Big Brother's war on web radio

By FRANCIS TILL

The complaints of internet radio activists are enough to make you think there is no online radio left because the US music industry has persuaded Congress to let netcasters be charged so much to play songs that they are all being forced out of business.

In fact, according to MeasureCast, internet radio is booming, with total listening time up 159 per cent this year and an audience that is growing in numbers as well as loyalty.

During the last week of October, for example, London's Virgin internet simulcast streamed 302,440 hours of entertainment to 61,191 people.

So what's the problem? Money and fear, for starters. The music industry has always charged radio stations a fee to broadcast copyright music, and internet radio stations are no different. Even if it's just Nigel using Shoutcast software on his laptop to broadcast his favourite songs to a dozen friends, there's a fee that must be paid to the owners of the music.

Of course, Nigel probably couldn't afford to be a broadcaster in the pre-internet era - and if he had cobbled something together, the sound quality would probably have been horrific.

Not now, however, when anyone can broadcast near-CD-quality music from any computer online to any other - and the audience can record it for playback on CD or MP3 players.

At least, that's the theory. In fact, few music lovers would try recording anything that came over a regular internet connection because the regular internet doesn't deliver information well enough to produce top-quality sound.

But reality has never had much success in winning out over perception, and the hired guns of the recording industry, the Recording Industry Association of America, has managed to persuade Congress that, to protect the intellectual property of musicians (and the bank balances of studios), US internet radio stations should pay additional, much larger fees in addition to the basic play charge.

All this harks back to what's known as the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a 1998 attempt to adjust copyright laws to meet the "threat" of internet enthusiasts who shared information willy-nilly without respect for the entertainment moguls.

The US act does not apply to New Zealand, but most countries - including New Zealand - are signatories to various agreements with the US about protecting intellectual property.

New Zealand has its own copyright laws, of course, but they aren't nearly as draconian as the US act, and do not yet treat the internet as a unique threat.

Has the US law had a bad effect on internet radio?

Most commentators say smaller stations are being forced off the air - but however the internet radio landscape is affected, and some say 96 per cent of netcasters could be forced out of business, the stakes are higher for the uncounted millions of Nigels who still share music and other copyright information without paying much attention to the pointy bits at the end of the law's over-reaching arm.

Last month, John Malcolm, a US Deputy Assistant Attorney-General, said the internet had become "the world's largest copy Machine" and that the Justice Department would soon begin prosecuting ordinary citizens for crimes such as copying music off the internet.

"There does have to be some kind of a public message that stealing is stealing is stealing," he said.

Meanwhile, the BBC and other major broadcasters have opened an entirely new front: digital radio, a type of broadcast not covered by the US act that delivers much better copies of music than anything the ordinary internet can hope to match.

MeasureCast

Radio Free Virgin

ShoutCast

US Congress Rates and Terms for Webcasting

US Digital Millennium Copyright Act

The Register - Internet Radio article