due to new webcasting fees.
(July 1) The copyright royalty rate determination released on June 20th by the Librarian of Congress provides virtually no relief for threatened college radio webcasters. The ruling leaves unchanged the principle fees previously recommended by a Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel, or CARP, to be paid by noncommercial educational broadcasters. These new fees, which will go to owners of sound recordings, were created as required by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998.
This most recent outcome is disappointing, but not surprising to college broadcasters. "While we realize that students and educational opportunities are not exempt from the copyright laws, the U.S. Congress has traditionally worked to craft legislation that allowed students a chance to learn new skills. The result of the DMCA does not meet with the historical legislative precedent," said Warren Kozireski of the State University of New York-Brockport. Kozireski is chairman of Collegiate Broadcasters, Inc., a national organization representing college radio and television stations that has been representing its members in the controversy over the new webcasting fees.
Some college radio stations use Internet webcasts to extend their reach to new audiences. Other educational institutions have used webcast-only stations as the solution to scarce broadcast frequencies or extremely limited budgets. All college stations will suffer immensely under this ruling.
Radio stations receiving federal taxpayer funding funneled through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, many of them affiliated with National Public Radio, will have this new fee paid for them by that agency. CBI member college radio stations, unlike CPB-funded stations, will have to find a way to pay the fees from their students’ pockets or from traditionally under funded academic budgets, or shut off the streaming audio, thus causing the college students to loose a valuable learning tool in the process.
Will Robedee, general manager of Rice University’s KTRU, said, "The real irony here is that these students are trying to reach an educational goal, yet the better they attain that goal of reaching an audience with diverse and educational programming, the more it will cost them in real dollars. There is no motive to succeed in an educational setting; what could be more counterproductive?"
Robedee created the "Save Our Streams" website to track the issue of these new regulations and fees, and the resulting impact on college radio stations (http://www.rice.edu/cb/sos). A quick look at the SOS website reveals that the "death toll" is already alarmingly high. The site lists 30 stations that have ceased webcasting due to the new regulations. The casualties include KRCL-UT, WRMC-VT, WRSU-NJ, WERS-MA, KTSW-TX, WSUM-WI, WSTB-OH, WONB-OH, WXOU-MI, WZIP-OH, WUTK-TN, KDIC-IA, KETR-TX, WSBF-SC, KSDS-CA, WNYU-NY, WSUW-WI, WEVL-TN, WSRN-PA, KXCI-AZ, WUVT-VA, KBOO-OR, KSJS-CA, KDHX-MI, WPTS-PA, KBCS-WA, WMHW-MI, KBVR-OR, KXRJ-AR and WDWN-NY.
Still other stations that decided from the start to not stream their over the air signals are not pleased with the outcome thus far. This conservative stance taken early on does not mean their stations, student staffs, or listening audience haven't suffered a loss. WMUL's faculty manager decided not to stream his student station's highly-acclaimed programming due to the uncertainty of royalty rates and accompanying regulatory requirements. "There is no telling how many stations such as WMUL-FM have opted to not stream their audio on the Internet due to the uncertainty of rates, retroactive fees, reporting requirements and content restrictions. It is a shame that the students were not allowed to reach a larger audience with their award-winning programming," said WMUL’s Dr. Charles Bailey. Marshall University's WMUL-FM has won 473 awards since 1985.
John R. Bennett, Director of Student Media at the Savannah College of Art and Design works with the students at SCAD radio, an Internet-only station. "If the fees remain outrageously expensive and the reporting requirements impossibly complex, we'll be forced to shut down the station. Unlike other college stations that will simply pull their streams and go on broadcasting as usual, this will mean the complete elimination of our station. Web streaming is not an enhancement to our station. It is our station." Ironically, stations like this will pay a rate three times higher than other college stations, because they have don't have an FCC license. According to Bennett, obtaining a broadcast license is out of the question due to a lack of available frequencies. Bennett adds, "We have no central campus. Our 40 or so college buildings are arrayed throughout downtown Savannah. Therefore, carrier current or Part 15 broadcasting is an expensive and difficult proposition."
Most ironic is that recording artists will also be injured. College radio has long been the venue where new artists have found their first broadcast audiences. Artists flocked to the friendly programmers of college radio in order to receive airplay, while commercial radio outlets have always been apprehensive to chance playing new music. Many of the same artists that owe their success to college radio are now effectively pushing those stations off the Internet with these new fees and oppressive regulations. As a result, the next generation of artists will have fewer opportunities to be discovered.
Robedee, who is also vice-chair of CBI, points out that what is here today could be gone tomorrow. "It is summer, and most of the CBI member stations are unaware of this problem. Station management will face a quick decision when they come back in the fall." Even more troublesome is the future. Robedee explains, "Internet use doubles every 10 months. A station that can afford to webcast today might find itself with a bill that it can't afford to pay 10 months from now. At KTRU we will have to carefully consider the future implications of this decision and make a decision now. It would seem to not make sense to encourage students to succeed if the outcome of their success, reaching a larger audience, causes them to be penalized with higher fees."
The problem does not stop with fees going forward. Stations that have already been streaming audio on the Internet owe fees retroactive to 1998, when the DMCA was passed, with the bill coming due on October 20th.
Robedee has been following this issue for some time. Because of his attentiveness and concern, KTRU has set aside money in order to pay the retroactive fees. "This is very troubling," said Robedee, “Even though we have set aside enough money to cover the retroactive fees, we did so because we were aware of the issue. Stations had no effective formal notice of the fact that they might be liable for new fees. Even if the government or the copyright holders had informed stations, no one could tell us what the final cost would be. Stations that knew about the fee assumed it would be equal to what we must pay to composers for broadcasting. Now it turns out the recording rights fee is much more, and the composer fees for webcasting also exceed those for broadcasting! The audiences are smaller, the audio quality is poorer, and they want more money?"
Sandra Wasson of KALX at the University of California-Berkeley adds, "KALX might be able to handle the retroactive fees and pay the current fees due, but what about those smaller stations that can't handle the retroactive fees? Are they to be required to shut down because the process did not provide them notification that they would be liable for fees at an undetermined rate?" Concerning the future of KALX, Wasson continues, “While we are struggling with how to pay the retroactive fees, we are also threatened by the cost of reporting what we play.”
Wasson is referring to yet-to-be-defined requirements for stations to report data concerning the songs they play and how many people listen on the web. "If the expense of recordkeeping exceeds the costs of the royalty, we will need to examine our ability to provide this service to the public."
So what is it that college broadcasters are seeking? According to Joel Willer, a professor of mass communications at the University of Louisiana at Monroe, "All we are seeking is a means to continue to provide an education to our students in this emerging technology." Willer is the faculty supervisor for radio station KXUL. That station’s website has been honored with a first-place award and other commendation from the Broadcast Education Association.
"In short,” Willer continues, “what we need is a parallel to the copyright legislation covering our broadcast operations. This includes a flat fee, reasonable reporting requirements, and freedom to develop programming that is not restricted by content restrictions. With such a solution, we could compensate the copyright holders and proceed with our mission, which is to educate students and deliver diverse programming.”
Speaking for CBI member radio stations, Kozireski says, "We need emergency legislation from Congress to stop this process until legislators have a chance to fully examine the issue and enact an appropriate solution. We need to encourage the continuing development of the Internet at the very institutions where it began, at colleges and universities. We need to protect the education of our students."
For more information, please call 713-348-2935.
CBI • Collegiate Broadcasters, Inc. http://www.collegebroadcasters.org