Originally published at Bevilacqua.us.
Then it’s time to take action. Contact your Senators and your Representatives.
SomaFM.com has a lot of good info as well.
An open letter to Representative Bob Mensch and Senator John Rafferty:
Mr. Mensch and Mr. Rafferty-
I’m writing you today to express my concern as an Internet radio listener, web media developer, PA tax payer and home owner. As you may be aware, the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) royalty rate decision has increased the royalty rates that Internet radio broadcasters pay on the “sound recording performance” to SoundExchange. These fees are so high that if not changed will put most member-supported, small and medium-sized Internet broadcasters out of business.
There are a number of stations I support and listen to daily. They have grown considerably from the time I began listening. This wouldn’t have happened at all if this legislation was already in place. I see this legislation as being anti-progressive in our ever evolving and positive Internet radio community.
I am also a streaming Internet station developer for the Bryn Athyn Cathedral in Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania. We provide sermon broadcasts all over the globe to places like Africa and Australia. If this legislation is put into place, we will need to either pay $500 a year (the minimum per channel) in broadcasting fees or shut down our stream.
Furthermore, over-the-air broadcasters are exempt from paying royalties on the sound recording copyright. These royalties were legislated by the Digital Performance Right in Sound Recordings Act of 1995 (aka the DPRA). The reason was that it was then thought “digital” broadcasts were “perfect copies” of an original work and should therefore be treated different from over-the-air radio broadcasts; hence the law was changed so that only over-the-air broadcasters were exempted from royalties on the performance of sound recordings. When the original copyright laws were written, Congress realized it was creating a legal monopoly to the copyright holder. So in order to balance out that government-given monopoly it also added provisions for fair use, such as copying for personal use, exemptions for libraries, and exemptions for radio broadcasters.
The DPRA is based on a fundamentally flawed assumption — that “digital transmission” allows unlimited perfect digital copies of the original work. But internet radio stations do not distribute perfect digital copies of the original copyrighted performance; instead, they use MP3 and WMA. Such broadcasts are drastically “compressed” and (I’m sure you know) nowhere near a perfect digital copy. They also segue songs together, and make announcements over the beginnings and ends of songs. It’s just like over-the-air radio, and in many cases, the audio quality of the internet broadcast is inferior to an analog FM broadcast!
Due to all the corporate consolidation in over-the-air broadcasting, it no longer provides a free flow of ideas and information. Internet radio has responded to fill that free flow of ideas, and there are thousands of internet radio stations with loyal audiences who look to them to discover new music. Many of these are advertising-free, and support themselves through listener donations. But if SoundExchange gets its way, advertising-free internet radio will come to an end, and only the largest corporations will be able to legally operate internet radio stations in the United States. US listeners seeking a diversity of viewpoints will be forced to turn to international broadcasters.
Achieving parity with over-the-air broadcasters seems to be the only fair solution for internet radio broadcasters and listeners. This can be done by amending 114(j)(3) of the Copyright Act to change the definition of “broadcast transmission” to include internet radio broadcasts, aka eligible nonsubscription transmission, as defined in Sec. 114(j)(6).
If amending the Copyright law is not feasible, then at a minimum, these royalty rates must be reduced to something reasonable; for example, 5% of revenues is in line with what broadcasters pay to composers (through ASCAP and BMI). It seems that the rates that the CRB has ruled for internet radio “sound recording” royalties are grossly out of line.
This is the only way that internet radio operators can achieve parity with their over-the-air peers, and the only way to insure a “marketplace of ideas” - an idea important to our democracy.
Please take all of this into consideration and act to save small, independent internet radio broadcasters. Please contact me if you have any questions with what I have presented to you today.
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Michael D. Bevilacqua
michael at bevilacqua .dot. us