Death of Internet Radio in US??

[Smokey]

I listen to AccuRadio.com since they have so many radio station selections, but after may 15th, they might go bankrupt.

The new ruling by Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) will cause US webcasters to charge royalties every time an online listener hears a song. Previously, stations paid only an annual fee plus 12% of their profits.

But the new fees will charge a flat fee per-song, per-user in addition to a $500 fee for every channel owned by a station. The fees will start on 15 May 2007 and will be collected retrospectively for 2006. SoundExchange will collect the fees on behalf of labels and artists.

AccuRadio.com said that in 2005 they paid 5% of their revenues to songwriters and the 12% required by SoundExchange. "On $400,000 in revenues, we paid SoundExchange about $48,000," wrote Mr Hanson. "Under the judges' decision, we owe $600,000 for 2006 - which is about 150% of our total revenues. That would absolutely bankrupt us and will force us to shut down."

The decision has also been attacked by UK web broadcasters. Felix Miller, co-founder of Last.fm, said: "It's ludicrous that America, a country that portrays itself as an internet innovator, may be the first to shut down its web radio."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6562823.stm

[westcott]

No big loss to audiophiles.

As far as I am concerned, satellite radio can disappear with it.

All that promise and they revert to the "quantity over quality" business model.

[Smokey]

I would not put Internet radio with satellite radio in the same category since the former is free. Alot of people listen to Internet radio on their office or in home while browsing the Internet since it is convenient and there alot of selections are out there.

I agree that neither one is audiophile quality, but it is nice to know that causual music option is there if occasion occur. Silence is not a an attractive option

[ericl]

No big loss to audiophiles.

As far as I am concerned, satellite radio can disappear with it.

All that promise and they revert to the "quantity over quality" business model.

I have to disagree with you here Westcott,

while the majority of internet radio is highly compressed, at higher bandwidths (128k +) it can sound quite good. Keep in mind that 128k here doesn't refer to the compression of the track, but the bandwidth being used. For casual listening it can sound really great.
Of course, your computer audio set up has to be good too.

Great stations like RadioParadise.com stream at 128k in AAC+, an excellent streaming codec. (you can hear AAC+ with winamp or foobar. note that AAC+ is different than Apple's AAC compression format. iTunes can't stream AAC+)

Internet radio, in my experience, sounds MUCH better than satellite.

Not only can it sound great, but you get an awesome variety of music. Me, i've heard everything in my collection a million times. This is a great way to be exposed to new music.

also try
http://somafm.com/ - free
sky.fm - free at lower bandwidths, 192k MP3 stream for a small subscription fee

[westcott]

I guess I am a music snob along with the other 30% of those polled on Sound and Vision who never or hardly ever listen to internet radio! I was actually surprised that there was that large of a percentage of audiophiles who prefer silence over internet offerings.

http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/def...p?section_id=1

[emorphien]

This is a big loss. Radio paradise and other internet radio stations had become my favorite way to find new music. Much more eclectic and enjoyable variety than what's on the radio because they weren't so concerned about their bottom line.

[Smokey]

also try
http://somafm.com/ - free

Thanks Eric. I listened to couple of stations using Realplayer at 128k mp3, and sound quality is excellent. I wished they also had an "oldie" station.

I was actually surprised that there was that large of a percentage of audiophiles who prefer silence over internet offerings.

They are probably too busy lookin at porn on the net to be listening to radio

Much more eclectic and enjoyable variety than what's on the radio

Please don't get me started. My local FM stations are so lame, I don't even listen to them on the car radio. Loud car salemen commercials, stale music and obnoctios DJs

[Woochifer]

I thought this whole issue got resolved a few years ago, and now it rears its ugly head again. I understand the need for some kind of blanket royalty arrangement for internet broadcasters, but to charge for each play based on the audience size is ridiculous.

The RIAA is once again shooting themselves in the foot with their greed. These internet broadcasters cover a whole range of music that commercial radio doesn't touch. I would think that in an era of declining music sales, the music industry would want exposure and promotion for their new artists. But, it seems that they're more content with fighting over table scraps than trying to actually grow their market.

During the last go-round in this dispute, several of my favorite net radio stations got shut down. The net result was that I bought fewer CDs and shifted my entertainment spending towards DVDs and video games.

I don't think this signifies the "death" of internet radio, but it is probably the death of ubiquitous "free" internet radio. Those streams likeliest to survive intact will probably be tied to OTA broadcasts of some kind.

It will probably accelerate the demise of several internet-based stations and lead to a situation where the surviving stations will depend more and more on subscription revenue. I can also see some two-tiered arrangements where subscribers get the higher bandwidth broadcasts with no ads, while freeloaders get saddled with lower bandwidth and/or advertising. You could also have stations banding together into some kind of subscription arrangement, where a monthly fee grants access to a multitude of stations. I know that Live 365 has been going with a subscription arrangement for access to premium features, and I can see this expanding.

No big loss to audiophiles.

As far as I am concerned, satellite radio can disappear with it.

All that promise and they revert to the "quantity over quality" business model.

Since when were audiophiles in favor of fewer avenues to discover new music? Unless we're talking about that subcategory of audiophile that equates sound quality with artistic quality.

The internet and satellite are now my primary venues for finding new and interesting music. If I hear something I like, I'll further explore it. For the most part, commercial radio covers an appalingly narrow range of music choices, and even though I have a fairly large music collection at home and at work, I'm always open to discovering new artists and music genres. And in my experience, internet and satellite radio provide a far better pathway for that kind of discovery than most terrestrial radio stations.

I guess I am a music snob along with the other 30% of those polled on Sound and Vision who never or hardly ever listen to internet radio! I was actually surprised that there was that large of a percentage of audiophiles who prefer silence over internet offerings.

I think your interpretation of that poll is a bit over the edge. Just because someone doesn't listen to internet radio is hardly an indicator that they "prefer silence" over internet offerings.

Saying that someone don't listen to internet radio doesn't make them any more of a "music snob" since that poll doesn't indicate the reasons why people don't listen to internet radio. (Is it because they don't spend a lot of time on the computer? Is it because they're content with FM radio? Is it because they're uninterested in new music?) If anything, I would say that eschewing commercial radio in favor of internet radio is more of an indicator of MUSIC snobbery (as opposed to sound quality snobbery), since those listeners are more likely to demand newer, edgier, and/or less mainstream playlists.

[Dusty Chalk]

Well, being only a part-time audiophile (I spend more time being a music-lover), this will be a big loss for me. I truly hope that it does not come to pass. I am constantly on the search for new music, and internet radio would certainly be one of those ways.

[Smokey]

It will probably accelerate the demise of several internet-based stations and lead to a situation where the surviving stations will depend more and more on subscription revenue. I can also see some two-tiered arrangements where subscribers get the higher bandwidth broadcasts with no ads, while freeloaders get saddled with lower bandwidth and/or advertising.

Or it might cause some of stations to move overseas since they won't be subject to new Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) ruling and fees (I think). But it probably will not have as much variety as it have now.

[emorphien]

The RIAA is once again shooting themselves in the foot with their greed. These internet broadcasters cover a whole range of music that commercial radio doesn't touch. I would think that in an era of declining music sales, the music industry would want exposure and promotion for their new artists. But, it seems that they're more content with fighting over table scraps than trying to actually grow their market.

Absolutely, 100% agree. The RIAA has once again failed to see the reality of the situation and is reacting foolishly. Internet radio exposes people to much more music than the over-commercialized broadcast radio can, because much of it just isn't as profitable. The flipside of that is people who aren't as in to the mainstream music such as myself can use the internet radio to find new music so they can buy it. If the RIAA takes away that source for music exploration, they risk shrinking sales of the less mainstream music which is the last thing that kind of music wants.

If the RIAA wants to overbill anyone, let them do it to the top-40's/current popular music, not for everything else. If I want to hear porcupine tree, days of the new, and other similar groups I've never heard of, or find some new classical or jazz to listen to, I don't think there's a better way to do it now and killing off the stations that play those just doesn't make good business sense. The RIAA stands a much better chance of clobbering the pop internet stations with fees and actually getting some money out of it than they do the stations catering to a smaller (and likely choosier) market.

[Mike Anderson]

No big loss to audiophiles.

I disagree completely. I'm an audiophile, and I listen to Internet Radio all the time. It's how I hear new music. If I want it in perfect quality, I then order the CD.

This could be a huge, huge loss.

I take it the RIAA wants to sell not records in general, but rather specific artists. They want control over what artists you hear, and that does not include independents.

[hermanv]

The death of the entertainment industry as we know it today is on the horizon. As corporations merge and get larger they get more myopic, slower and stoopid. They are unable to adapt to a changing landscape and simply spend more and more energy defending an ever shrinking customer base.

Look at what music the big studios are pushing at their core markets (kids/young adults). It is the worst kind of pretend music, mass produced glitz with no artistic content. Ditto for movies, the only decent movies I've seen are the outright rip-offs of the smaller independent film producers. Other than that, it just seems like they are going through the motions, all false front with nothing inside.

I'm reminded of a comic describing how the endangered species act works. As the population gets smaller and smaller, more and more resources are assigned to watch and document ever so carefully how the species is shrinking. Eventually thousands of people are involved in taking pictures an collecting data as the last known survivng member dies on live TV.

I read that more and more musicians are bypassing the older corporate models and distributing directly on the internet, all the sites I've visited provide samples or even whole songs. Soon these artists will create co-ops (and probably radio stations) to market directly.

There will be years of chaos, but demand is high and a solution will emerge.

[royphil345]

It's ridiculous...

The labels should be ecstatic about getting airplay on internet radio where the quality is even reduced... I could see some sort of limit on the quality allowed to be broadcast...

In the old days... record labels would actually pay radio stations under the table to get airplay (payola). No exposure... no record sales... Radio sells records!!! What else would??? Now the labels want those who advertise for them and keep them alive to pay for the privilege?

I'm sure getting sick of America's corporate-controlled puppet government. Illegal wars for corporate profits... Ridiculous laws passed at the whim of corporations... Invasion of the US by foreigners being encouraged by "our" government. Middle class slowly being reduced to slavery. If you "compete" with a slave, you are a slave... Make no mistake... American money and dangerous technology being spread anywhere to anyone... Huge industrial infrastructure that could be put to use in wartime built everywhere but here... Sale of american roads and infrastructure paid for by our tax dollars to foreign nations???!!! This is all treason!!! These scum really need to be hung... before it's too late...

[superdougiefreshness]

It's ridiculous...

The labels should be ecstatic about getting airplay on internet radio where the quality is even reduced... I could see some sort of limit on the quality allowed to be broadcast...

In the old days... record labels would actually pay radio stations under the table to get airplay (payola). No exposure... no record sales... Radio sells records!!! What else would??? Now the labels want those who advertise for them and keep them alive to pay for the privilege?

I'm sure getting sick of America's corporate-controlled puppet government. Illegal wars for corporate profits... Ridiculous laws passed at the whim of corporations... Invasion of the US by foreigners being encouraged by "our" government. Middle class slowly being reduced to slavery. If you "compete" with a slave, you are a slave... Make no mistake... American money and dangerous technology being spread anywhere to anyone... Huge industrial infrastructure that could be put to use in wartime built everywhere but here... Sale of american roads and infrastructure paid for by our tax dollars to foreign nations???!!! This is all treason!!! These scum really need to be hung... before it's too late...

Dude, you are so right on it makes me glad to be an AudioGeek,

[westcott]

The year is 2007 folks. What excuse can any company have for not providing even CD quality sound via the internet.

Have you even tried downloading your favorite album or even a song from that album in CD quality?

Everyone is guilty of greed and making a fast buck. Quality be damned.

And CD quality is not saying much with DVD audio and SACD having 4 times the resoulution of CDs and 40 times the resolution of 128k streaming audio.

Why are we stuck in this resolution hell, you ask? More greed and studios worried about their precious high resolution content being stolen so they won't release it via digital connections. Even electronic equipment today is capable of 96kHz bandwidth via CD and the CSS have us limited to 48kHZ resolution.

So now you have a whole generation that no longer knows what quality audio is and who are perfectly content listening to internet\satellite radio or downloaded music compressed for their MP3s. This music makes LP's sound good!!!!

Whats worse, recording studios compress the audio on CDs to make their bands sound louder, once again going for the more is better mentality. Even CD quality is marginal with many recording on a reference speaker\audio system. I don't think that asking for better audio in 2007 when it is obviously available is wrong. Many of us are willing to pay for quality. Music and movies are one of the last industries that Americans have not given away to the third world countries and it is a sad day to see that even this industry is disappearing due to greed and poor audio quality.

Yeah, somebody is making good money selling inferior audio to the masses, but it won't be me out of pure principal. I know, a dying idea from us old folks who never bought foreign cars or anything made outside the US. Now, even that is impossible.

So much potential in this 21st century and it is all squandered from pure greed and loss in standards. We should be listening and watching whatever technology is capable of producing and we are relegated to mediocrity which sums up our country as a whole.

[hermanv]

wescott: You are so right. It's a little off topic, but I've posted this before: Listen to the next PA system you hear, at the airport, where you work or even the sports at your local school. The sound quality has gone downhill if it's gone anywhere. Often it's completely unintellegible.

My very expensive car has a Bose sound system (no tweeter, a wizzer cone no less), junk! But the automotive company bought in to the deal. What in the hell is wrong with people's ears?

[emorphien]

I'm surprised the record companies are even worried about the quality of the downloads anymore. So many people have been trained to accept low bit-rate MP3s playing through the mediocre iPod on even worse standard iPods. The only people they're really hurting with these low quality files online are us, the audio snobs who know better and have the equipment to deserve better.

[superdougiefreshness]

The death of the entertainment industry as we know it today is on the horizon. As corporations merge and get larger they get more myopic, slower and stoopid. They are unable to adapt to a changing landscape and simply spend more and more energy defending an ever shrinking customer base.

Look at what music the big studios are pushing at their core markets (kids/young adults). It is the worst kind of pretend music, mass produced glitz with no artistic content. Ditto for movies, the only decent movies I've seen are the outright rip-offs of the smaller independent film producers. Other than that, it just seems like they are going through the motions, all false front with nothing inside.

I'm reminded of a comic describing how the endangered species act works. As the population gets smaller and smaller, more and more resources are assigned to watch and document ever so carefully how the species is shrinking. Eventually thousands of people are involved in taking pictures an collecting data as the last known survivng member dies on live TV.

I read that more and more musicians are bypassing the older corporate models and distributing directly on the internet, all the sites I've visited provide samples or even whole songs. Soon these artists will create co-ops (and probably radio stations) to market directly.

There will be years of chaos, but demand is high and a solution will emerge.

Dude,
Rock the @%&# on Poppa. I'm Midwest corn fed beef born and raised, living California large via the east coast swing and the dust from valley fever-if anyone actually knows what that means...! I do.
Every single audio buff ever born period, is totally hardwired for the best darn @%&# they can afford. I am pumping the same blood bro and glad someone said it. I live in one of the most diverse neighborhoods in our country and love that aspect, I just wish our country would not export our industry and we could be the greatest innovators on the planet. After all we have some of the worlds strongest minds and they are controlled by corporations or party politics instead of unified country pride and ingenuity. I just recently received a cry for help from Pandora Internet Radio about this exact topic and I promptly sent the petition to everyone I know and signed my own as well. This crap has got to be looked at up close and I know our somewhat free market will prevail. We have the foremost and most acute financial processes and wizards in the world, period. We need to have the focus slightly jarred by the buying public and the rest will work itself out. I have so much faith in our market place and generations to come.
keep spinning and keep logging all these great expressions of your freedom. I think the internet forums have replaced bohemian coffee house culture for a large portion of the population, expression is so much more potent and relevant these days and let me say most coffee house's I have been too have not had very good sound systems but dam good java, and sometimes really dam good jazz-and live.

Rock the @%&# on.

SuperDougieFreshNess - San Diego, CA - Heaven on Earth and a hell of allot of top end audio dealers within 10 miles of home, OH YEAH !!!

[Smokey]

Even electronic equipment today is capable of 96kHz bandwidth via CD and the CSS have us limited to 48kHZ resolution.

That is the exact reason why new technology such as DVD-A and SACD are in the dumpster because of shortsightedness of music industry.

They refused to let these format be decided via receiver, and only way to hear it would be thru analog output which mean everybody had to buy a new player and run 20 wires from it to the receiver. So consumers said hell with it.

If music had gone the digital route with these new formats, they would have pretty good income from it because alot people would probably have bought new reissue albums on DAD-A/SACD, throw it in their DVD player and be a happy camper.

So now since music industry don’t have any considerable income from hi resolution format, they trying to squeeze the Internet radio for all its worth. And once that dried up because alot of webcasters will go belly up, (as hermanv said) all we are left with is mass produced glitz with no artistic content.

[nightflier]

My very expensive car has a Bose sound system (no tweeter, a wizzer cone no less), junk! But the automotive company bought in to the deal. What in the hell is wrong with people's ears?

Believe it or not, I skipped that manufacturer altogether. I even told them that the reason I wasn't buying their cars was because of the Bose crap they installed in it. The sales rep was stunned. He said he had never heard that complaint before. I also went into Robins Brothers and Sit-n-Sleep to tell them how much I hated their commercials and that this was the reason they would not get my business - you should have seen their faces! Hence the reason more people need to speak up, so this thread is refreshing....

Anyhow, back to the topic. It's pretty clear that for most everyone, especially the zillions of non-audiophiles, internet radio is the avenue to new music. Like Mike Anderson said, the RIAA wants to snuff out independent music producers who are bypassing their big-money labels. It's an age-old story: anyone who charges a passing fee is going to use force to keep people from circumventing it. Call it a toll, a tariff, a tax on tea, the DMCA, whatever, it's been done before.

I'll predict that after this is passed, they will go after the non-music internet radio stations to shut them up too. They'll try something like copyrighting (i.e. charging) outrageous amounts for the medium / transmission, or they'll find something in the content that they will seek to "own." I can only hope that international radio stations will be able to hold of the tide long enough (for this rabble to be out of office) and provide alternative music & content to fill the void here in the US. Of course, someone will find a way to shut that down too... After all, it will then be illegal to listen to foreign broadcasts, right?

Are we in China? How close to totalitarianism do we have to find ourselves to realize it hurts us all?

[Woochifer]

The year is 2007 folks. What excuse can any company have for not providing even CD quality sound via the internet.

Have you even tried downloading your favorite album or even a song from that album in CD quality?

Everyone is guilty of greed and making a fast buck. Quality be damned.

...

So much potential in this 21st century and it is all squandered from pure greed and loss in standards. We should be listening and watching whatever technology is capable of producing and we are relegated to mediocrity which sums up our country as a whole.

So what else is new? I would actually put the onus on the buying public, which has never been a stickler for sound quality.

Self-described audiophiles often go into embittered rants over how the inferior CD format displaced the beloved LP, but they seem to forget that the more inferior cassette format displaced the LP first! And even during the LP heyday, the vast majority of them got played on horrid sounding record changers and/or all-in-one compact systems.

Given this backdrop, the current situation with low quality downloads is nothing more than business as usual. Hard to have declining standards, when they were never that high to begin with. Like it or not, iPod sales more than double up the entire home audio component market combined. That's a sign that consumers weigh a lot of other factors when determining the avenue by which they listen to their music. And it's hard to argue with the utility that carrying an entire music collection inside a single portable device provides.

There are many reasons why the music industry is in a steep decline, but the audio quality issues (which do exist) rank way down the list.

[royphil345]

So what else is new? I would actually put the onus on the buying public, which has never been a stickler for sound quality.

Very good point... If people are actually willing to pay for downloading 128kb mp3 files... Who's going to give them away for free?

[natronforever]

Since when did "audiophiles" think their ears were too good for music played on anything but their gilded audio equipment? Are these the same people who refuse to drive an Accord because the gas pedal doesn't feel as refined to their foot as compared to that of their Bentley? Or perhaps we're dealing with the same breed with a palate so refined that they can't enjoy a good burger knowing very well that there is Maine lobster out there to be enjoyed? To me, an audiophile is a music lover, not an audiotory elitist.

What the world needs now is quality of musicians, musical groups who actually make good music, instead of the cookie-cutter studio nonsense mass produced for the average fad-frenzied teenager. Good music exists, but it can be hard at times to discover. Internet radio has given many of us the means to discover real talent in the music world today. For that reason alone, I hope it never goes away. Oh, and I'm a medical student and have no money to buy CDs with, so I guess that's another reason to keep internet radio around.

[hermanv]

Since when did "audiophiles" think their ears were too good for music played on anything but their gilded audio equipment? Are these the same people who refuse to drive an Accord because the gas pedal doesn't feel as refined to their foot as compared to that of their Bentley? Or perhaps we're dealing with the same breed with a palate so refined that they can't enjoy a good burger knowing very well that there is Maine lobster out there to be enjoyed? To me, an audiophile is a music lover, not an audiotory elitist.

What the world needs now is quality of musicians, musical groups who actually make good music, instead of the cookie-cutter studio nonsense mass produced for the average fad-frenzied teenager. Good music exists, but it can be hard at times to discover. Internet radio has given many of us the means to discover real talent in the music world today. For that reason alone, I hope it never goes away. Oh, and I'm a medical student and have no money to buy CDs with, so I guess that's another reason to keep internet radio around.

I would agree completely if there were some technical reason why the internet couldn't support higher bit rate files. There seems to be plenty of bandwidth to support all kinds of exotic graphics with high resolution and many colors, even full motion video is commonplace. So maybe a low bit rate channel for samples or evaluation, but a higher bit rate for downloads or a "music station"? By "music station" I mean something that could be played on your speaker system at normal listening levels instead of being acceptable only over ear buds.

This actually has nothing to do with "golden eared audiophiles" it is the acceptance of slop and crap and the belief that somehow this is normal. Better sound quality actually costs very little if it's done in high volume manufacturing. I paid a cool $1,000.00 for the first progressive scan DVD player, that technology is now available for what, $60.00? Somehow there's room in the equipment prices for better quality sound. The Bose system for the car I mentioned earlier adds about $1,500 if memory serves, for two 3" drivers (with that expensive wizzer paper cone glued in), an 8" woofer and about 120 Watts total all channels. That's enough money to do a much better job. They could have spent $100.00 on materials instead of $90.00 if they spent even that much.