Are we looking at the end of Internet radio? (including Pandora)

Cafe Society
21

But I live in an area where without cable I can’t get a TV picture, nor do I have decent radio reception. I also have to step outside if I want to use my cellphone (yeah, that’s fun to do in the winter). Said cellphone radio ain’t gonna do crap for me. Not to mention, were I interested in sports and a game was unavailable in my local market, I can get on the internet and listen to/watch the game through a variety of sources. With a cellphone radio, I’m probably not going to have that option. I listen to KRCW’s live stream lots of time, since my local NPR station’s net feed tends to conk out on me a lot.

Also, how many people actually use their cellphone for anything other than just a phone? I’d wager that 99% of folks who have a phone (including ones with the high dollar models) don’t use it for more than just a phone. Next there’s the question of battery life. The eagerly anticipated, massively expensive iPhone is going to have a standby battery life of 16 hours and a talk time of five hours. No telling what it’s actually life will be for anyone who uses it to do things like surf the web, etc. Sticking in a radio tuner (Is it going to be an HD FM tuner? Cause those are like $400 right now, which means the iPhone has just doubled in price.) is going to suck juice out of those puppies.

What makes you think that the radio service is going to be free and not have any commercials? If I want to use my cellphone, as well, a phone, I have to pay for that. If I want to send text messages, I have to pay for that, if I want to surf the web using my phone, I have to pay for that as well. Why should I expect to be getting my radio service, on my cellphone for free, when I can’t get anything else for my phone free? Nor, can I picture it not having commercials of some kind. There’s hardly any place on the planet you can go these days and not be exposed to ads. Why should cellphones be any different?

22

A quick reply, since I’m off to work:

You raise some valid points Tuckerfan, baised on your own situation.

  1. I didn’t say “free” or “commercial free”, I just said that cellphones is where the industry is planning to go.

  2. The beauty of radio is portability. If you’re gonna spend a day at the beach and want to catch the game, you’re not gonna bring your laptop and hope finding a vlan. You take a small cheap radio.

  3. Cellphones are going to be the portable information platform. If you decide to take advantage of that or not is up to you. I realize that you Americans got screwed by the first generation and the roaming deals, paying to receive calls ASF. When you get (and I believe you are getting) better deals, you’ll realize that the potential to google something from your cell is wonderful. I know, I do it all the time.

  4. The providers over here offer radio as part of the entertainment package. It isn’t really free, but many kids get the package to get the games, MSN messenger and other things like that.

  5. Peole in the industry over here think that 50 percent of the people will spend 50 percent listening over their cellphones by 2013.
    Have to run. I can start digging for links and cites when I come home, if you’re interested.

23

Want to fourth the confusion over retroactivity.

How is that possible?

Anyone know?

-FrL-

24

Are these people getting hit with ASCAP fees too? Where does ASCAP’s jurisdiction end and the RIAA’s begin?

25

[QUOTE=Charlie Tan]
A quick reply, since I’m off to work:

You raise some valid points Tuckerfan, baised on your own situation.

  1. I didn’t say “free” or “commercial free”, I just said that cellphones is where the industry is planning to go.
    [/quote]
    Actually, you did say “commercial free.”

Depends upon on the beach. Lots of areas are offering free, or relatively low cost wifi, so finding a connection might not be all that difficult. In general, however, I’d think that most folks would be more inclined to take their MP3 player and a “boom box” attachment for it. Of course, at some beaches, you can park your car close enough and listen to your car stereo. That’s assuming, of course, there’s a local radio station worth listening (which often times, there isn’t).

You simply have no idea of the level of screwage we’ve gotten on cellphones in the US. I used to work for a cellphone company and the bulk of the management in that place were a bunch of drooling idiots. If you think, however, that we’re going to be getting a Euro-style setup anytime soon (where your phone is sold independently of the service provider), you’re sadly mistaken. Cellphone providers in the US aren’t exactly in the black at the moment (though they’re not total money losers), and all the new features they add come at a price. One which most consumers aren’t willing to pay. Yeah, I use my cellphone to surf the web, and it’s handy at times, but until I can afford something like the iPhone, it’s not really enjoyable.

Providers over here are trying to get people to watch TV on their cellphones. AFAIK, not a one of them has a radio package. Broadcast radio in the US pretty much sucks any way. The Clear Channelization of radio has turned 99% of all radio stations into repetative crap. Quite literally, you can set your watch by what they’re playing, if you know the play list (which you will if you listen for more than a month). The only radio stations which are experiencing a growth in ratings are Spanish and NPR affiliates. More and more folks are chosing to listen CDs and MP3 players. Sales of HD radios are less than spectacular.

The thing about such projections is that folks get them wrong, more often than they get them right. Few people thought that MP3 players would take off, since the sound quality wasn’t the greatest, then Apple brought out the iPod. I remember when everyone said that “push” was going to be “the” thing for the internet, and that quickly flopped.

26

[QUOTE=Charlie Tan]
Internet radio was never gonna take off anyway.
[/QUOTE]
It’s already taken off!

[QUOTE=Charlie Tan]
The RIAA are sharks, but they’re not to blame. It was never gonna last anyway. The future in radio lies with cell phone technology.
[/QUOTE]
Since this is Cafe Society, I’ll keep my mouth shut, but those are 3 bizarre statements.

I think I should request that this thread be moved to the Pit.

27

[QUOTE=Equipoise]
It’s already taken off!

Since this is Cafe Society, I’ll keep my mouth shut, but those are 3 bizarre statements.

I think I should request that this thread be moved to the Pit.
[/QUOTE]

Actually, if you’ve got some stats or something showing that internet radio of the sort under discussion has shown itself to be sustainably profitable, that would be entirely appropriate to CS. And moreover, it would be really nice and interesting. It would make my day in fact. I need to hear something good.

-FrL-

28

Oh good lord, looks like they’re looking forward to severely culling the ranks of webcasters. This issue is not going away, and could affect everyone who listens to Internet radio.

(SoundEx is short for Sound Exchange, the company that stands to gain billions of dollars if the new copyright rates hold. CRB is the Copyright Royalty Board, the lapdogs of the RIAA who came up with the new rates)

The full Washington Post article

Yeah, as if the more obscure artists ever see or will ever see any money anyway. The rates will benefit SoundExchange, and not the artists.

Sorry for not answering you Frylock, but the finances of Internet radio is not something that interests me. I only care about the music that will be silenced.

29

[QUOTE=Equipoise]

Sorry for not answering you Frylock, but the finances of Internet radio is not something that interests me. I only care about the music that will be silenced.
[/QUOTE]

I guess I misunderstood you? I thought you were claiming that internet radio is profitable. As such, I thought you had some numbers available to you.

I, too, am much more interested in music than in music economics. However, I also realize that, at least ostensibly, music economics is what determines whether the music I am interested will reach my ears or not. Hence my momentary indirect interest in economics.

-FrL-

30

[QUOTE=Frylock]
I guess I misunderstood you? I thought you were claiming that internet radio is profitable. As such, I thought you had some numbers available to you.
[/QUOTE]
Did I say it was profitable? It’s popular, which doesn’t always have to translate into profitiable. In any case, here’s a tidbit from that WaPo article:

[QUOTE=Frylock]
However, I also realize that, at least ostensibly, music economics is what determines whether the music I am interested will reach my ears or not.
[/QUOTE]
Sorry, that does not compute with me.

31

[QUOTE=Equipoise]
Did I say it was profitable?

[/quote]
This was the misunderstanding, then.

You said it has “taken off” in response to someone who said it “never would have taken off.” But its fairly clear to me, from the rest of that post, that what they meant was that it “never would have become profitable,” so I assumed you were using the same sense of the phrase “take off” in your own post.

My apologies for the misreading.

Its not computing with you does not compute with me. :stuck_out_tongue:

-FrL-

32

Leo Laporte had a good idea for the internet stations, simply switch to carrying artists that aren’t signed to a label (or major label). That means the RIAA can’t do squat and unsigned artists get exposure. A win-win situation. That’s assuming that they can manage to survive having to pay retroactive royalties, of course.

33

Why wouldn’t I just buy a cell phone with an am/fm receiver if I want to listen to the radio?

34

From Equipoise’s linked article in post #28.

How devil can you justify going after the share of money for the “artists” of the money that radio rakes in, when you’re only going for the smallest fraction of the radio pie? If you want to go after royalties for plays like that - fine, but make the playing field level, dammit. Don’t saying you’re going after the money that radio rakes in, except for the kind of radio that most people think of when they hear the word “radio.”

I don’t listen to webcasts. And I doubt I ever will. But this kind of thinking really annoys me to see.

35

[QUOTE=OtakuLoki]
How devil can you justify going after the share of money for the “artists” of the money that radio rakes in, when you’re only going for the smallest fraction of the radio pie? If you want to go after royalties for plays like that - fine, but make the playing field level, dammit. Don’t saying you’re going after the money that radio rakes in, except for the kind of radio that most people think of when they hear the word “radio.”
[/QUOTE]

Hm? You don’t think traditional radio pays royalties? What other royalty fees do you think it is that BMI and such collect?

If Pandora was already paying licensing for the songs based on an agreed upon rate, then I don’t see any legal way for the rate to be changed retroactively. So my guess would be that Pandora and others have been, for the most part, playing without paying.

36

Sage Rat, I was going off the claim in the quoted text from SomaFM, which said:

And further into the thread there seems to have been support for the idea that these royalties weren’t going to be applied to broadcast radio. If you’ve got reason to suggest that SomaFM is mistating the case, I’d be glad to hear it. Certainly, I’m no expert, but this does sound like it’s being set up as an additional royalty for one kind of market, only. Not a general royalty for all users. The quote I’ve repeated does make the explicit claim that web radio is already paying the royalties you mention.

37

[QUOTE=OtakuLoki]
Sage Rat, I was going off the claim in the quoted text from SomaFM, which said:
[/QUOTE]

:smack:

Nevermind… Missed that.

38

[QUOTE=Sage Rat]
So my guess would be that Pandora and others have been, for the most part, playing without paying.
[/QUOTE]

That’s not true. From founder Tim Westergren :

However, I see problems. In the same blog, they mention that they are not allowed to serve content outside the US. However, I can listen to it just fine from here (Japan) and didn’t have any problem registering, even though I never even lived in the US. It seems that simply filtering out IP addresses would keep people (like me) from accessing their content.

39

Well it certainly sounds like a good case to take to court. I can’t think of any way that it would be reasonable to retroactively impose a new pay scale. So while I might see congress passing such a thing regardless, I doubt (or at least hope) that the supreme court would let it stand if challenged.

Presumably, both sides agreed to the pay structure that Pandora et al. have been using, so unless a case can be made that the RIAA didn’t agree to the pay structure, I can’t see any way to argue that there’s any justification.

40

I would note though that outside of the issue of retroactive payment, it’s entirely up to the RIAA to price themselves out of the internet business.

No sense helping them to stay alive.