listening without tipping: yea or nay?

[Mollymews]

6 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

It seems to me from that ASCAP site, LL could get the license and most DJs from the US would be covered.  Especially since they do have info on streaming music into SL, they could easily provide licensing.

Fortunately, most popular live-streaming platforms, such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram Live, Soundcloud and Twitch are licensed by ASCAP. If individual performers, ensembles and venues only use a licensed platform to stream their content, no other ASCAP licensing is necessary for that streaming activity.

Who could we ask about that?

 

Patch Linden I think would be the person to start with

is some merit in what you are proposing - make every broadcast stream legit

[Silent Mistwalker]

6 hours ago, Alwin Alcott said:

is you read well, i mention it that way to stop the confusement between the US and others.
The world is larger than the US, many of them forget that often.
Rules and requirements are different in Europe... even in the whole USA it's not the same.

 

You really think I haven't known all of that for decades. 🙄

[Jaylinbridges]

2 hours ago, Mollymews said:

is some merit in what you are proposing - make every broadcast stream legit

You cannot make streaming legal by getting an ASCAP license.  That ONLY covers the original songwriters royalties that happen to be a member of ASCAP, and NOT the recordings made by the record companies, OR the fees for internet streaming.  Please Read what I posted earlier.  Why suggest something that would accomplish nothing?

IF LL could pay for the Sound Exchange fees for DJ's in the US, for every DJ stream and every club stream, and comply with the monthly reporting of all songs and artists played, and calculate the listening hours for each club based on the number of listeners to the stream, you might get started.  That would cost LL around $200,000/yr in fees just for US based DJ's, and a staff just to process all the information the club owners would need to provide them.   Ten more full time LL employees to comply with just the MRB Sound Exchange rules might cover it.  Another $2 million in revenue from LL (for salaries) should cover that.   Sure, suggest that to Patch. 

There is no case law about DJing in SL yet.  Not a single thing in the existing laws handle DJing in a second world.  And if they did, the clubs would have to pay the fees, just as they do in real life.  But in real life clubs they do NOT need the internet broadcast license from Sound Exchange, just the ASCAP, BMI, fees.  SL is a special case that no one has ever considered.  And considering the DJ's are not paid in a legit currency, but game tokens from voluntary token tips, it is more like Role Playing.  

And these are just the USA organizations for copyright protection and internet streaming. Most countries have their own organizations, and their rules and fees are all different.  Since SL reaches every country in the world, they would need to pay every major country their fees if listeners from that country could hear the stream.  The fees would be in the millions/year - and LL would need to restrict residents that lived in countries where the fees were not paid from using any stream.  

 

 

Edited June 15, 2021 by Jaylinbridges

[Mollymews]

44 minutes ago, Jaylinbridges said:

 SL is a special case that no one has ever considered.  And considering the DJ's are not paid in a legit currency, but game tokens from voluntary token tips, it is more like Role Playing. 

playing commercial works in SL is not roleplaying from the commercial works owners perspective. They want their real world money from this

at the moment the way it works is that Linden allow their customers to create links to external music and video streams.  And Linden store the links in their database and make those links available to their other users. Then Linden say that their users may not make available to other user 'content' for which the user (club venue owner) is not licensed. And Linden use the DMCA process to remove  unlicensed content

what could be an alternative for Linden ?.  Could it be that Linden obtain a general license (or licenses) similar to a radio/tv station(s) and then offset this cost by including this in the Premium and Estate Owner packages.  Only Premium and Estate Owner accounts can stream music and video in SL

which would cover every parcel in SL

 

 

Edited June 15, 2021 by Mollymews
and estate video

[Jaylinbridges]

2 minutes ago, Mollymews said:

what could be an alternative for Linden ?.  Could it be that Linden obtain a general license (or licenses) similar to a radio station and then offset this cost by including this in the Premium package.  Premium only accounts can stream music in SL

I suppose LL could negotiate with the ASCAP's of the world, there would be about 20 of them to cover the largest countries, and pay the internet broadcast fees to the various countries of the world like Sound Exchange and PPL and PPS in the UK, etc.  They all have high fees for streaming online music. Basically as Youtube Music, Spotify, Apple, etc have done. 

That would be an extremely expensive amount of licensing and fees, certainly in the millions of dollars, the same as youTube. The legal fees would be enormous too, as communication lawyers are expensive to contract.  But LL is not a billion+ dollar company, and isn't going to add commercials between the songs as the other commercial streaming mega companies do.  They could add an extra $10 USD monthly fee to listen to inworld music streams.  That would kill all clubs and music in SL of course.   Would be cheaper if Google or YouTube just bought LL, and then shut SL down.   Meanwhile the DJ's and entertainers get peanuts for their efforts in SL.

[Mollymews]

7 minutes ago, Jaylinbridges said:

That would be an extremely expensive amount of licensing and fees, certainly in the millions of dollars, the same as youTube. The legal fees would be enormous too, as communication lawyers are expensive to contract.  But LL is not a billion+ dollar company, and isn't going to add commercials between the songs as the other commercial streaming mega companies do.  They could add an extra $10 USD monthly fee to listen to inworld music streams.  That would kill all clubs and music in SL of course.

yes, if the big music/video companies did come after Linden and the fees sought made it unaffordable for Linden then the most likely end response from Linden would be to disable music and video streaming thru the viewer

this might not kill clubs or music inworld as the links would still remain but would open an external player in the users web browser or nominated app player. The website/app owner then being solely responsible for any commercial fees from content streamed from their site

[Jaylinbridges]

1 hour ago, Mollymews said:

yes, if the big music/video companies did come after Linden and the fees sought made it unaffordable for Linden then the most likely end response from Linden would be to disable music and video streaming thru the viewer

this might not kill clubs or music inworld as the links would still remain but would open an external player in the users web browser or nominated app player. The website/app owner then being solely responsible for any commercial fees from content streamed from their site

That is what LL effectively did in the Linden public regions of Bellisseria. To play at one of the Linden venues, mainly the fairgrounds, you need to be added to the land group just for your set, then you were ejected from the group again.  But LL still says they have no liability for the music, all fees and legalities are the responsibility of the DJ or entertainer if you play at one of their venues.  Of course if they actually checked for all the proper licensing, which means multi country licenses, then there would be no DJ musical events on their land.  Live singers would have to play all their own instruments too, no Karaoke, since that uses copyrighted music.  Those few artists that have all original content would be pleased that they were the only music available for SL residents.

They have not disabled streams on the owner rented parcels, which allow non-commercial clubs to still exist.

Early on, music events, mainly DJ's would hold parties on Linden public areas like the ocean or public beaches and islands.  The DJ had to keep posting his stream IP# in local chat, so peeps could tune in with their Browser and mp3 stream player.  That just dumps all the fees on the DJ, and also makes his broadcast now public to the world. IF stream access was removed in SL, and clubs of course, not everyone would use their browser to listen to the stream, or could.  Some computers crash when they open the browser.  It would pretty much kill a lot of clubs if the club was music free.   And please those that want DJing gone from SL.

 

Edited June 15, 2021 by Jaylinbridges

[Mollymews]

1 hour ago, Jaylinbridges said:

That is what LL effectively did in the Linden public regions of Bellisseria. To play at one of the Linden venues, mainly the fairgrounds, you need to be added to the land group just for your set, then you were ejected from the group again.  But LL still says they have no liability for the music, all fees and legalities are the responsibility of the DJ or entertainer if you play at one of their venues.

Early on, music events, mainly DJ's would hold parties on Linden public areas like the ocean or public beaches and islands.  The DJ had to keep posting his stream IP# in local chat, so peeps could tune in with their Browser and mp3 stream player.  That just dumps all the fees on the DJ, and also makes his broadcast now public to the world

 

agree about the first. Linden don't have any commercial music streams playing on their regular parcels. Fits with their current model that the parcel owner is responsible for content

on the second.  I pretty much always have my attached moap player on, which can be scripted to broadcast the stream url on a channel. Anyone else's attached player listening on the channel can auto-change to the stream

when moap first came out there were quite a few buskers with attached moap players wandering the inworld. Is a number of radio stations in SL that have made attached moap players as well

[FairreLilette]

12 hours ago, Jaylinbridges said:

I suppose LL could negotiate with the ASCAP's of the world, there would be about 20 of them to cover the largest countries, and pay the internet broadcast fees to the various countries of the world like Sound Exchange and PPL and PPS in the UK, etc.  They all have high fees for streaming online music. Basically as Youtube Music, Spotify, Apple, etc have done. 

That would be an extremely expensive amount of licensing and fees, certainly in the millions of dollars, the same as youTube. The legal fees would be enormous too, as communication lawyers are expensive to contract.  But LL is not a billion+ dollar company, and isn't going to add commercials between the songs as the other commercial streaming mega companies do.  They could add an extra $10 USD monthly fee to listen to inworld music streams.  That would kill all clubs and music in SL of course.   Would be cheaper if Google or YouTube just bought LL, and then shut SL down.   Meanwhile the DJ's and entertainers get peanuts for their efforts in SL.

SL is not on par with YouTube or others that have commercials so they are not the same first of all.

So, perhaps LL would need a kind of non-profit license.  Non-profits can accept donations (see URL below).

The amount of listeners for each SL "party" is about the same or less for a real life family and friend backyard party so it's not enough people to warrant enormous fees such as Apple or whomever is in business to sell music.

Perhaps a kind of software for such parties could be made for the internet for those who want to play music at parties, call it "Party Play" and it's not very expensive and it's not for profit but the songs download legally for a small fee.  

One needs to consider that many companies don't want others downloading music free so they can compile a fake CD and sell those illegal CD's either in the back of a car or on Ebay for some examples.  

I listen to the below Classical music station every day and they are non-profit and have a non-profit license so perhaps someone could contact them and ask what kind of license they use.  I could play the below music url at a backyard lunch I could have in real life and not pay royalties as they are already paid.  Illegal pirating is really what record companies want to stamp out.

https://www.kusc.org/

Edited June 15, 2021 by FairreLilette

[Jaylinbridges]

2 hours ago, FairreLilette said:

So, perhaps LL would need a kind of non-profit license

The cost of a non-profit license is nearly the same as commercial. It is still $1000 USD/channel plus a performance fee added for every song beyond 159,140 ATH.  Performance is # of listeners / song, so if 20 listeners heard any part of one song, that is a performance of 20 for that song alone.  If 100 songs were played to 20 people the performances would be 2000, even if each person heard only 10 seconds of the song.  

Rate: $1000.00 for each station/channel’s first 159,140 aggregate tuning hours (“ATH’) each month. (NOTE: This payment is 100% recouped using the annual minimum fee.) Any listenership in excess of 159,140 ATH monthly (per station or channel) has liability calculated at the below rates: 

2021: $0.0021 per performance

BUT THIS IS FOR NON-PROFITS, AND NEITHER LL OR CLUBS OR DJ'S CAN QUALIFY AS NON-PROFIT (SEE BELOW).

Every DJ has one channel.  So if 1000 DJ's play in SL, that is a one time fee of 1 Million USD/year someone has to pay just for streaming music for their set inworld.. Whether each club exceeds the ATH limit depends on the club's activity.  A 24/7 club would easily exceed the ATH/ month, and then would be classified as Commercial, meaning even higher performance rates, assuming they could qualify as non-profit with the IRS.  How many club owners submit a business tax return for their SL club?  If they can't prove they are non-profit to the IRS, then they are Commercial.

These laws were not made with small players in mind, and certainly not some online game where DJ's pretend they are RL DJ's.  In fact all of the input from broadcasters and DJ's themselves was ignored by the MRB judges, selected from the recording industry.  They rejected every lower rate proposal and used the highest increase for the next 5 years that was proposed.  Proposed by the MRB itself.  No surprise there.

Non-profits only receive a break if they are a non-profit by IRS rules.  LL is not a non-profit charity, and DJ's could never claim to have non-profit status.  Maybe if DJ's all claimed to have their own church, or talk to God, or are God (God is a DJ)?  These are what a non-profit station would apply to:

Services which are owned by a governmental entity for public purposes or owned by a tax-exempt service under Section 501 of the Internal Revenue Code (e.g., churches, schools, etc.) must operate as “noncommercial” webcasters. All other webcasters must operate as “commercial” webcasters (the “noncommercial” status of a webcaster is not based on an absence of advertisements or commercials on the website or within the programming).

These laws are made by the Recording Industry to serve themselves. They are ridiculously high for a DJ breaking even playing in a virtual online club that loses money!  

No breaks here - Pay up, or ignore these rigged fees and royalty organizations that exist to make a profit.

Edited June 15, 2021 by Jaylinbridges

[Jaylinbridges]

Now what if SL Clubs were called Business Establishments that stream Internet music during their off hours?

 Business establishment service: This category is for services which stream into retail business establishments (e.g. bars, restaurants, retail stores, etc.), as described in 37 CFR 384 and 78 Fed. Reg. 66,276 (Nov. 5 2013)

• Business Establishment Services:

1. Annual minimum fee: $20,000.
2. Monthly liability: 13% of annual Gross Proceeds.

So lets tell all the club owners that play any copyrighted music in their club, they must pay an annual fee of $20,000 USD, due by Jan 31 of each year.  And due by July 31 this year, retroactive to Jan. 1, 2021

This is in addition to ASCAP and BMI fees.  Then if their patrons are not from the US, they should also pay the same type of fees for every country they get a visitor from.   Yes let's feel guilty that club owners and DJ's are not paying those royalties to stream music in their SL clubs.  

sarcasm off

 

 

Edited June 15, 2021 by Jaylinbridges

[FairreLilette]

1 hour ago, Jaylinbridges said:

3 hours ago, FairreLilette said:

So, perhaps LL would need a kind of non-profit license

Jaylinbridges said:  The cost of a non-profit license is nearly the same as commercial. It is still $1000 USD/channel plus a performance fee added

Yeah, that's why I said a "kind of".  It would have to be different.  Thus, I spoke of parties and a different kind of software would be needed but my suggestions above were all hypothetical, of course.  

SL DJ's and clubs do not make anywhere near enough money to have the kinds of licenses that you mention although some clubs have something thus that's why they probably have a 24/7 sim with a lot of DJ's who can all bare part of the cost for the stream.  Bars can afford them as they sell liquor too and other goods.  Most businesses sell stuff to where they can afford the license.  SL is not in that category.  Could another "party" type category license be created somehow?   SL clubs do not sell enough to classify as a real world business, unless you look at SL as a whole.

 

Edited June 15, 2021 by FairreLilette

[Jaylinbridges]

7 hours ago, FairreLilette said:

Yeah, that's why I said a "kind of".  It would have to be different.  Thus, I spoke of parties and a different kind of software would be needed but my suggestions above were all hypothetical, of course.

In the RL business world of greed and politics, there will never be any categories for the poor or small business.   The present obnoxious royalty laws were passed by Congress over the years with millions of dollars of lobbyists paying their congressmen to vote for their one-sided feed-the-rich legislation.  There were no recording laws at all on the books before the early 1970's.  The FM stations started to play albums with good music fidelity, and the cassette tape recorder was the latest must have fad for the guys, to feed their car cassette players.  This resulted in copying of FM broadcasts onto cassettes to get your music without buying the LP or cassette.  Ripping a cassette from your own LP album was also illegal if the same album was for sale on a cassette.

That alarmed the recording industry who feared album and cassette sales would decrease (which they slowly did).  Time to call out the lobbyists and invest millions of company dollars to get laws passed to protect their record and cassette in-store sales. 

This was years before the internet or any online digital copying or sharing of music.

The more money the recording industry poured into lobbying Congress and the FCC and the Copyright Laws, the more laws and government collection agencies like the Sound Exchange could prosper.  There is a long history of the music copyright laws, from only protecting the songwriters,  to charging for playing a radio in public.  Today you can't play your damn radio in public without someone claiming you owe them fees.

 

Edited June 16, 2021 by Jaylinbridges

[Silent Mistwalker]

1 hour ago, Jaylinbridges said:

Now what if SL Clubs were called Business Establishments that stream Internet music during their off hours?

 Business establishment service: This category is for services which stream into retail business establishments (e.g. bars, restaurants, retail stores, etc.), as described in 37 CFR 384 and 78 Fed. Reg. 66,276 (Nov. 5 2013)

• Business Establishment Services:

1. Annual minimum fee: $20,000.
2. Monthly liability: 13% of annual Gross Proceeds.

So lets tell all the club owners that play any copyrighted music in their club, they must pay an annual fee of $20,000 USD, due by Jan 31 of each year.  And due by July 31 this year, retroactive to Jan. 1, 2021

This is in addition to ASCAP and BMI fees.  Then if their patrons are not from the US, they should also pay the same type of fees for every country they get a visitor from.   Yes let's feel guilty that club owners and DJ's are not paying those royalties to stream music in their SL clubs.  

sarcasm off

 

 

 

An accountant's/bookkeeper's worst nightmare.

[Doris Johnsky]

On 6/13/2021 at 3:13 PM, Sid Nagy said:

In my student time I DJ-ed in RL as a student job.
And requests were only full filled
A if the record was in the venue (this was pre Internet)
B if the requested song could be fitted in in the program somehow. Hardrock in a soul show? Forget it.

I never spinned for tips anyhow.

Well, Live RL DJing is somewhat different than SL back in those days.  Even now with the right software inserting a song isn't hard to do in RL. Now if you're using real turntables, I can see how that's hard.

[FairreLilette]

6 hours ago, Jaylinbridges said:

Today you can't play your damn radio in public without someone claiming you owe them fees.

It's not the radio or local radio stations that would come through in a park or at the beach or in your car for example, local music off local radio is paid for in America.  It's pirated copies that people burned for free off the internet and made their own free CD's that are the problem if played in public.  I read a bit about what one can do with legitimate music they have paid for and one can make a copy and play 'that' CD in their car for example because it's been paid for.  It's illegal downloading and illegal discs that are the problem.

Edited June 15, 2021 by FairreLilette

[Jaylinbridges]

1 hour ago, FairreLilette said:

It's illegal downloading and illegal discs that are the problem.

With a billion songs being downloaded a year, it's not going to change.   Most new artists would be totally unknown and would make no money at concerts, if it were not for the internet exposure they get by millions of fans downloading their music.  

Do you realize radio DJ's and broadcasters in RL do not normally buy their music?  Most is sent to them for free because they promote the artist or band.  There are also online services where the artists and record labels provide the latest downloadable music, provided by the artist or label, that only serve DJ's and radio stations.  You have to pay a monthly fee for access, usually around $50, and the general public can not subscribe or use the service.  You have to prove you own or work at a radio station, have listeners, regular shows, etc, or work in the industry in radio or clubs to join.  All this talk about DJ's stealing music is done by those who have no clue how it really works.  Have you ever heard of Payola?

Only some private DJ's that works weddings and private parties where they can make $2000/gig might purchase music for the job, but in reality probably just download it.  Disco DJ's don't need much of a selection, compared to older genres - the clubbers don't care if he plays the same songs every night.

Edited June 16, 2021 by Jaylinbridges

[FairreLilette]

8 minutes ago, Jaylinbridges said:

Do you realize radio DJ's and broadcasters in RL do not normally buy their music?  Most is sent to them for free because they promote the artist or band.

This is true with new artist's or bands with new music.  I had forgot about that but I've seen it in played out in many movies how one used to get their song on the radio.  In L.A. now it's mostly oldies or Hispanic radio now.  So, I've been listening to Classical for years now so I was thinking of all the oldie stations as that's mostly what we have had here in L.A. during the free for all download all music for free past two or so decades now, and when each of those oldie songs play on the radio, royalties are paid per radio play.  

[Jaylinbridges]

8 hours ago, FairreLilette said:

It's pirated copies that people burned for free off the internet and made their own free CD's that are the problem if played in public.

Nope. Makes no difference how they obtained the music.  DJ's using their own records and playing at neighborhood block parties were arrested by the local cops, because they didn't have a license to play copyrighted music to the public.  The block parties were free.  The DJ's started scratching, playing music backwards, adding sounds, etc to claim they were mixing and therefore changing the copyrighted songs.

Hip hop started as a way to get around the copyright laws in urban areas (well ok might be more to it than that.)

 

Edited June 16, 2021 by Jaylinbridges

[FairreLilette]

3 minutes ago, Jaylinbridges said:

Nope. Makes no difference how they obtained the music.  DJ's using there own records and playing at neighborhood block parties were arrested by the local cops, because they didn't have a license to play copyrighted music to the public.  The block parties were free.  The DJ's started scratching, playing music backwards, adding sounds, etc to claim they were mixing and therefore changing the copyrighted songs.

Hip hop started as a way to get around the copyright laws in urban areas where the cops were always looking for an excuse to arrest people playing free music.

 

Wow, I hate to say but that sounds like racial profiling by the police to me.  

Edited June 16, 2021 by FairreLilette

[Jaylinbridges]

1 hour ago, FairreLilette said:

Wow, I hate to say but that sounds like racial profiling by the police to me. 

OMG!  How shocking.

The urban  block parties were always in poor neighborhoods with black and brown, (and Italian) as the predominant skin shades.   Philadelphia is where most think hip-hop started.  But it spread to New York and LA ghettos around the same time.

Some record company exec would hear about the parties, and file a complaint with the cops about illegal music being played.  Mixing to change the copyrighted songs to "original" compositions was how the DJ's got around the law

Just watched a documentary on early hip-hop.   The old guys claim it started in Brooklyn,  then the Bronx. Was late 1960's and early 70's for New York.

Edited June 16, 2021 by Jaylinbridges
Added New York - but I guess Louie Armstrong was the first.

[Rat Luv]

I would definitely tip 100L to Jeff Mills 😺 I have no clue how he did this

 

He went on to record this mad track, which even Orwar might like

 

 

Edited June 16, 2021 by Rat Luv

[FairreLilette]

18 minutes ago, Jaylinbridges said:

OMG!  How shocking.

The urban  block parties were always in poor neighborhoods with black and brown, (and Italian) as the predominant skin shades.  Most were also gang members.  Any excuse to fill the jails.  Philadelphia is where most think hip-hop started.  But it spread to New York and LA ghettos around the same time.

Some record company exec would hear about the parties, and file a complaint with the cops about illegal music being played.  Mixing to change the copyrighted songs to "original" compositions was how the DJ's got around the law.

 

You have to forgive me as my response sounded lackluster there but it's 110 degrees today and I'm fried literally and fainting practically.  

I just read a bit about hip-hop, it started in the New York City, in the Bronx, according to the Wiki.

I don't think just having alternative mixes and such is the solution for SL though.  

But, there are just bazillions of songs and it's a lot of paperwork to get all royalties out and this is a big part of the problem to having a less expense "party" type license to be created which is a hypothetical and does not currently exist, of course.  It's just too much paperwork and redtape.

I have no advice nor idea as to what is a good solution for all residents of SL.  

[Jaylinbridges]

7 hours ago, FairreLilette said:

I have no advice nor idea as to what is a good solution for all residents of SL

I don't consider it is a problem in the first place, which is the best way to look at it, since there is no solution.  Just because some would like to make it an issue doesn't make it so.

Someone derailed this thread by claiming DJ's were not worth tipping because they didn't pay royalties for the music they play in SL. That was not the question, and was a lame excuse to not tip imo.

Edited June 16, 2021 by Jaylinbridges

[Talon Brown]