Another fine internet radio station lost

Subject: Another fine internet radio station lost
From: alanabit
Date: 03 Apr 07 - 08:59 AM

I have just tried to log onto The Acoustic Stage    I found a message saying that they have been forced to close by the new royalty rates, which appear to have been deliberately raised to this level to stamp out independent broadcasters. I wonder how bloody greedy the publishers can get. Folk music only gets the crumbs off the music business table anyway. Now it appears we should not get even that.
Would the answer be for small artists like myself to agree to register our songs, but sign a waiver on royalties from smaller radio stations? (We get no money anyway). Why do the publishers appear to be so passionate about stamping out radio stations, whose listeners number only hundreds at best?
I sent the following letter to Steve at The Acoustic Stage:

Hi Steve,
I am very sorry to hear that you are no longer able to proceed with your internet broadcasting. It is a bad day for small artists and for choice among listeners.
It is a very good day for the bullies and parasites of the music business monopolies. Their monopolies will become ever more exclusive, allowing ever decreasing opportunities to small artists to get their music heard. Closing small radio stations is not a by product of the new royalty rates (not demanded by the artists, by the way). Rather it is the object of the exercise. You and I both know that those royalties go to publishers rather than musicians. Those at the lower end of the food chain usually see nothing at all. I have to pay a good deal more in licensing fees for my records, simply so they may be legally broadcast! I am lucky to make enough money to continue making records. That is the position most of us are in.
I wish you well, because you have done a good thing and for a time you were able to offer real hope and a genuine alternative to many. Even though it was short lived, you made the world a better place for it and did something positive.
Thank-you for what you did for me.
Regards,
Alan Moorhouse.

Subject: RE: Another fine internet radio station lost
From: Pete_Standing
Date: 03 Apr 07 - 10:17 AM

I discovered quite a few new artists from the Acoustic Stage and bought their albums. A great pity that this station has gone under.

Subject: RE: Another fine internet radio station lost
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 03 Apr 07 - 01:45 PM

Hey Alan - yes it's a sad day when we lose a station that broadcasts small labels.

I really don't know what the solution is.

I pay royalties to individual performers whose songs I've recorded, and also to large publishers.

I sit down every year's end and write cheques to them all.
Some are only for a few bucks and some are for a few hundred, but I pay them all.

One - it's the right thing to do, and
Two - my fellow performer/songwriters can always use a few bucks, and
Three - selfishly, because I don't want to get sued somewhere down the line.

One thing I have a problem with is this: say I record an Alan Moorhouse song on a CD and press 1000 copies; at the standard royalty rate of 8.5 cents, I'll write you a cheque for $85. So you've gotten your royalties from me.

I then send copies of my CD to radio stations who play the song.

The radio station has to pay you (or your publisher) more royalties.

Why? It's my version of your song and I've already paid you for it.

Now, if it's you singing your own version of your own song from your own CD, I have no problem with the radio station paying you royalties;
you are the composer/publisher and I assume you haven't paid royalties to yourself for writing the song.

The same with juke-boxes: if my version of your song for which you've been paid, is played on a juke-box, why does the owner of the location of the juke-box have to pay as well (BMI/ASCAP)?

Performer/songwriters giving up their rights is not a solution - we all have to make a living - including internet radio stations.

I think fair and consistent royalty regulations would go a long way to alleviating the situation.
When you have hives of lawyers buzzing around, with each lawyer interpreting the laws to suit his client, it's a legal morass.


Seamus

Subject: RE: Another fine internet radio station lost
From: katlaughing
Date: 03 Apr 07 - 04:45 PM

Sadly it is the same thing that has happened to indi stations in the 3D world, too, though, in their case, I don't think it's licensing fees as much as competition for advertising dollars from the huge conglomerates such as Clear Channel. So many radio stations don't even have a live person sitting in the building anymore...it's all automated and canned. Stations on the internet, such as Acoustic Stage provided such a wonderful alternative to the pablum. Really sad to hear about its demise.

Subject: RE: Another fine internet radio station lost
From: khandu
Date: 03 Apr 07 - 09:56 PM

"For the love of money is the root of all evil."

I do not see an answer to all this bully mentality that prevails in nearly every area of life today. I know you are spotlighting the demise of "The Acoustic Stage" to show what is happening throughout the music "industry"; and I do not wish to seem to diminish that loss (I, too, have enjoyed much music from that site!), but I see this happening in almost every walk of life. And that depresses me.

I play for friends, family and my own fulfillment. I share music as I can with anyone interested in hearing it. I am not involved in the "business" of music. I am involved in the joy of music.

No bully is big enough to stop that.

k

Subject: RE: Another fine internet radio station lost
From: alanabit
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 03:59 AM

Quite right Ken. However, I got to hear several other people for the first time, whom I would never have heard without The Acoustic Stage. This was a case of a couple of guys trying to pass on music for the joy of it and getting no other reward at all. To see them go down to the thug like hypocrisy of bullying publishers seriously puts my back up.

Subject: RE: Another fine internet radio station lost
From: catspaw49
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 08:46 AM

All of you have hit this pretty well. I can't understand what the threat is. Khandu hits the "Joy" aspect and that's really it isn't it? Sometimes it almost seems that someone wants to take all the joy out of life along with the money. Sad.....

Spaw

Subject: RE: Another fine internet radio station lost
From: Big Mick
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 08:52 AM

I think you should all slow down and read Seamus' post again. I agree that it is sad that we lost these stations, and as an indie artist it hurts me. But the answer does not lie in the artists giving up their right to profit from their labors. All too often, in these discussions, the fine points are lost in the "Big labels are ripping us off" argument. As a small artist, when I invest thousands of dollars and a tremendous amount of time (writing, arranging, recording, etc) I need to be appropriately compensated.

Go back and read Seamus' post.

Mick

Subject: RE: Another fine internet radio station lost
From: alanabit
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 09:39 AM

Mick, I read Seamus's post very carefully and I am not at odds with what he says.
The point (which perhaps imperfectly) I am trying to make, is that the collection of royalties is barely an issue to those of us, who operate on a very low level. For the limited amount of airplay, which I have had, the royalties would not even cover the cost of sending off the albums in the post. Of course, I also have to pay the registration fees for the performing rights of my own songs, so that the radio stations can legally play the records.
The advantage to me of getting on a radio show, any radio show, is that I might reach a listener, who would otherwise never hear my song. Unless significant royalties accrue, the expense and bother of documenting and collecting the payments is inevitably not worth distributing the income. I can give you an example:
Some years ago, I was given royalty payments from Finland and France, two countries in which I have never played, do not speak the language and have never sent a recording to. This was certainly a mistake. Had I have bothered to correct this, it would have cost me more in postage than the amounts of money involved! The money was probably due to the estate of a man, who died in 1983. I don't feel I am being too unscrupulous when I say that this does not weigh too heavily on my conscience, when I say that I can't be bothered to check.
The brutish killing off of radio stations, which are prepared to play my records, only harms me. Indeed, it harms you too. These enthusiasts are ripping no one off. Yet the big publishers are insisting that they be closed down. The ostensible reason, is that they should pay more money to the artists. The real reason is that they wish to drive out the stations, which offer an alternative to the playlist controlled majors.
Perhaps a sensible solution would be to ask internet radio stations, which carry no advertising, to pay a small, nominal fee, which would absolve them of the duty to report every detail of what they play. This money could then be donated to a suitable charity or fund. Making enthusiasts go through an administrative nightmare, so that Bob Dylan (and his publisher) can earn another five dollars a year and I can buy another postage stamp is indefensible.

Subject: RE: Another fine internet radio station lost
From: GUEST,Tom Bliss
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 12:16 PM

Steve is a good lad and I'm very sorry to hear that the Acoustic Stage has gone down. However the fact is that his site operated on a low cost American licence, perfectly legally, because his station was a buy-up package, hosted on an Amercian server.

When we started Radio Britfolk we were happy to 'click through' to the Stage as we shared many objectives and it was an obvious fit - and Steve was very helpful and supportive to us - and, on a personal note, he's kindly played a lot of my records too.

However, we were warned at the time that the fact that Steve is based in the UK might mean that the UK authorities could one day decide that the station was in fact really UK based, and demand that it obtain UK PRS and PPL licences, (which is why RBF decided to go it alone with full UK licensing). I've not spoken to Steve about this as I'm in the Channel Island at the moment, but I'd not be surprised if it emerged that this moment had finally come, leading to his decision to quit.

UK licences are not cheap - which is the only reason that Radio Britfolk operates a membership system and charges for various features, and also finds funding from various sources. Steve, of course, gave his time for free (like all RBF people) but had no way of obtaining funds for licencing.

Now, you may feel that licences are some sort of piracy in which the authorities seek to rip off the little guy for the benefit of stars - but the truth is in fact exactly the opposite.

PRS and PPL are membership organisations which exist only to make sure that ALL members receive due recompense for the sale of stuff they've made themselves and rightfully own; songs and recordings.

It costs money to make CDs, and it takes time and skill to write songs. Without PPL and PRS no-one could afford to do either (not on any scale, anyway), so we'd have no radio stations and very little recorded music to enjoy and cover.

If no-one got paid for making or doing things most people would be out of a job

Tom

(By the way Alan, PRS require only one fee up front for membership - thereafter you can resister as many songs as you like, for the rest of your life, at no further cost).

Subject: RE: Another fine internet radio station lost
From: GUEST,Tom Bliss
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 12:30 PM

Looking at Seamus's post again I should add - the system as it stands is pretty fair. The more a product is used then the more money its creator deserves, yes? So the more popular a song, the more the writer should benefit. If there was just a one-off payment from the covering artist to the writer it would have be be averaged out across the world against potential airplay, so it would cost you a LOT more than $85 to cover a song. The system we have is not perfect by any means, but at least a writer's income should equate with his popularity and success, which must be right - no?

Tom

Subject: RE: Another fine internet radio station lost
From: GUEST,Steve Phillips
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 01:10 PM

First of all, thanks to you all for your kind words on the end of theacoustistage.net. Thanks too for your support in the past.

A lot of interesting points have already been made, but I will try to summarise where I stand/stood.

theacousticstage.net was set up because, quite simply, I couldn't find a station playing mainly British folk music, mixed in with other goodies. I figured that other people might want it too.

The option of "broadcasting" from the US was the only one I could afford, and until now the licensing fees there have been loosely based on revenue/costs, which makes it cheapish to run a station with hardly any revenue (and believe me, I had hardly any revenue).

Now that SoundExchange have decided to move to a "pay per play" model, it looks as if that option will vanish. It means that an internet station will have to pay for every track it plays and every listener who hears it, whether or not the station itself makes any money. This new scheme is not final - there are probably months of appeals and legal moves to go - but as I was losing money most months anyway, I decided to get out now.

I appreciate Tom's points about writers/performers needing to make money, and if I ran a station which made any I would have no problem with sharing it out.

But I also feel there has to be a place, and a licence scheme, for stations which don't make money, but which provide that other thing which artists & performers thrive on - exposure. Hundreds of performers have sent their CDs to me, hoping I will play them. I think only one has ever asked a question about royalties. I suspect a writer/performer would make more money from one CD sale to an interested listener, than many many months of royalties from a small internet station.

The legal position of broadcasting via the US while living in the UK is a grey one. I am aware of other folky stations doing similar things, so I will say no more. Suffice to say, nobody came knocking at my door, but it was always a possibility.

Licensing in the UK, as Tom & Radio Britfolk will know, has always been expensive (at least, expensive for someone with no income). MCPS/PRS have recently launched a revised, cheaper scheme for small webcasters, but I have done the sums, and if I attracted an average of more than three listeners, I would have to move up to the next licence. That one IS based on revenue (for now) but with a hefty minimum payment.

So for now I am sitting on my hands, hoping that I will be able to do something, somehow, to play the music I love to others who might not have heard it.

Until then, thanks for listening...

Subject: RE: Another fine internet radio station lost
From: GUEST,Tom Bliss
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 02:16 PM

Hi Steve

Thanks for clarifying that. Yes I can see there is a good case to be made for a 'publicity purposes only' station (that's what I had in mind with the Billboard, really) - but the trouble is where would one draw the line?

I think the bands set by PRS are a good start, but there's always room for improvement any PRS do listen to ideas. If you can make a good case for an exposure station they may see the value in it, but at the end of the day there has to be a watertight way of balancing up all the various issues for performers and writers.

The MySpace system of only allowing you to upload your own material works well, and in the trial days of RadioBritfolk we also only played tracks which were out of copyright or fully owned by ourselves, but we wanted to be free to play Bob Dylan if we chose to - so the full licence route was the only way in the end.

I imagine that SoundExchange are in a similar situation hance the pay per play hike.

Best of luck and see you soon I hope

Tom

Subject: RE: Another fine internet radio station lost
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 02:59 PM

I love the idea of an 'exposure' or 'promo' station.

The promotional value alone of a station playing cuts from my CD is worth much more than any royalties I would receive from the station.

Now we get into murky waters....

In return for the promotional airplay I would feel obligated to recompense the station....payola! Illegal.

Would the station incur the expense of playing our music just out of the goodness of its heart, or would it require some payment to keep functioning?   Payola.

Could musicians become 'members' of the station as with NPR stations here in the U.S., and pay annual fees. Would those fees be considered payola?

I really can't see any station owner, unless he is an eccentric billionaire, running the station at a loss just because he loves the music.
God bless Steve for the fine job he did, but I don't blame him for getting out.


Seamus

Subject: RE: Another fine internet radio station lost
From: alanabit
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 02:59 PM

Thanks both Tom and Steve for adding more facts and moving the discussion forward. I don't think anyone can doubt your commitment to the music or the good work you have done.
What the licence fee issue comes down to is one of royalty payments. How much should be paid and who should pay? I wouild argue that it is a nonsense to suggest that a royalty payment is due every time a song is performed. We would probably need another thread for this, but I would argue that demanding royalty payments for live performances is a nonsense and a dangerous nonsense at that. What about radio stations though? If they are earning money from sponsors and advertisers, quite clearly they are deriving a profit from the music they play. I have no problem with PRS, ASCAP, GEMA or whoever demanding payments then. However, an advert free internet radio station, which effectively caters for a few dozen or perhaps hundred unseen friends, is actually deriving no financial benefit at all. I want those stations to be able to exist and to be able to play my records. As Steve says, most artists working at this level do not expect to get money for having their records played. Thanks to The Acoustic Stage, someone I had never met was able to hear my music. So who has benefitted by bludgeoning the small internet radio stations out of business?
By the way Tom, I do not pay PRS dues, as I live in Germany. I have been a member of GEMA for over twenty years. Indeed, I only had to pay one initial membership fee and I have just paid my annual membership again. However, when I make a CD, I am required to pay a registration fee for each of the songs on it. Without that, I can't get an LC code, which makes it possible for a radio station to play it legally or for me to offer it for sale. Registration of the songs themselves on the GEMA register is not the issue.

Subject: RE: Another fine internet radio station lost
From: alanabit
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 03:02 PM

Seamus, we have cross posted! Fair comments all round. So how about my proposal of a nominal licence fee, on a flat rate basis, for small, non profit making internet radio stations?

Subject: RE: Another fine internet radio station lost
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 11:12 PM

Alan, I like your idea.

And Tom Bliss, you're absolutely right about the popularity of a song being reflected in payments to the writer..I didn't think it through.

But it's the airplay on the radio stations that help make a song popular.

Does that popularity translate into sales for the artist? One would hope so.

Seamus

Subject: RE: Another fine internet radio station lost
From: alanabit
Date: 05 Apr 07 - 02:25 AM

"One thing I have a problem with is this: say I record an Alan Moorhouse song on a CD and press 1000 copies; at the standard royalty rate of 8.5 cents, I'll write you a cheque for $85. So you've gotten your royalties from me.

I then send copies of my CD to radio stations who play the song.

The radio station has to pay you (or your publisher) more royalties.

Why? It's my version of your song and I've already paid you for it."

That is from Seamus's first post above. The fact is that there are two royalty payments due when a record is played on the radio. One is for the broadcast of the writer's performance. (Seamus or his record company gets that one). The other is for the public performance of the song - even thought the writer has already been paid.
Nice work if you can get it!

Subject: RE: Another fine internet radio station lost
From: GUEST,Tom Bliss
Date: 05 Apr 07 - 05:05 AM

I see what you're all saying, and you have good points when you apply your arguments only to the small-scale operations we usually find in the folk world.

But the royalty system has to work right across the board, for everything from Alan's CD to The Sound of Music.

Alan says: "I would argue that demanding royalty payments for live performances is a nonsense, and a dangerous nonsense at that."

Well, suppose you're a professional company putting on, say, Evita. The written work is fairly crucial, for without it you'd have nothing to play. So it's completely right that the writers should get their cut in this case.

Now bring it down a peg, to a smaller show, by someone less famous, it's still right that the writer should be paid. Then bring it down to Garth Brooks covering one of your songs, still right, then back to me singing your song? You see? Once you establish the basic principle you can't draw a line and say, this should be free and this shouldn't, because there is nowhere fair to draw that line.

Writers, like all artists, make something that is potentially worth money (whether they choose to think in those terms or not makes no difference), and using someone else's work to make money for yourself without paying them is no less than stealing. Ok, in the folk world sometimes no money is changing hands. But the potential is there for income, because the performance will have value, and it has only been the performer's decision not to charge that has prevented any money changing hands.

Alan, your post above only relates to a situation where the performance is by the writer him/herself. The system is designed for the far more common case where artists are covering other writers' works. If you sing your own stuff you absolutely deserve both portions or the royalty.

And if you don't charge a small amount every time a song is performed, how else can you calculate the value? You can say, we'll only charge every 100th time, but you've still got to count the performances, and then you have to pay a figure 100 times greater. So you might as well make a small charge every time.

Actually, of course, this is impossible, but the PRS and other authorities have various ways of trying to make sure the system is as fair as it can be - such as the gigs and clubs scheme which pulls in a fee from even the smallest club or session (from the venue's music licence).

Having a membership scheme as we do with Radio Britfolk is not payola, and it's certainly not illegal. Payola is illegal because it is covert and therefore unfair and misleading. But people can openly sponsor their own tracks (this is just advertising) and buy extra features without any problem at all.

Subject: RE: Another fine internet radio station lost
From: alanabit
Date: 05 Apr 07 - 06:25 AM

Thanks for such a detailed and thought out response Tom. I can only really speak from my own experience here.
I would say that what we have here is a classic case of good intentions and principles coming unstuck in the application. Just this morning I drove out to see the manageress of a cafe´ in a citizen's centre, which my band filled a few weeks ago and will play again in two weeks time. She can not afford to pay a GEMA licence. The usual ploy to get around this is to make the performer responsible for the licence. That's all well and good. We play original material anyway, so we are ripping no one off when we do not tell GEMA about the gig. The problem is, I now become the promoter. That could remove the onus of liability for public insurance from the cafe´and put it onto me. The best solution is for the citizen's centre simply only to only report its bigger gigs and keep quiet about gigs like ours. I have seen literally dozens of small gigs disappear, because GEMA has insisted on collecting songwriting loyalties. That is not helping me. It is putting me out of business.
The concept of collecting royalties at all levels may be a noble idea, but it is absurd and unjust in practice. It is inevitably time consuming and expensive to administrate. The bother considerably outweighs any real benefit to musicians. I'll grant you that it may be practicable if you write a work, which sells out the Royal Albert Hall. I haven't done that gig lately though!

Subject: RE: Another fine internet radio station lost
From: alanabit
Date: 05 Apr 07 - 06:45 AM

"...songwriting loyalties..." There is not much money in those either! Alanabit is off to practice his typing...

Subject: RE: Another fine internet radio station lost
From: stevep
Date: 24 May 07 - 03:03 PM

But now for the good news...

www.folkradio.co.uk has just re-launched, no longer part of Live 365, and well worth a listen.