Australian Collection Society Upset It Doesn't Get To Collect Extra For Radio Simulcasts Online
from the entitlement-society dept
As various collection societies have been getting more desperate to collect more and more fees, a favorite move is to focus in on sky high internet "streaming" rates. In the US, webcasting rates are many, many times higher than the royalties that radio has to pay. It's why there still remain many questions about whether or not webcasting is a viable business, even for giants like Pandora. It's particularly ridiculous when it comes to radio stations who choose to "simulcast" their stations online. Thankfully, down in Australia, there was a ruling that made some sense, saying that radio stations shouldn't have to pay much higher internet rates just to rebroadcast their radio stream online. But what's really telling is the response from the local collection society, PPCA, who wanted to collect all that money:"We are disappointed by this ruling on a technical point relating to internet streaming but will continue to work hard for a better deal for artists and labels," comments PPCA CEO Dan Rosen.Perhaps the question should be whether or not it's right that those other jurisdictions make radio stations pay so much more for promoting artists? Given the history of payola, where the record labels have shown -- empirically -- that they get tremendous value out of having their artists played on the air and are willing to pay for it... it seems pretty silly to then demand that the radio stations turn around and pay "higher fees" back.
"Australia remains out of step with other jurisdictions such as the U.K., Canada and New Zealand where radio operators pay significantly higher license fees."
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: australia, broadcasting, royalties, webcasting
Companies: ppca
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Double Dipping
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
But..
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: But..
(Given that music's primary attraction is emotional.)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Well, duh.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
also, they gave us an argument why everyone else should LOWER those license fees, not why Australia should Raise them.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Facebook worth kajillions, Google gets billions and they have no idea how these companies are making their money other than... they are on the internet.
They see the big names and assume they can just back a truck up to the dsl modem and fill it with cash. They don't understand there is huge competition online for attention, and when you just assume it HAS to be worth more you screw yourself. Because webcasters can't afford your fees, so there is no reason for them to bother with your content. They look for content from reasonable people, and that gets promoted. The old guard bellows that the internet is stealing money from them because they aren't earning anything... because they priced themselves out of the game.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
That's 1, 1 Court Case loss ah ah ah ah.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
canada
GO AUSTRALIA
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
The Australian Collection Society? They call themselves that?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: The Australian Collection Society? They call themselves that?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
"U.K., Canada and New Zealand remains out of step with other jurisdictions such as Australia which is more competitive and where the where radio operators pay significantly lower license fees."
They miss the point that where there is *any* elasticity of demand, lower prices will encourage more consumption.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Payola
Due to the illegality, the system for getting money from record companies to radio stations is terribly inefficient. The money goes through various intermediaries, to provide plausible deniability to the record companies. These intermediaries all take substantial cuts. Those cuts are money which should be getting to the radio stations, but never gets to them. Since the payola is illegal, only big boys may play, hence the radio stations miss out on any revenue from small players. Also, any honestly run record company (yeah, as if ...) will refuse to participate, thus denying the radio stations more revenue.
It is yet another example of unnecessary government interference with the free market. Legalise payola now.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Payola
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Payola
What you are proposing would lock out smaller and/or independent artists from having their music played in a radio station. All the big labels would have to do is provide a nice lengthy play list of songs and accompanying (payola) advertising fees which would flood the radio with loudness warred mainstream media cr*p while not keeping those who choose not to (or refuse even but reasons why are off topic) to do a deal with the devil.
Payola had no limits to how many radio stations they could also play their little advertising scam with so I'd give it 2 weeks tops before radio station changing becomes an exercise in futility (unless they collaborate and leave us with Sony/BMG on say 875 AM, Universal on 912 AM etc.).
Couple that with a rise in radio fees to choke out those who refuse to take the money and we're back in what they would call the golden days of radio all over again.
To prevent payola from being abused would be an exercise in futility (we are talking about the same mob that rated Video Casette Recorder operators as the equivalent of The Boston Strangler FFS!) so we are far better off leaving things as they are today TYVM.
(I presume your not a paid grassroots shill astroturfing with that comment of yours. If indeed this is the case however: GTF off my lawn and back to work replacing all my brick walled CDs with properly mastered Vinyl recordings).
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Payola
[ link to this | view in chronology ]