Tuesday, October 22, 2002 :::
 

Here's something to make me worry


How much should you be worth?

I'm in trouble.

::: posted by Evie at 10:17 AM

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Monday, October 21, 2002 :::
 

Well, this looks a little better

Amazingly enough, in the ongoing saga of Webcasting, it appears that RIAA has finally come up with a scheme that looks almost fair.

http://pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,105720,00.asp

What pissed me off about their initial proposal: Webcasters were being asked to pay .07 cents per stream. This isn't how radio works, folks. The only reason they were asking for a payment per user is because the technology supports it.

The House has already approved the new rates - which are a sliding-scale percentage of revenue - so now it's up to the Senate. Everyone thinks they're going to pass as well.

The good news: This will buy some time for the small Webcasters. It won't save them. Some small Webcasters will go out of business. They all will be scrambling to increase their income. They'll have to pay a back-dated 8% of revenue for the period of 1998 to 2002. (I suppose that means that if they didn't make money during that period, they won't pay.) And for 2003 - 2004 they'll be paying 10% of revenue or 8% of expenses, whichever is greater. So the Music Industry makes sure it gets paid, even if the Webcaster is losing money. That leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but it's better than .07 cents per stream.

For the record: I still hate RIAA.

::: posted by Evie at 10:59 AM

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