Mesh Magazine

Many Web radio stations, small and BIG, are shut down today for today’s Internet Radio Day of Silence, conceived to protest the outrageous fees set by the Copyright Royalty Board. Yahoo!’s blog post has a great deal of information about the fees and how they will ruin Internet radio, and we have also posted about it before, including the ridiculous response from our own Senator Feinstein. Write to your representatives!

…boo-fucking-hoo.

With the pack of clowns running for president taking over TV news these days, seemed like a good time to re-run this article from Matt Gonzalez on instant runoff voting, which could give voters a real choice, by letting them vote for the candidate they support, without worrying about throwing away their vote.

UNTIL WHEN? Democrats ask the Greens to delay party building—but for how long? By Matt Gonzalez

For the last three years we’ve heard it over and over: the Green Party spoiled the election for Al Gore and helped elect George W. Bush. But the question that rarely gets asked is what have the Democrats done about it? You’d think that since Bush won all of the electoral votes in Florida without winning a majority of votes cast, that the Democrats would have spent the last three years pushing for majority elections so that what happened in Florida couldn’t be repeated. But they haven’t.

This is odd given how relatively easy it would be to fix this problem. In the event that no candidate for President obtains a majority of the vote, you could have a runoff between the top two vote getters. Such a runoff could take place a month later (as is done in state and municipal elections around the country) or it could take place the same day using new voting technology to implement instant runoff voting (IRV), also known as “rank choice” voting. By allowing a person to vote for their first, second, and third choices, in one trip to the ballot box, you gather their candidate preferences thus allowing for a same-day runoff, if necessary. IRV has worked to elect the President of Ireland, the Mayor of London, and for a variety of offices throughout Australia. But interestingly, the Democrats haven’t pushed this reform. In fact, the Democratic Party recently opposed Measure 1 in Alaska that would have called for IRV in all Alaska elections, including the upcoming presidential election of 2004. Imagine that.
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I sent Senator Dianne Feinstein an e-mail last week urging Congress to take action to prevent the implementation of a dramatic rate increase in royalty fees for Internet radio. Her response to this issue is highly disappointing and demonstrates a lack of understanding about how Internet radio, and the recording industry in general, work. This paragraph is especially laughable:

I am a strong believer in intellectual property rights and believe that artists and performers have earned the right to be fairly compensated for the broadcast of their works by webcasters who benefit - financially and otherwise - from their talents. Without fair compensation, these artists would not create their works.”

For a better understanding of how artists (DON”T) benefit, and how these copyright earnings really go to the industry and not to the musicians, read Steve Albini’s excellent essay, “The Problem With Music.“

Senator Feinstein claims that, “While some webcasters may choose to pay this rate, independent negotiations between the parties are still possible,” neglecting to mention that almost all Internet radio stations make little or no money and don’t have the clout, leverage or time to participate in negotiations with the RIAA. She also claims that, “the judges set a rate designed to approximate the fair-market value,” but these new rates will effectively put the vast majority of Internet radio stations out of business. Her claim that the new rates are only a 5 percent increase is ludicrous, because radio stations will have to base the rates on a per listener per song basis after a one year exemption, which was granted this week, instead of at the current average listener hours standard. I broke down a scenario of the new rates before.

These new rates only serve the RIAA’s own perceived interests (though the industry seems more and more like it wants to commit suicide) and terrestial radio stations, which are exempt from these fees. Somewhat suprisingly, Clear Channel and other large terrestial radio companies (including NPR) urged the Copyright Board not to implement these new fees. Clease Channel currently operates Internet radio stations and apparently they have people smart enough to see that the future for radio is mainly on the Web.

For more information on how you can help save Internet radio, visit www.savenetradio.org. To let Senator Feinstein know your take on this issue, give her a call (202) 224-3841 or send her an e-mail.

Thank you for writing to me with your concerns about the Copyright Royalty Board’s recent decision on the statutory rate for music webcasting. I understand your concerns and appreciate the opportunity to respond.

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Hillary Clinton was asked on ABC News today if she agreed with General Peter Pace that homosexuality is immoral, to which she responded, “Well I’m going to leave that to others to conclude. I’m very proud of the gays and lesbians I know who perform work that is essential to our country, who want to serve their country and I want make sure they can.”

So, she’s very proud of the gays and lesbians she knows, but can’t decide if, by their nature, they are immoral or not?

Is it just me or do Mayor Gavin Newsom’s girlfriend Jennifer Siebel & JonBenét Ramsey look exactly alike?

Sunday’s Chronicle featured an interview with Gavin Newsom’s girlfriend, Jennifer Siebel, which I can only assume that the mayor knew nothing about, because in it, she talks openly about Newsom’s affair with his good friend’s wife, Ruby Rippey-Tourk, who Siebel blames for the affair, “I shouldn’t say this, but there are two sides to every story,'’ she said in an exhausted tone. “If people did research into the scandal … the woman is the culprit. Alex Tourk is a nice man and it saddens me that his wife did that to him.” Yeah, you probably shouldn’t have said that. Extra bonus points to the Chron for including the above picture of Siebel in a bra.

In the interview, she also compares herself to Naomi Watts, talks about how Newsom told her that he never dated Brittanie Mountz (uh-huh), says that Newsom is one of the best mayors in the world and implies that Matt Gonzalez shouldn’t run because he’s “Another young bachelor type that women love.”

Not suprisingly, some people are attacking her smarts, including Steve Jones of the Guardian, who has an excellent write-up here.

On Friday, The Copyright Royalty Board voted to increase the rates that Internet radio stations must pay to stream songs, making the increased rates retroactive to the beginning of 2006. The new rates are $.0008 per song per listener for 2006, $.0011 in 2007; $.0014 for 2008; $.0018 for 2009; and $.0019 for 2010. So, for example, in 2006 if you played Gnarls Barkley’s song “Crazy” and you had 500 listeners, you would owe 40 cents. Let’s say you play 15 songs an hour, with just 500 listeners, you would owe $144 every single day, $4,320 per month and $51,480 per year. In 2010, you will owe $342 per day, $10,260 per month and $123,120 per year. Seeing as most Internet radio stations make little or no money (or operate at a loss) this will effectively mean the end of most stations.

What can you do to save Internet radio? Contact your congressperson! EFF has a handy guide to finding and contacting your congress person here.

Ted Leibowitz of Bagel Radio was kind enough to let us repost his write-up on the matter:

It’s Hollywood vs. The VCR All Over Again…

…only this time the fox is guarding the henhouse.

Keep in mind that legal internet broadcasters presently pay sizeable annual fees to ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, and SoundExchange. The fee structure already in place makes it so difficult to stay afloat that last year even WOXY.com, one of the most popular and most respected internet radio stations ever, was forced into financial ruin and had to cease operations (until being bailed out by the kind folks at LaLa.com).

The Copyright Royalty Board just substantially increased the fees internet radio sites must pay to record labels — fees not paid by traditional radio stations — a move that will kill off every last independent online radio station and websites like Pandora. Once these new rates kick in the wealth of programming available during what will be remembered as the Golden Age of Internet Radio will disappear almost overnight. All that will remain will be the stations and sites funded by the biggest of the big money corporations. You know, the nice folks who currently filter out all of the good music and play the same 40 songs by major label artists over and over again.

SoundExchange, arguing for the rate increase, says that internet radio provides no promotional benefit to arists. SoundExchange is made up of record label executives.
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AsianWeek, published by the Fang family, who did their best to run The Examiner into the ground, bills itself as the “Voice of Asian America”. I think most Asian Americans would find it surprising to learn that they hate black people as AsianWeek’s Kenneth Eng does. Eng, perhaps taking a cue from Timmy Hardaway, just comes right out with it in a column, creatively titled, “Why I Hate Blacks”. Above is the actual graphic that goes with this moron’s column. What’s amazing to me is not that Eng wrote this column, but that apparently the editors of AsianWeek thought that it would be a-okay to publish it. AsianWeek took this column off of its Web site, though not his previous columns “Proof That Whites Inherently Us” and “Why I Hate Asians”, but don’t worry, we’ve got it for you below after the jump.

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The woman Gavin Newsom was Tourkin‘, Ruby Rippey-Tourk, received a lump sum $10,000 payment for unused sick leave when she left her job in the mayor’s office. That’s in addition to the 125 days of sick leave that she used in the three years she worked in the Mayor’s office. And the restaurant owner’s are complaining about the new sick leave laws? The Gavster says that this was all legal. Uh huh. If this is legal, I think it’s time to change some laws.

Here’s Dan Noyes’ take on it.