The Devil IS in the Details or the Saga of Internet Radio, RIAA and Congress
[This weekend we had a major multiday power and cable modem failure-- it figures this news would break.]
When last we picked up this story last Tuesday, Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) who chairs the House Judiciary Committee and sponsored Bill HR5469 to delay the Webcaster's fee payments for 6 months, had pulled the bill from the voting schedule. It also appeared that Sensenbrenner had applied a little down-home common sense into the fray. He and his staff grabbed the webcasters (using the name the Voice of the Webcasters,) and RIAA representatives by the scruff of the neck, thrown them into a conference room and told them to "negotiate a fair settlement or else." For the novice webcaster's who entered the lion's den to deal with the posse from the RIAA it was their first opportunity to see what it is really like to dance with the devil.
For the next couple days into the weekend I was personally bombarded with confidential notes and messages from those inside and outside the negotiations about what was being discussed. While I personally offered my opinions, I remained publically silent, (as I promised,) as to not interupt the progress the group was trying to debate and come to terms.
Now that things been agreeded upon, I can and will offer my opinions publically.
The webcasters involved in the negotiations did one hell of a job for their first time at bat in the lawmaking process. For most of these people who are not lawyers, nor have they ever played in the political circles of lobbying for a cause, I am personally very proud of the work they did, especially against professional lobbyists and lawyers who do this on a daily basis and generally have the morals of an female black widow at mating time. The webcasters learned these "pros" had to be watched at every turn of the process, even when they attempted to exclude the artists from the revenues ethically due them.
Welcome to the big leagues folks!
The reality check is the RIAA finally got the message. No matter how the RIAA will spin it-- some reasonable amount of money is better than nomoney. And the webcasters stood up for their principles to pay a reasonable fees based upon fiar percentages of revenue-- and they made sure the artist got a direct portion of the money.
Hi! My name's Andy. AKA Ratbyte and I'm Mary Lu's Schnauzer. Mom's busy catching up on the wash and throwing out stuff from the refridgerator. She isn't real happy, so I thought I'd sneek onto the computer and tell you why she's not been online this weekend.
Sometime Saturday morning during my nap, the power went off. It was wierd. The radio went quiet. The fan wouldn't blow a cool breeze on me. It was a bummer, because it was real hot. I couldn't even watch the baseball games with Mom on the couch because the picture thingie she turns on wouldn't work. So I decided to drink a lot of water. Teddy and I took our naps on the cool tile floor.
By Saturday night it was getting real dark and Mom had been on the telephone with the power people for a long long time. She said were getting more clueless by the minute, for whatever that means. But she sure wasn't happy every time she had to windup the radio or use the telephone without the headset thingie.
Before it got dark she got the generator out of the garage and fired up the noisy thing. She got the fan to run and put on some lights just as it got real dark. It was better than being stuck in the house in the dark with no radio. Mom still wasn't too happy because she found out the cable and the cable modem was dead as well. She was not happy at all. So I stayed in front of the fan and kept real quiet while she called the power people again.
Mom told me and then Doug that someone cut a power cable, whatever that is, and we were going to have to listen to the noisy generator most of the night. Doug wasn't happy either. They took Teddy and me outside on my leash to visit some of the other neighbors-- and the people were not real happy with the power people as they were saying we wouldn't have lights until tomorrow morning. Wierd isn't it? We don't need lights in the daytime!
Anyway-- we finally got the house cooled off when it got real dark so Teddy and I could finally go to bed without panting too much. I really drank a lot of water. I've never seen Mom so unhappy because she couldn't type on the computer.
Ut oh... she's coming back inside. I'd better go before she sees my muddy pawprints on the keyboard. Later folks! Ratbyte
The Devil IS in the Details
