB, and that structure would apply to everyone. Is that right? And then there would be no (legal) way for an individual label to 'opt out' and waive the fee for its songs, right?

[Texsox]

And we could look at that business model also from the radio station. The stations *were* offering a great opportunity for record companies to increase recrod sales and there was fairness in the balance. As long as consumers were actually buying records, the model worked. The stations received the benefits of free programming for decades and the record manufacturing companies received a boost to sales. Now that the benefit they are providing has less value, they will have to adapt and perhaps it will be by paying royalties much like movie theaters, TV shows, advertisers, etc. who use the songs to earn a profit.

 

But those that think the RIAA are idiots, what would you do to stay in business?

[Rex Kickass]

If radio airplay was "piracy," why do record labels send stations all that free product.

[Swingandalongonetoleft]

"You don't need the RIAA for there to be musicians. Look at Radiohead or any other number of bands that are self-producing now."

 

Radiohead and many of these other musicians (NIN was another one I think) are WELL established. If this was the way out, more acts would be diving head first into it. It may eventually be the way to go, but for now, a huge following (Radiohead, NIN) make this a less risky move.

[FlaSoxxJim]

Tex, you may be doing the devil's advocate thing as an academic exercise, but if not then you are seriously backing the wrong horse.

 

 

I finally found a Dave Marsh piece back from 2001 that gives a little more detail on the MO of the RIAA.

 

http://www.counterpunch.org/marshcheat.html

 

He goes into a little of the 1999 "work made for hire" shenanigans in which then Congressional staffer and eventual RIAA exec (coincidence??) Mitch Glazier did some midnight magic on some lagislative copyright legislation and disappeared the ownership rights of thousands of artists. marsh then picks up the thread and describes how RIAA tried to use the smokescreen of post-9/11 Patriot Act foolishness to sneak self-centered "anti-piracy" wording into the legislation.

 

Before that was the 1983-1984 "blank tape tax" attempt, that RIAA tried to sneak through while the rest of Capitol Hill was wrapped up questioning John Denver and Dee Snyder about "porn rock" in the PMRC debacle. Then another failed attempt at a blank tape/recording equipment levy in 1992 that ultimately led to a legal clarification that taping commercial music for private use was perfectly legal.

 

Fast-forward a few years to see the RIAA threatening litigation against OLGA, Tabster, and the other music tab sharing sites because they weren't giving RIAA a cut. Now, honestly think about this for a minute. These sites weren't offfering music downloads, they were publishing web pages with the marginally correct cords and guitar tabs to songs to be shared by musicians. Tex, if you and me were sitting on the porch and I showed you the chords to Louie Louie, that's grassroots music at its best. But, if you and me are separated by 2,00 miles and I decide that I'm going to use the internet as a digital front porch and I post those same chords to Louie Louie, then RIAA can sue my ass?

 

That particular RIAA gaff - going after online chord and tab services, perfectly encapsulates the stupidity of the group. Back then when I was actively performing and doing the bar band thing, I bought sometimes half-dozen CDs a month, specifically to play along with the songs using tabs I found online. I bought probably 100 CD's just to learn songs off of. And the proceeds from all of those sales, administered by RIAA, went to feed the industry. Then all of a sudden, OLGA and the others pull their tabs and shut down their services because RIAA is trying to shake them down? Brilliant.

 

The kicker, of course, is that at the exact same time as RIAA is busting people for teaching each other guitar riffs, the mp3 format came into its own and the dubious download era began and RIAA was asleep at the wheel.

 

The asociation started out as a standards and practices association for cripes' sake. Their original job was to help standardize the technical aspects of vinyl recording. How they morphed into the cumbersome greedy deceitful group they are now I don't even know.

[mreye]

So if radio says, "We're advertising your product," and the RIAA says, "You're pirating our product, give us royalties," what's to stop the radio stations from charging the RIAA for advertising - just like they do the car dealership?

 

So, the deal ends up like this: Radio charges the RIAA $0.01 for each song advertised (played) and the RIAA receives $0.01 royalties for each song played. Two can play this game.

 

For years the RIAA has been getting free advertising.

[Texsox]

Tex, you may be doing the devil's advocate thing as an academic exercise, but if not then you are seriously backing the wrong horse.

 

 

I finally found a Dave Marsh piece back from 2001 that gives a little more detail on the MO of the RIAA.

 

http://www.counterpunch.org/marshcheat.html

 

He goes into a little of the 1999 "work made for hire" shenanigans in which then Congressional staffer and eventual RIAA exec (coincidence??) Mitch Glazier did some midnight magic on some lagislative copyright legislation and disappeared the ownership rights of thousands of artists. marsh then picks up the thread and describes how RIAA tried to use the smokescreen of post-9/11 Patriot Act foolishness to sneak self-centered "anti-piracy" wording into the legislation.

 

Before that was the 1983-1984 "blank tape tax" attempt, that RIAA tried to sneak through while the rest of Capitol Hill was wrapped up questioning John Denver and Dee Snyder about "porn rock" in the PMRC debacle. Then another failed attempt at a blank tape/recording equipment levy in 1992 that ultimately led to a legal clarification that taping commercial music for private use was perfectly legal.

 

Fast-forward a few years to see the RIAA threatening litigation against OLGA, Tabster, and the other music tab sharing sites because they weren't giving RIAA a cut. Now, honestly think about this for a minute. These sites weren't offfering music downloads, they were publishing web pages with the marginally correct cords and guitar tabs to songs to be shared by musicians. Tex, if you and me were sitting on the porch and I showed you the chords to Louie Louie, that's grassroots music at its best. But, if you and me are separated by 2,00 miles and I decide that I'm going to use the internet as a digital front porch and I post those same chords to Louie Louie, then RIAA can sue my ass?

 

That particular RIAA gaff - going after online chord and tab services, perfectly encapsulates the stupidity of the group. Back then when I was actively performing and doing the bar band thing, I bought sometimes half-dozen CDs a month, specifically to play along with the songs using tabs I found online. I bought probably 100 CD's just to learn songs off of. And the proceeds from all of those sales, administered by RIAA, went to feed the industry. Then all of a sudden, OLGA and the others pull their tabs and shut down their services because RIAA is trying to shake them down? Brilliant.

 

The kicker, of course, is that at the exact same time as RIAA is busting people for teaching each other guitar riffs, the mp3 format came into its own and the dubious download era began and RIAA was asleep at the wheel.

 

The asociation started out as a standards and practices association for cripes' sake. Their original job was to help standardize the technical aspects of vinyl recording. How they morphed into the cumbersome greedy deceitful group they are now I don't even know.

The group is stupid, hurts artists at times, makes dumb decisions. I agree.

 

Radio stations are now deriving more benefit from freely playing records then they are giving. A new arrangement would seem fair.

 

Again, Jim. If you were the RIAA, how would you stay in business?

[StrangeSox]

The group is stupid, hurts artists at times, makes dumb decisions. I agree.

 

Radio stations are now deriving more benefit from freely playing records then they are giving. A new arrangement would seem fair.

Again, Jim. If you were the RIAA, how would you stay in business?

 

Back in, say, 1995, I'd realize with all my business prowess, that this weird internet thing isn't just a fad and maybe we should get in on it instead of trying to sue people using it. I'd stop producing and peddling garbage for $20 a CD with only one decent track.

 

If they cannot adapt to the times and come up with a modern, workable business model that doesn't involve trying to squeeze every last dime out of every possible user, no matter how much it might actually hurt them in the long run, then they'll go under. They don't have a right to exist. IMO, they don't really have a need to exist anymore, either.

[Texsox]

Back in, say, 1995, I'd realize with all my business prowess, that this weird internet thing isn't just a fad and maybe we should get in on it instead of trying to sue people using it. I'd stop producing and peddling garbage for $20 a CD with only one decent track.

 

If they cannot adapt to the times and come up with a modern, workable business model that doesn't involve trying to squeeze every last dime out of every possible user, no matter how much it might actually hurt them in the long run, then they'll go under. They don't have a right to exist. IMO, they don't really have a need to exist anymore, either.

 

So in your view, they should just close up shop and give up. Does that mean the end of manufactured CDs, etc.?

[FlaSoxxJim]

So in your view, they should just close up shop and give up. Does that mean the end of manufactured CDs, etc.?

 

There doesn't need to be a Dairy Council to have dairies, and there doesn't need to be a Beef Council to have meat. Record companies would still exist in the absence of their dysfunctional industry group.

[lostfan]

So in your view, they should just close up shop and give up. Does that mean the end of manufactured CDs, etc.?

Close up shop, no, that'd be unreasonable to expect of any business. But does that mean I can't smile as the natural selection of free market capitalism pummels them mercilessly until they are finally down for good? Sure doesn't. The sooner it happens the better.

 

The music industry will be fine without the RIAA. Hopefully the next thing will have better foresight.

[Texsox]

There doesn't need to be a Dairy Council to have dairies, and there doesn't need to be a Beef Council to have meat. Record companies would still exist in the absence of their dysfunctional industry group.

 

No, there doesn't need to be. But notice how every industry has an association?

 

What these "dinosaur" executives get, that some people seem not to, is they are no longer a manufacturing industry. The manufacturing of objects (album, tape, cd) will go the way of the buggy whip. What they have are intellectual properties that they will be managing for their artists. The "advertising" that radio is doing is advertising a product that has decreasing sales. As downloads continue to replace objects that need to be manufactured, that advertising decreases in value while the actual song and audience (like web site "eyeballs) is what has value and needs to be the revenue stream. To cling to a manufacturing model would be the dinosaur approach.

 

And I still believe looking around at companies (not individuals) who are making millions off of your products without paying a fee, seems like a logical step that an industry group would take.

[southsider2k5]

So in your view, they should just close up shop and give up. Does that mean the end of manufactured CDs, etc.?

 

Two words

 

Government.Bailout.

[bmags]

No, there doesn't need to be. But notice how every industry has an association?

 

And I still believe looking around at companies (not individuals) who are making millions off of your products without paying a fee, seems like a logical step that an industry group would take.

 

Well, perhaps they should embrace the inevitability that they can't stop this. So many companies and industries right now realize the tremendous marketing power FREE has. They just need to find out what to sell with the music to make profits.