Right before the holidays, and with little fanfare, the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board released its revised rate-structure for the music royalties streaming audio services must pay. Not surprisingly, large “pure-play” services like Pandora, Spotify, and Apple Music saw their rates per-song/per-listener increase (though they say they can weather the increased cost), while terrestrial AM/FM radio broadcasters actually caught a break. No change for noncommercial webcasters, who play a flat yearly fee up until they hit a certain song/listener threshold (which the vast majority never do).
However, the CRB rates do not include special carve-outs for small, indepdendent, commercial webcasters, who (since 2008-9) typically pay a percentage of their revenue to satisfy the royalty gods. In the past, these deals have been negotiated between this constituency and SoundExchange, the music industry’s streaming royalty-clearinghouse in charge of collecting and disbursing royalty payments, and then codified into the CRB’s rate structure. Continue reading “Extinction-Level Event For Small Commercial U.S. Webcasters?”
Tag: music
FCC Revises Contest Disclosure Rules; Music and Sports Payola Next?
Last week, the FCC announced changes to its contest disclosure regulations, first crafted in 1976. The changes allow stations to disclose contest rules either on the air or online.
This is the culmination of a Petition for Rulemaking first filed by Entercom in 2012, which the FCC didn’t officially start ruminating on until last December. The proposal attracted fewer than 20 comments, most of them being broadcast companies and state broadcasters’ associations (although NPR was also in the mix) and all of whom supported the proposal. Continue reading “FCC Revises Contest Disclosure Rules; Music and Sports Payola Next?”
Pretty Outside, Broken Inside
You may have noticed that this site is now on a bona-fide blog platform…about a dozen-plus years late to the party, but hey, it finally happened. However, the transition has been a trainwreck behind the scenes. While things are clean-looking, (somewhat) searchable, and dialogue-enabled, the design, configuration, and content-migration did not go remotely as I’d hoped.
For one thing, most internal links within posts are broken, which requires hand-code fixes. Not only just for links to other site-content, but also to links to locally-hosted media files (audio/video/pictures). With 1,000+ posts over 17+ years, it’s a mind-numbing task, but I hope to have it complete within the next week or two. (As of today, all posts from 2006-present have been fixed). Continue reading “Pretty Outside, Broken Inside”
A/V Miscellany
Passed along recently was a link to Immortal Technique’s “The Fourth Branch” set to a slideshow of war imagery. If you’re of the queasy sort, viewer discretion is advised. In a related vein, Skidmark Bob’s most recent episode of Pop Defect Radio, “A Day in the Life 2006,” lives up to its tagline in an especially metal flavor. Fellow talented splicer rx lays down faint funk around Martin Luther King, Jr’s “Beyond Vietnam” speech, resulting in
“Rise Again” (9:56, 9.2 MB), making a piece first spoken 39 years ago (as of yesterday) sound like it’s talking about today.
Just for kicks, I looked up this site’s own top 10 music chart, based on the number of hits in March: Continue reading “A/V Miscellany”
Privateers of the Public Airwaves
A closet-cleaning brought about the re-discovery of a Cap’n Fred’s World Cruise episode from mid-to-late 2004. His lead-off track was The Foremen’s “Privateers of the Public Airwaves” (MP3, 2:45, 2.6 MB), which turned out to be several months’ prescient. Although it was originally written following the Gingrich revolution, it strikes a chord still today. I’m kind of surprised it wasn’t resurrected and given more play during the latest round of freak-outs over pubcast appropriations.
More Audio Online
As the Truthful Translations counter up top shows, there’s now one cut online for every day of the year. Central to this particular update is the prolific Scott Walmsley, who’s also done up a Celebrity Speech collage on everybody’s favorite TV blowhard, Bill O’Reilly (described by Walmsley as “a major f*ck head”).
There’s also new free media-themed music online: Brooklyn-based Gun Street Radio pays homage to Radio Caroline while SD punks Cheap Sex screams foul about the FCC’s ongoing anti-indecency crusade.
Black Boognish Project Online
Given my personal penchant for Ween, when I heard wxm had no online distribution for his mashup project I was quick to volunteer. Therefore, The Black Boognish now has a permanent home at http://wxm.diymedia.net/ and as each track is completed it will premiere there. Two tracks are in the can so far; a third, “HIV Problems,” is in production now. wxm says he hopes to finish a track a week, meaning the project will take three months minimum to finish. If you’ve got suggestions on mashup ingredients hit him up via e-mail.
Just When Jay-Z Thought He Was Safe…
Last year it was all the rage: the acapella version of Jay-Z’s Black Album got mashed up with a plethora of unlikely accompaniment. There was The Grey Album (Beatles), The Slack Album (Pavement), The Double Black Album (Metallica), The Black and Blue Album (Weezer), The Black Album Unplugged (Nirvana), and many more.
The saga continues now with Jay-Ween. The album, The Black Boognish, may be late to the party and it’s still early in the production stage but one rough track is now in the wild. Enjoy:
Homo Service Announcement (MP3, 2:48, 6.5 MB)
Ear Candy Expansion
A massive weekend update to the Featured MP3s section of the site nearly doubles its size. Lots of new tracks about pirate radio and media freedom from the likes of Anti-Flag, The Clash, David Rovics, Eric Idle, Steve Earle, and Utah Phillips, among many others.
As a part of this project the music section of the DIYmedia store has also been overhauled, although I’ve yet to add links to many of the works featured in the Media Collage section of the site. Most links point to Insound, an independent retailer of everything from CD/DVDs to zines. Their selection isn’t perfect but it’s the principle here that counts.
Next up will be a long-overdue update to the bookstore, which is woefully out of date at present.