Be on the wave or under it™

The News – 08/02/02

The Death of Internet Radio

The second part of the Why You Need to Get Hip to HIPAA series will appear in a future SNS

There once was a burgeoning Internet Radio community. Once upon a time, thousands of amateurs and professionals spun records on the Web asking little or nothing in return besides the ears and attention of their listeners. It was once upon a time, but it was not so long ago: It was before June.

Now the whole Internet Radio thing is pretty much over, at least for the law-abiding, because Congress, in its great wisdom, caved in to – who else – the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America). Is there an industry group anywhere that hates its customers more than these rascals?

Anyway, the Library of Congress passed down what is known as the CARP ruling, establishing royalty rates for the playing of copyrighted material on the Internet. Let’s not even get into the business of whether the government should intervene in markets in this way. Let’s just take a look at what we now all will need to live in.

We need to live in a world where advertiser-supported commercial radio is not likely to be available on the Internet. We need to live in a world in which music enthusiasts can’t broadcast their picks, educating and entertaining other music fans.

It used to be that anyone could play DJ on the Internet. Sites such as Live365 could set you up in a matter of minutes to be a star. With the advent of the CARP ruling, it’s now only a matter of time until the RIAA comes knocking at amateur DJs’ doors with their hands out.

Many Internet Radio broadcasters have adopted policies requiring artist permission before broadcasting music. One would think that would put the kibosh on lots of stations and decrease the number of listeners. But in at least one case, the operator, Pulverradio, experienced an almost 10-fold increase in listeners after the format change. Pulverradio's daily listeners went from averaging between 250-500 daily listeners to averaging between 2,000 to 3,000 daily listeners with peaks to as many as 6,000. Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough to keep Pulverradio from closing up shop.

Why would limiting a play list to largely unknown acts increase listenership? Could it be that music fans are sick and tired of the crud the music-industry-controlled broadcast radio stations are pushing at us? Could it be that people want to hear new and different music by unknown artists? Could it be that the Internet offers the single most significant marketing tool the music industry has ever seen? And they want to kill it. (I’ve written about this before.)

Congress may yet ride to the rescue. Three forward thinking leaders, Representatives Jay Inslee (D-WA), George Nethercutt (R-WA) and Richard Boucher (D-VA), have introduced the Internet Radio Fairness Act (HR 5285) in the US House of Representatives. The act basically exempts small businesses and individuals from the CARP ruling. If you believe in copyright, but also believe that non-commercial sharing of music through Internet Radio should be allowed to thrive, make your voice heard by faxing your representatives through the Voice of Webcasters site.

Briefly Noted

• Shameless Self-Promotion Dept.: I’ve put up the Nanotechnology Resources directory I promised last November.

Also, check out the article I wrote for the Taylor Harkins newsletter entitled, Do you hate your customers? It continues the theme from my earlier article, analyzing the media industry’s response to file sharing.

Finally, and at long last, the CTOMentor wireless white paper, You Can Take It with You: Business Applications of Personal Wireless Devices, is available at ITPapers.

• Just Another Stupid Date Name: OK, would somebody please tell me why PriceWaterhouseCoopers, the giant consulting firm, would want to name itself Monday? Naming itself after a date didn’t work so well for MarchFirst (which debuted the name on March 1^st – how cute!). That was bad enough, but at least they had an explanation, something about marching and being first – I forget now. But Monday? Leaving aside the obvious puns (Just another manic, blue, I don’t like), think of the confusion: “Who’s coming in on Tuesday?” “Monday.” It’s a good thing IBM bought them (on Tuesday) to put an end to the foolishness. Now will they be Big Blue Monday?
  
  
• Visual Security: I’ve written about it before, but now the academics are studying it: the ability to steal data from the glow of a computer screen or the blink of a modem light. Joe Loughry of Lockheed Martin Space Systems and David A. Umphress of Auburn University have published a paper on the phenomenon. According to the researchers, “Experiments show that it is possible to intercept data under realistic conditions at a considerable distance. Many different sorts of devices, including modems and Internet Protocol routers, were found to be vulnerable.”
  AppliedMath.org (PDF file)
  
  
• Free Firewall: If you’re like me, you’ve got one or two obsolete PCs hanging around doing nothing. Well now you can convert them into a firewall for your home or office network. SmoothWall is a free product that converts the obsolete hardware into a firewall. If you can download a CD image and follow some setup directions, you can have that old 486 or Pentium-60 boat anchor doing some useful work. Commercial versions of the product are also available for less than $200.
  SmoothWall
  
  

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