Also: More Last.fm | Tribune to be sold? | Citizen journalism? Non! | Microsoft vs Google | New MEN site
Web radio sites are facing substantial rises in the royalty rates they pay for broadcasting music in the US. The Copyright Royalty Board has said that royalty rates should be set at .08 cents per song, per listener. It might not sounds much, but it could be curtains for Pandora, according to its co-founder Tim Westergren.
"With these rates, there's no Pandora," he told the Wall Street Journal. This legislation would hit smaller broadcasters hardest.
Accuradio said its royalty cost would shoot up from $50,000 to around $600,000 under the new rules. That's more than half the total annual revenue of the web radio site. NPR could also be affected because public radio projects operate on a separate royalty agreement that is also being reviewed.
The rates had been kept low until now to encourage growth in the new industry, with web broadcasters paying 12% of overall revenues to the SoundExchange group which in turn dishes those royalties out to performers.
The industry claims more people are encouraged to buy music after hearing it online. Around 50m people in the US listen to web radio compared with 14m satellite radio subscribers. Web radio serves more niche channels and audiences, and there's real growth in this part of the industry.
The labels, it says here, could be shooting themselves in the foot.
More Last.fm
Ah, lunch with Martin Last.fm Stiksel. The site has big plans: there's still no ultimate web destination for music recommendation, sales and listening and that is the goal.
We did agree on one thing - a licence fee for the whole internet. ISPs could add a few quid to the cost of every web connection in the world, and then all content on the web is free. A body divides the money between copyright holders. Bob's your Dad's brother.
An end to thousands of fiddly licence deals the world over, an end to lawsuits over piracy, and millions of consumers free to get whatever they want when and where they want it. So that's that sorted then.
The lawyers, I suspect, will never let that happen. But we can dream.
Tribune to be sold?
Speaking of rumour mills, the US newspaper network Tribune is "poised to accept" an offer of around $8.4bn from Sam Zel, possibly the biggest property tycoon in the US. Jossip predicts a formal announcement from Tribune by tomorrow.
Jeff Jarvis has handily pointed out that Zel is known as the grave dancer because of his habit of buying up seemingly dead companies.
That deal has "eliminated" earlier, lower offers from Ronald Burkle and Eli Broad, and the Carlyle Group. David Geffen had also offered $2bn for the LA Times at one point, and a private equity firm had also made an offer for the group's 23 TV stations.
A later piece in the LA Times, which is owned by Tribune, reported that Zell had confirmed his plan to buy Tribune as a "longshot" but said an employee stock option programme would limit his tax bill.
A big fat "non" for citizen journalism
French legislators have just passed a law that makes it illegal for members of the public to video or broadcast acts of violence. As this InfoWorld piece points out, the French Constitutional Council rather clumsily chose to announce the law on the 16th anniversary of the beating of Rodney King - which was filmed by an amateur videographer called George Holliday.
The same action in France could now carry a five-year prison term and or €75,000 fine. The law is intended to clamp down on public order offences like happy slapping, but appears to be throwing a rather valuable baby out with the bathwater.
Microsoft vs Google
Microsoft says Google's success has been at the expense of book, video and software publishers - obviously Microsoft is a philanthropic venture.
Microsoft's associate general counsel Thomas Rubin told the Association of American Publishers conference that Google's approach to copyright is "cavalier" and that it has made money on the backs of other people's content through ad revenue and its IPO.
"In essence, Google is saying to you and to other copyright owners: 'Trust us - you're protected. We'll keep the digital copies secure, we'll only show snippets, we won't harm you, we'll promote you,' he said.
"But Google's track record of protecting copyrights in other parts of its business is weak at best."
Rubin is backing the concerns of publishers over Google's extensive book-scanning project. Google, for its part, says it has complied with international copyright law and given increased exposure and revenue to authors and content creators.
Significantly, Rubin's speech indicates that Google's strategy is a threat to the computing giant: in 2002 Microsoft launched a similar attack on open source software which arguably still presents the biggest commercial threat to the company.
From Reuters.
Relaunch/redesign/revamp alert
The Manchester Evening News, which I suppose is a sister site to theguardian.com, has redesigned. Search is by FAST and design by Foviance.
