From: "Deranged Mutant" <WlkngOwl@unix.asb.com>
Date: Tue, 18 Jun 1996 18:25:13 +0800
To: "Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri@netcom.com>
Subject: Royalties (was "Re: Micropayments are Crap", which is a boring s
Message-ID: <199606180545.BAA03098@unix.asb.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


On 17 Jun 96 at 12:45, Vladimir Z. Nuri wrote:

[..]
> 2. copyrights. the issue of copyrights is not even resolved today.
> when serious cash starts to be associated with cyberspace you
> are going to see a lot of incredibly agitated people, especially
> lawyers. I imagine systems will evolve that are similar to 
> a technology that has evolved by which radio stations pay music
> companies whenever they play artists songs. (if any cpunks could
> elaborate on this system, I think it is an excellent preliminary
> example of how a microcurrency-like system would interact with
> a copyright situation).  I think similar standards are going to

Excellent example? I dunno. At the non-commercial station I work, 
once a year or every other year ASCAP or BMI, for a two week period, 
wants our playlists... not the usual playlists, but detailed ones 
which even the most anal-retentive people hate to fill out: the 
performer, the song writer (not always the same), album and song 
titles, record label, and if music is ASCAP, BMI, etc.  Includes not 
only songs but them music, background music, etc.

I don't remember the rates, but non-commercial stations pay a lower rate than 
commercial ones.  Royalties are supposedly divied out to songwriters 
(and performers?) or record companies based on how much airplay they 
received, which I guess is averaged out for the whole year.  I don't 
know if they survey all radio stations around the same time or space 
it out for different areas and different stations throughout the 
year.  Touch luck for artists who get some airplay but not enough to 
make it on the lists, of course.

Digital area: possibility that people will feel because it's 
computerized, EVERYTHING can be kept track of.    This is 
problematic, aside from privacy reasons, because the big royalty 
makers get less and the smaller people get more.  Parallel with 
experiemtal Nielson-ratings tech... a special cable box that did the 
monitoring for you, and even had an electronic eye that could tell if 
anyone was in the room, or if they were sleeping or reading the paper 
rather than watching... apparently every station got much lower 
ratings than when people generously filled out booklets, so the 
stations threatened to set up an alternate system, so I don't know if 
that system was adopted.

I'm curious as to how royalities are divied up from the cassette tax, 
since everyone with blank casssettes is, of course, violating 
copyrights according to some logic.

Will people want royalities for reselling?  There was a flack a few 
years ago from some big record distributors over used CD sales.  They 
refused to supply some of the big chains if they continued to sell 
used CDs without giving them a cut.

Rob