Greetings, Dedicated Music/ Radio Devotees, My name is 'Daryl Dragon', also known as 'The Captain', of the '70's musical group, 'Captain & Tennille. It has been my passion for literally decades now, to somehow 'fix' what I believe has become a major stumbling block in the recording / radio industry. As we are probably all most certainly aware, it's almost impossible for new artsts, presently WITHOUT a signed recording contract, to launch a successful recording career, or even more important, receive any meaningful airplay. To put it bluntly, this 'dated dilemma' that locks new artists out of the possibility of creating a viable career for themselves - in my opinion - has lasted WAY TOO LONG, and with the advent of the NAPSTER syndrome (free music files swapping via the internet) continuing to worsen, it is now certainly time for (what's left of..) 'independent' radio stations (not affiliated with any networks, etc.) to join a forum such as this RADIO IMPROVEMENT SOCIETY, or whatever, and get to work. Please find the link on this site entitled: BULLETIN BOARD FOR THE RADIO IMPROVEMENT SOCIETY, and share your thoughts for the healing of music radio 'round the world' It is my sincere hope that the 'RIS' bulletin board-type forum will allow / entice any of you with other ideas to share them (by creating new 'topics', comparing ideas amongst yourselves, etc.) via this site, so that a REAL FIX for this serious problem can be tried-out - and validated on your stations . ..SO THAT: - before you can try to recollect & say out-loud, the (hopefully soon..) dated word... 'payola', the new music-radio paradigm will be quickly implemented by all 'society' (RIS) participants. I thank you for your interest Daryl Dragon _________ _____________________ An Open Letter to Artists, Groups, and Recording Labels: - Proposed RIAA Rates Threaten to Stop Your Music on all webcasting outlets!! Webcasters play artist's music on internet radio stations that originate from various network locations. As broadcasters, their concerns have been to promote independent artists and their music. They certainly all want to continue to play your music and know that their listeners want to hear your music, however, the freedom to continue to play your music is threatened by new proposed royalty rates from the RIAA, rates so high in fact they threaten to wipe out webcasting and the independent recording industry. - In October 1998, as you may well know, Congress passed a law called the "Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)" which, among other things, granted record companies the right to collect royalties when their copyrighted works were played via digital media (including internet radio and satellite radio). The U.S. Copyright Office, which reports to the Librarian of Congress, was given the task of determining the appropriate royalty rate for the statutory license. They gave record companies and webcasters a chance to negotiate an agreement among themselves. Record companies asked for 15% of revenues whereas webcasters wanted to pay something closer to the 3% of revenues that they pay composers. They could not come to terms. - The U.S. Copyright Office therefore, in 2001, established a "Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel (CARP)" -- a panel of three arbitrators to resolve the issue. The standard for an "appropriate" rate was determined by the Copyright Office to be the rate that a "willing buyer" and "willing seller" would agree upon. Dozens of witnesses representing both copyright owners, represented as a group by the RIAA, and webcasters (primarily the large corporate entities, like AOL and Clear Channel, who are members of DiMA, and not the thousands of smaller independent webcasters) testified. The CARP determined that the only example of a "willing buy/willing seller" was a deal cut between Yahoo! (which had recently paid $5 billion for Broadcast.com) and the RIAA in July 2000 (while the dotcom craze had not yet crashed) and based their ruling largely on the terms of that deal. - For most webcasters, the critical issues in the ruling are... (A) that the CARP arbitrators set a rate far higher than the rate for composers' royalties, based largely on the Yahoo!/RIAA deal, and... (B) they rejected the "percentage of revenues" royalty concept that both sides had previously been willing to accept and which most webcasters were counting on to stay in business. - Over-the-air radio stations have historically had to pay royalties to composers (in total, about 3% of revenues, via ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC), but not to the record companies or artists, as Congress felt that those parties benefited sufficiently from the promotional value of radio airplay. Most webcasters absorb the costs for licenses through ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC. - Here's a comparison to help put the CARP decision into perspective: If broadcast radio stations were required to pay the same royalty rate for the over-the-air broadcasts that the CARP has proposed for webcasters, it would add up to a royalty payment obligation to the RIAA of more than $3.3 billion per year! The proposed rates calculate like this: The minimum you are going to be allowed is 15 songs per hour - so multiple 15 times .14 cents (that's point one four cents) = 2.1 cents per hour per person times 24 hours = 50.4 cents per day for 1 person. time 365 days = 18396 cents or $183.96 dollars. In other words its going to cost a webcaster $183.96 per person over a year for RIAA fees (remember now this does not cover the BMI, ASCAP, or SESAC fees which are in addition). For a commercial am/fm station it will be half that amount - or $91.98 per 1 listener 24 hours around the clock per year. You must also add the 9% Emphermal Recording fee to the amount a webcaster will pay the RIAA or an additional $16.56 or a total of $200.52 for that one listener for webcasting, and $8.29 for AM/FM streams or $100.26 total for that one listener. So if a webcaster sits and listens to their own station, and nobody else does, they will owe the RIAA $183.96 - now if you have listeners, start multiplying. To add insult to injury, the Copyright Office has also ruled that webcasters must report 25 pieces of information for every song or piece played on the station, a month in advance of playing, after playing, and report any deviation. This information includes who is listening and exactly when and from where the listeners listen. - If the Copyright Office accepts the CARP's recommendation, it seems likely that the vast majority of the webcasters and commercial AM/FM internet streams will be forced off the air and/or out of business. Many webcasters are banning together and asking for your help / participation in the creation / establishment of a new 'airplay policy paradigm' within the streaming / broadcasting industry. - From the copyright act: § 106. Exclusive rights in copyrighted works36 Subject to sections 107 through 121, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following: (1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords; (2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work; (3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending; (4) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly; (5) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to display the copyrighted work publicly; and (6) in the case of sound recordings, to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission. - Many webcasters responded to the proposed royalties by filing varied responses and delivering them to the Library of Congress. - With the pending proposed exorbitant rates by CARP and the RIAA at $200 per listener, per stream, per year, some webcasters have decided to move to broadcasting all artists directly licensed to them and eliminate the RIAA from the equation entirely which webcasters are entitled to do under the Copyright Act, and the DMCA. That means in order to have airplay of your works on webcasting stations, they need you to give them permission directly, rather than letting the RIAA work as an agent for you. In order to be played on the station webcasters are appealing to artists - and would like you to sign a release form which gives them permission to play your music on their music streams. The release form is in plain English and none of the jumble of legalese. The webcaster's goal is to play your music and promote you, not rip you off. - See a typical release form at: http://inetprogramming.com/release.html. There you will find instructions, copyright release forms (which apply if you are the copyright owner of the material), as well as optional composition release forms (which apply only if you are the composition owner of the material - keep in mind that this above company has many composition rights covered under BMI, ASCAP, and SESAC licenses). They've also located generic versions of the forms accessible from the same page that may be used by any artist, recording label or broadcasting operation. - The above-text was edited, than copied and pasted within this text box, courtesy of, but without permission from ... 'inetprogramming.com'