|
CARP's Webcasting
Proposals and WFMU
On May 21st, the US Copyright Office will decide whether to accept the advice of the Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel (CARP) regarding the performance royalty rates that webcasters have to pay. Over-the-air broadcasters have never had to pay performance (recording) royalties. More info and background on all of this can be found at saveinternetradio.org These proposals are the panel's interpretation of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, a law passed by Congress in 1998. The proposed webcasting fees are most expensive for commercial internet-only webcasters, and the least expensive for non-commerical broadcast radio webcasters such as WFMU. But even at these lowest rates, WFMU would be liable for a bill of as high as $100,000 if we were broadcasting US Copyrighted material 24 hours a day. But we're not. WFMU broadcasts a great deal of live music, which is not covered by the CARP proposals. (We've been paying the reasonable publishing royalties required by ASCAP and BMI since we started webcasting in 1997.) We also air music by many foreign record labels, which are also not covered by the proposals. There are many other categories of recording which also fall outside of the CARP proposals, and unlike many other radio stations, we play lots of these types of recording. If the proposals go into effect on May 21st, WFMU will dramatically increase the amount of these copyright-free recordings that we air by getting written statements from independent artists and record labels that expressly give permission to WFMU stream and archive their recordings. By maintaining a database of the copyright-free material that we broadcast and webcast, we intend to greatly reduce the performance royalty bill we are asked to pay. In the event that the proposals are adopted into law, we will abide by the principals of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act by preventing the downloading of WFMU archives and the capturing of WFMU streams, except for those programs that avoid all US copyrighted material. Although WFMU would continue it's webcasts, these proposals would create a great deal of work for the station if they are adopted. And most other independent webcasters would cease operations altogether, ending the most inclusive, democratic method of broadcasting this country has ever seen. Chris T and Station Manager Ken discussed this topic on the air on April 5th. You can hear the archive here. What You Can Do You can fax or e-mail your elected officials in Washington and ask them to urge the US Copyright Office to reject the CARP proposals. There's information on writing these letters at saveinternetradio.org Be sure to include your full name and address in the letters that you send. Also, do not cut and paste the sample letters found at the above site. Put the ideas into your own words. You can also check out the Save Our Streams site.
|