HERNDON, Va. — If I were to say to you “CARP stinks” most readers would believe I am referring to the whitish, ugly bottom-feeding fish that grows to huge sizes (grin). Well, in this case, the Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel sort of resembles it’s finny namesake because once it is exposed to the light of day the thing stinks to high heaven and can be dangerous to anyone coming into contact with it.
If allowed to continue with the approval of the Librarian of Congress, CARP will really begin to be malodorous on May 21 when the act goes into full effect.
All alleged jokes aside, CARP seeks to have web broadcasters, whether they are a part of a huge commercial station’s marketing plan or a teen-ager sitting in his or her room at home playing tracks they and friends like, pay the same fee to ‘Netcast the tunes. Plus, they have to keep a record of who listens to the streams and make that list available if requested by the CARP body.
CARP wants everyone to pay the fee that can run into the thousands and millions of dollars, based on the number of streams (listeners) online over a month. What makes this new government body so ludicrous is the fact that commercial radio stations and other professional users of music, such as jingle makers, etc., ALREADY pay royalty fees for the music they use. CARP wants these same radio stations and other entities to pay even higher fees AGAIN to use the same music, usually simulcast.
By far the largest group affected my CARP are the thousands of hobbyists online who have become “broadcasters” in the sense that by using their computers, inexpensive software and service providers to be “deejays,” many of whom only have a handful of listeners. However, if those listeners log in and out all day long, they are counted as a “stream,” not a person, and the hapless ‘Net broadcaster ends up paying and paying.
These puny little “stations” are strictly a hobby, a labor of love if you wish for most broadcasters—they don’t make a dime, so paying a portion of their revenues, as do commercial stations won’t work, according to CARP. Federal regulations prohibit so-called “pirate radio stations” that use the nation’s radio spectrum because of possible interference with commercial or public service frequencies, so frustrated would-be “Wolfman Jack’s” (for you youngsters out there…he was the world’s bet rock and roll DJ in my era) have turned to the ‘Net to assuage that urge.
As I write this column on May 1, many of the commercial and “mom and pop” radio stations on the Internet had posted notices online that they were silent to protest CARP. Their ‘Net silence is a precursor to May 21 when most will be forced to pull the plug rather than pay the confiscatory new fees proposed by the CARP legislation.
Many Internet users see the CARP as just another way the music industry is trying to grab more and more money. In many cases the music being played online is from the home users own library and has been purchased. Previously, the copyright police have been kept at bay for these small broadcasters with rules that did not allow real time song requests, not playing back-to-back single artists (whole album side cuts, etc.)
Commercial stations are just ‘Netcasting the same audio they were putting out over the airwaves and felt they had already paid the copyright fees to ASCAP, et al.
Most pundits are saying that if CARP is allowed to go into effect May 21, the gamut of commercial stations will just go off the ‘Net. Conjecture is that small home users will begin to look for services based outside the United States from which to send their broadcasts.
By doing that these broadcasters could thumb their noses or display other digits to CARP, but because of the physical distance and ‘Net infrastructure, the quality of their steams may suffer.
What should be of more concern to the music industry is the fact lots of very powerful young programmers are becoming fed up sand may take punitive action. Another possible repercussion is a boycott of artists and labels that are members of the major royalty groups, such as BMI, ASCAP and others.
Most sites that were silent on May 1 posted notices why they were off the ‘Net and begged listeners to contact their members of Congress and the Librarian of Congress to kill the measure.
For more information on the matter, one site that has a good overview at www.saveinternetradio.com. Also check out http://www.live365.com/home/streamingmagazine.pdf for another, more academic overview.
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