Event Horizon

Digital Music Alarms Alarmists

Here is another "fear of technology" report from someone who should knows better (USA Today - Web delivers new worry for parents: Digital drugs):

This seems like a ridiculous question. But websites are targeting your children with so-called digital drugs. These are audio files designed to induce drug-like effects. [...] Companies that sell digital drugs claim they're safe. Supposedly, they won't affect your physical health. Let's think about this for a moment. The sites claim binaural beats cause the same effects as illegal drugs. These drugs impair coordination and can cause hallucinations. They've caused countless fatal accidents, like traffic collisions. If binaural beats work as promised, they are not safe. They could also create a placebo effect. The expectation elicits the response. Again, this is unsafe.

Someone needs to tell this formerly respected tech reporter that music does affect mood, that is well established, but it's not a drug and it's not dangerous. As TechDirt likes to point out, these alarmist things are always sent under the guise of "think of the children" before they try to take away the rights or freedoms enjoyed by adults. Yeah, let's get the government to regulate music because it alters mood, is the next logical thought. Maybe they would outlaw elevator music? No, that's for adults, just outlaw what kids listen to, right, that will solve the problem.

Save Internet Radio, Part 5

So, I'm back at my campus office, drinking coffee, plowing through e-mail and doing web updates as usual, but there is one thing lacking - music. As I tried to tune in my favorite Internet radio stations I found that most of them are playing an annoying mix of sound samples and not the regular programming. What's going on? The answer was in an e-mail from Free Press, apparently all of my favorite net radio stations are observing a day of silence to protest the new royalty rates, which go into effect in mid-July and will run most of them out of business. They are encouraging listeners to contact their Congressional representatives and voice their support for the "Internet Radio Equality Act of 2007." Ok, will do, let's keep the music playing.

Save Internet Radio, Part 4

Good news in the battle to save internet radio, sort of. The private nonprofit group that collects royalty fees for record companies has offered to allow small webcasters to keep things pretty much as they are now (ZDNet - Music industry offers deal to small Webcasters):

SoundExchange, the nonprofit group that collects the fees on behalf of hundreds of major and independent record companies, said on Tuesday that it would give "small" Webcasters the option of paying "below market" royalty rates on the songs they play--that is, by keeping the required royalty rates essentially the same as they are under a 2002 law called the Small Webcaster Settlement Act.

Is this really good news? Or, is this a great illustration of a "divide and conquer" strategy? Is this really a market-based solution? Does it make sense to create policy that encourages businesses to stay small and not grow? One might say that such a policy is anti-market. Why is a private nonprofit group allowed to make policy in the first place? I think that what we are witnessing here is a music industry that is afraid of the legislation before Congress and they are attempting to settle the matter before the people and their elected representatives vote on it. Finally, and just to promote net radio, I'm listening to SomaFM as I write this.

Why does this issue matter to me and to so many others? This report (metroactive - Cutting Off The Air) sums it up nicely:

Why, one might wonder, are the grassroots ringing their senators' and representatives' phones over something as seemingly trivial as online music, when the war in Iraq continues to rage, when the genocide in Darfur shows no sign of ending, when climate change threatens to turn San Francisco into a sandy little island? It turns out it's not trivial at all—it has to do with the culture and texture of our lives.

"I think people want control," says Laurie Joulie. "I think they see in all facets of their lives that corporations have had too much control—over what they watch on TV, over what they hear on the radio, over what the politics of the country is. And I think they just want to take control back."

 

Save Internet Radio, Part 3

An update to my previous post on this subject, there is now a bill in Congress that would, if passed, save internet radio. This is from SaveNetRadio.org:

The future of Internet radio is in immediate danger.  Royalty rates for webcasters have been drastically increased by a recent ruling and are due to go into effect on July 15 (retroactive to Jan 1, 2006!). If the increased rates remain unchanged, the majority of webcasters will go bankrupt and silent on this date.  Internet radio needs your help! The Internet Radio Equality Act has recently been introduced in both the House (H.R. 2060) and Senate (S. 1353) to save the Internet radio industry. Please call your senators and your representative to ask them to co-sponsor the Internet Radio Equality Act by clicking here.

I care about this for two reasons. First, I listen to net radio every day. I'm listening to radioioAmbient right now. And second, I am aware of the sad state of terrestrial radio, of the pernicious impact of mergers and the homogenization of stations and airplay formats on musical diversity and variety and I (and many others) look to net radio for to provide that diversity. This is, or at least should be, a market, and we look to our elected representatives to make sure that a few media conglomerates do not have the power to stifle the competition.

Save Internet Radio, Part 2

This is a follow-up to my earlier post about internet radio. I received an e-mail announcement from Free Press asking me to sign a petition to Rescue Internet Radio. According to the announcement:

This is not just another petition. The Copyright Royalty Board isn't used to hearing from the public, so your action can really make a difference. And we need to stop them before the new charges go into effect. [...] Industry-wide consolidation has destroyed musical diversity and shut out independent and local artists on broadcast radio. We can't let the same thing happen on the Internet.

Needless to day, I signed the petition. And speaking of internet radio, the Circuits section of the New York Times (A Radio Station Just for You) profiles Pandora, Last.fm and Slacker, services that evaluate your musical tastes, then serve up a continuous stream of programming to match. Let's help promote these services and keep internet radio alive!

Save Internet Radio

The recording industry is again colluding in restraint of trade, this time in an attempt to destroy internet radio (Doc Searls - Internet Radio on Death Row) with excessive royalty fees. One of my favorite internet radio stations, SOMA-FM, is threatened, as are many of the small and mid-sized broadcasters. Here is my favorite quote from Doc Searls article:

Internet radio is a canary in the coal mine of an insane Net-hostile Regulatorium that stretches from the cableco/telco duopoly to the copyright oligarchs who are strangling what Professor Lessig calls Free Culture. That Regulatorium should be the enemy of every free-market Republican and every free-speech Democrat. It's slowing down the U.S. and its businesses as competitors in the World Wide Marketplace we call the Net.

I'm not entirely sure what can be done at this point. Congress created the regulatory board that sets royalty fees for this industry in 2004 and presumably if Congress feels that destroying an industry is beyond the original regulatory mandate they would then reform (or abolish) the board. One would think there would be a mechanism in place to prevent a regulatory authority from being co-opted by the industry that it regulates, but apparently this is quite common. The good news is that internet radio broadcasters are challenging the ruling (USA Today - Online broadcasters challenge price hike). Hopefully it's not too late to save internet radio.

Academic Freedom and RIAA Surveillance, The Sequel

Hat tip to Tech Dirt, who suggest a code of conduct for the recording industry.

Academic Freedom and RIAA Surveillance

It's no secret that most of the blogosphere does not side with the recording industry lobby group RIAA in their war against downloading music. In the latest example of the industry persecuting the people who buy their music, RIAA is suing students at several universities who use the Internet2 system (ABC - Music Group to Sue Students Over Downloads). The RIAA has all but admitted to conducting surveillance on network usage at the following institutions: Boston University, Carnegie Mellon University, Columbia University, Drexel University, the Georgia Institute of Technology, Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Michigan State University, New York University, Ohio State University, Princeton University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the Rochester Institute of Technology, the University of California-Berkeley, the University of California-San Diego, the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Southern California. Let's be clear about this, RIAA is not a government agency, it has no official enforcement or police power, it is a private corporate lobbying group. So, the situation is this, a private corporate group has been conducting surveillance of the Internet2 system without the knowledge or consent of thousands of academics and students. I see this a serious violation of academic freedom. Where's the outrage?

Presumed Innocent

I have not had a rant against RIAA in a while, so perhaps it's time. The AP has reported that the recording industry has continued to file lawsuits in their misguided war against consumers. One such lawsuit was directed against an elderly couple who don't even own a computer. The befuddled housewife said,

"There's a mistake in this case," Dorothy Brenot said. "We're innocent in all of this, but I don't know how we're going to prove it."

Fortunately for Mrs. Brenot, RIAA has not succeeded in totally destroying the rule of law in America, and she is presumed innocent until proven guilty. The burden of proof rests with RIAA. I find it sad that RIAA can be so intimidating to citizens that the presumption of innocence, the very foundation of our legal system, is cast in doubt. Ok, end of rant. Wow, that felt good.