From: "Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri@netcom.com>
Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 12:26:22 +0800
To: "Deranged Mutant" <WlkngOwl@unix.asb.com>
Subject: example: microcurrency & music
In-Reply-To: <199606180545.BAA03098@unix.asb.com>
Message-ID: <199606182042.NAA01101@netcom6.netcom.com>
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Mr. Deranged Mutant nicely expands on the royalty system for
musicians via radio I was alluding to. I'm glad a person with
firsthand knowledge of this can speak on it, because I think
in the future, people may look back on the radio royalty
system as one of the first examples of a microcurrency-like
system supporting intellectual property without a lot of
laws or roving cyber policemen protecting copyrights.

it seems to me many believe that you can only make money
on intellectual property if copyright laws are strengthened
and enforced with an iron fist. I tend to suspect however
that people are generally willing to support intellectual
property. what is definitely true is that you are going
to have scofflaws and pirates that try to cheat the system--
but you will have those even with laws. as long as there
is enough revenue to support some industry, I don't think
one can really make a good case for creating draconian
restrictions such as the whitehouse or some other congressional
committees/ studies are currently proposing for copyright law.

>> 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). 
>
>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.

ok, so the form that it takes involves a lot of paper work for you.
I was under the impression that commercial stations had it all 
automated, is this not correct? so what effectively happens is that
they play whatever they want, and the billing system will take
care of the correct allocations. it seems to me a playlist ought
to be computerized anyway, eh? are you suggesting your radio station
is doing it all by hand?  wouldn't this generally be the exception?

>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.

what you are seeing is record companies tailoring the price of their
"product" to different markets. now imagine that all of the above could
be replaced by a system whereby individual artists release their
recordings digitally and totally bypass the media industry bureacracy.
it's enough to give a gluttonous mogul massive nightmares <g>. I believe
such a thing will be happening in the near future. 

imagine radio stations that run over web pages-- I mean, literally, anyone 
could create their own playlists, programming, and radio stations in the
exact way that people select arbitrary material to put on their
web pages today. imagine software written to pick
different music. imagine a microcurrency system that pays the 
songwriters & musicians automatically when songs are played anywhere
in cyberspace. these are the kinds of ideas that microcurrency makes
possible to anyone with a smidgeon of imagination.

>  Touch luck for artists who get some airplay but not enough to 
>make it on the lists, of course.

theoretically the lists record exactly what radio stations play.
an automated system is possible in which there is no fudge factor
due to reporting discrepancies. furthermore keep in mind that even
if these low-played artists got on the lists, they may not
make enough money to make it worth putting them there. remember
the playlists are used to measure the number of times songs are
played and pay out accordingly, isn't that correct?

>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. 

sorry, again I feel that privacy is a term that is often misused
as I have been pointing out in another thread. how is it a violation
of privacy if a system keeps track of exactly how often songs are played,
for the purposes of compensation? what you are alluding to is the
fudge factor that is involved in reporting. sorry, I think you are
abusing the term "privacy" if you are using it to apply to 
situations involving minor duplicities such as false reporting. however
this would be a classic cpunk dogma, such as in conflating the idea
of tax evasion or identity subterfuges with "privacy"..

 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...

but this is not analogous at all.  imagine that the system knows
how often a song is played, but doesn't keep track of who played
it. such a system is straightforward to implement in cyberspace.
another example of how I have been suggesting that information
collection (related to billinj) and privacy are not always in conflict.
and frankly I'm annoyed at how easily people are mixing up these
clearly distinct ideas.

 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.

oh, so a theoretically more accurate system gave different results, so 
therefore the more accurate system is BAD? classic "status quo" logic.
the market ultimately will not support this argument more than a 
temporary amount of time. a given company with a monopoly on ratings
collection can only enforce their ideas as long as they have a 
monopoly. if someone else comes out with a better rating system
that gives different results, the market will still tend to 
gravitate toward it. not necessarily immediately.

>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.

are you saying there is now a tax on blank cassettes? I wasn't aware
of that.

>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.

I know, big media conglomerates are always ranting at congress etc.
the DAT tape stuff is a good example. I suspect the media 
dinosaurs don't have the slightest whiff of a clue about what
the future is going to entail. as J.G. once said of the media
merger mongering, "rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic".
its funny how much big bureacracies begin to look like the government,
no matter what side of the coin, public or private. the incident
you refer to reminds me of the ingenuity that government bureacrats
look for ways to tax novel changes in the economy.

in their current form of massive scrape-off for promoting
the bureacracy (listen to Pink Floyd's song on the subject, "which 
one of you is pink?") media conglomerates are doomed to extinction in the 
very near future-- the day that microcurrency becomes feasible.
it will tend to become a sellers' market, where the sellers are
artists. of course none of this is even remotely conceivable
by today's standards. that's why it's entirely correct. <g>