Pirate Internet Radio

A couple of great posts about internet radio revenues in the UK, from James (late of these parts) and Kevin Coy.
While I might rail on incessently about record companies desperately trying to extend copyright periods for no good reason, I passionately believe that performers and artists deserve a fair remuneration for the broadcast of their work in whatever capacity.
Companies like Last.fm seem to just avoid paying fair dues while others stump up.
Have I told you about my great new business idea? It’s called Last.movies. Here’s how it works. You tell me which movies you like, and you can stream them direct to your PC. My clever algorithm finds other movies you might like based on people with similar movie tastes, and the service will stream those movies to you too. It’s great! All you do is log on and watch the movies you love, and movies you don’t know but will love. Now I haven’t done any deals with any Hollywood outfits, but I’m going to stream the movies anyway, and with luck my website will be so big that all the companies will keel over and do business with me at a fair rate determined by me.
What could possibly be the problem with that?
Just because my great idea is to stream movies you might like based on ones you tell me you like, it doesn’t mean that I don’t have to licence those movies


Posted

in

,

Tags:

Comments

3 responses to “Pirate Internet Radio”

  1. Kevin Spencer avatar

    last.fm does pay streaming royalties and has done deals with EMI, Warner, and Sony BMG. How comparable those royalties are or who pressured who into the deal and at what rate are certainly interesting questions that I don’t have the answer to.
    As far as artists getting fair dues I can only comment on my own how I see things and obviously, you’re going to have your own opinion here. Were it not for hearing them on last.fm, there are a few bands that never would have received my money via CD/DVD purchases and concert ticket sales. So are they getting fair streaming royalties? To be honest, I’ve no idea. Are they getting exposure and advertising? Absolutely.
    As for your business idea, if we were attempting to compare apples to apples I think a more accurate analogy might be last.tv-episodes. That is, streaming random episodes of TV programmes instead of movies. After all, you can’t stream entire albums from last.fm and the artists are streamed at random.

  2. Adam Bowie avatar

    I don’t doubt that bands are getting exposure via Last.fm. But it’s the exposure/advertising argument that radio stations fight in the US to prevent payment of fees to performers.
    And while Last.fm may have done deals with three of the majors, that still leaves Universal and plenty of indies with whom they haven’t done deals. Does Last.fm not play tracks from those companies?
    Plus there are the composers’ fees which also need to be negotiated.
    I can’t see why an equitable arrangement could not be reached – it comes to about 10% of a radio station’s revenue in the UK, and there’s no real reason why it shouldn’t be the same for internet radio stations. If there’s a large degree of personalisation, then there’s possibly an argument for that share being a bit higher – but not much.
    I completely agree that these services do sell music in the long run. In the same way that a free CD on Mojo or Word magazine often leads to me purchasing an album, I can quite believe that these services will too. But regular radio stations lead to enormous music sales, and payments still need to be made. It’s a virtuous circle, but circle it is – one business wouldn’t survive without the other.
    I take your point about last.tv-episodes being a closer parallel. Although the problem remains that just because Fox lets me stream 24 and The X-Files, I shouldn’t be aloud to stream CSI, Law & Order or The Rockford Files irrespective of that other deal.
    It does really feel like the Wild West at times. The law doesn’t apply in this town! (Must include Deadwood in my service – it’s fifty quid a boxset after all!).

  3. Kevin Spencer avatar

    To be honest I haven’t really had much luck in finding any hard numbers regarding last.fm’s royalty commitments. I did find this post from last.fm’s “head of music” regarding royalty payments to independent artists. Judging from the comments to that post it would appear there are some holes that they still need to fill ๐Ÿ˜‰
    You’re right that not all labels have signed deals with last.fm. So how the artists from those labels are compensated (other than the free exposure/advertising) is a big grey are for me.
    Great point about Fox vs other networks. You’re spot on sir ๐Ÿ˜‰
    You know, I haven’t seen a single episode of Deadwood although I’ve heard some bloody great things about it. HBO have produced some rather good programmes in the last few years and whenever they air a new one I always try to watch it. I don’t know why I’ve overlooked Deadwood for so long. Must rectify that ๐Ÿ˜‰