RIAA Loses To Yahoo Over Webcasting Rates
from the finally dept
Well, finally. The RIAA has lost its case against Yahoo over what royalties the Launchcast service needed to pay. As per usual, the RIAA kept trying to add on additional fees. Rather than just webcasting fees, it also wanted an additional royalty for being an interactive service. This is a neat trick that the RIAA has been pulling a lot lately. In the past, every time some new technology comes along, the recording industry runs screaming and crying to Congress about how unfair it is, and how it needs a special new royalty for that new technology/service. But here, because Launchcast was online and combined elements of different services, the RIAA simply figured it could lump all the different royalties together and get Launchcast/Yahoo to pay multiple times for each use of a song. The entertainment industry sure does love trying to get everyone to pay multiple times for the same thing.But, it appears the court was having none of that, saying that the service didn't provide enough user control to make it an interactive service that would require a different license (though, it still has to pay the basic webcasting fees). The ruling here did not take kindly to the RIAA's argument that being able to choose which station you wanted to listen to (or that you could skip songs) made it somehow interactive beyond regular radio:
"Launchcast listeners do not even enjoy the limited predictability that once graced the AM airwaves on weekends in America when 'special requests' represented love-struck adolescents' attempts to communicate their feelings to 'that special friend'."
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: music, royalties, webcasting
Companies: launchcast, riaa, yahoo
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
RTFA
In his 42-page opinion for the appeals court, Judge Richard Wesley said the U.S. Congress enacted the law because previous laws did not do enough to protect sound recording copyright holders from falling record sales.'
This is the mandate of our elected representatives? Taking away citizens' rights to prop up failing businesses? Glad I didn't pay attention in Civics class in high school. I'd be really conflicted ..
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
"it appears the court was having none of that, saying that the service didn't provide enough user control to make it an interactive service that would require a different license"
It doesn't say that these double licenses are illegal or against anything, only that the service wasn't interactive enough to qualify.
I don't think it a win or a lose for the RIAA or Yahoo, yahoo still has to pay, and the RIAA hasn't had the idea of double dipping slammed by the courts.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
It is obviously the fault of the RIAA
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: It is obviously the fault of the RIAA
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
@ #3
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: @ #3
In some weird way, this might actually be a semi-win for the RIAA on the issue, not to anyone's liking.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
they'll find another way
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]