Future Of Internet Radio Darkens
- Date: 2007-12-07 - Word Count: 391
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Word hit the streets yesterday that two of the largest Internet radio broadcasters, Yahoo and AOL, are contemplating permanently shutting down their online streaming audio business due to the extraordinary fees imposed by the RIAA and passed by the Library of Congress. While the matter is in appeals, and expected to be heard sometime in February of 2008 - a loss at this appeal hearing would certainly be the death knell - as the fees which were to be imposed are retroactive to January 1 2006.
Yahoo invested $12 million dollars in the Launch streaming audio venture, and AOL dropped a cool $400 million in acquiring Spinner.com and Nullsoft (makers of Winamp). They have been the biggest opponents in the fight against these new RIAA fees - and the only ones that I am aware of that showed up at the CARP hearings with their own team of attorneys - and they were still outnumbered by at least two to one in representation. My memory of the first CARP hearing is that the wall of lawyers brought in by the record labels looked like the graduating class of a small college - whereas webcasters were fighting with the three or four attorneys brought into the fray by Yahoo and AOL - and the rest of us were on our own to state our case without representation.
The fight is certainly being lost a piece at a time regardless - note in the comments to the original story posted at wired.com the fan of Radioio, who complains that he has stopped listening because of the bombardment of commercials - something Radioio has surely had to do in order to attempt to raise anywhere near the daily fees sought by the labels.
The whole thing saddens me - because in truth this is not about "making restitution" to the artists - this is about controlling access to the music itself, and always has been. Think how wonderful internet radio will be when the only place you can listen to it is on the sites of the four major labels. I'm sure a lot of us can't wait to hear that new Jessica Simpson tune over and over again.
Our plan to partner with Live365 is still in place - and we'll continue down that path unless or until they falter as well - a possibility that's not nearly as remote today as it was a week ago.
REVOLVERFM.COM
Listener Supported Radio
Yahoo invested $12 million dollars in the Launch streaming audio venture, and AOL dropped a cool $400 million in acquiring Spinner.com and Nullsoft (makers of Winamp). They have been the biggest opponents in the fight against these new RIAA fees - and the only ones that I am aware of that showed up at the CARP hearings with their own team of attorneys - and they were still outnumbered by at least two to one in representation. My memory of the first CARP hearing is that the wall of lawyers brought in by the record labels looked like the graduating class of a small college - whereas webcasters were fighting with the three or four attorneys brought into the fray by Yahoo and AOL - and the rest of us were on our own to state our case without representation.
The fight is certainly being lost a piece at a time regardless - note in the comments to the original story posted at wired.com the fan of Radioio, who complains that he has stopped listening because of the bombardment of commercials - something Radioio has surely had to do in order to attempt to raise anywhere near the daily fees sought by the labels.
The whole thing saddens me - because in truth this is not about "making restitution" to the artists - this is about controlling access to the music itself, and always has been. Think how wonderful internet radio will be when the only place you can listen to it is on the sites of the four major labels. I'm sure a lot of us can't wait to hear that new Jessica Simpson tune over and over again.
Our plan to partner with Live365 is still in place - and we'll continue down that path unless or until they falter as well - a possibility that's not nearly as remote today as it was a week ago.
REVOLVERFM.COM
Listener Supported Radio
Related Tags: music, internet radio, webcasting blog
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