SXSWorld
Issue link: https://sxsw.uberflip.com/i/211359
With Listeners Controlling Content, Internet Radio Poised to Thrive by Luke Torn 22 SXSWORLD / NOVEMBER 2013 Arbitron circa 2013: 86 million listeners (⅓ of the U.S. population) experience online radio weekly, representing a 253% increase over 2008. Accordingly, a dizzying number of entities, from Internet-radio-only (TuneIn), to streaming stations (Slacker, Live365, MOG), to myriad other options (Rdio, Spotify), now vie for that everexpanding listenership. "In a word, we've crossed a watershed moment," enthuses Tim Westergren, SCO and founder of Pandora Radio, Internet radio's top-rated service. "Internet radio has gained its footing as connected devices are ushering in a whole new era of personalized listening. The impact, not only on consumers, but on the thousands of independent artists experiencing large-scale exposure for the first time ever, is fantastically exciting." But the journey, kicked off in 1994 by Carl Malamud's pioneering "Internet Multicasting Service," has been bumpy. The perplexing struggle among webcasters and record companies, lawmakers and copyright administrators, artists' right advocates and the very listeners themselves has been epic. Two statutes—the Digital Performance Right in Sound Recordings Act of 1995 and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998—reversed that reserve clause, undermining traditional radio's very structure and producing unintended marketplace consequences. The DMCA's "safe-harbor" clause did, however, exempt website hosting services, service providers. etc. from liability third parties. David Oxenford, noted broadcastlaw attorney, recently summed up the confusion: "As the courts have wrestled with a host of copyright issues principally arising from digital media, boundaries that had carefully been set up by established copyright principles have been blurred—like the distinctions between a performance and a reproduction, or a public performance and one that is not, distinctions that can have great importance as to who must be paid or whether any payment at all is due ..." With expensive royalty payments expected and almost no advertising LAURA SPECTOR I was tuning in the shine on the light night dial doing anything my radio advised." So sang Elvis Costello in 1978. Little did Elvis know, as punk was being blacklisted from the airwaves in favor of solipsistic soft pop, that he had, in a way, foreseen a radio crossroads. Back in the protozoan 1950s-'70s, prior to the MTV juggernaut, commercial airplay—first AM, then FM—molded the textures and parameters of popular music tastes. Picking winners and losers within the marketplace of its listenership and under heavy pressure from record labels, radio's exposure (or lack thereof) could condemn artists to oblivion or grant them a long, prosperous career. Yet within its purview lay a dirty little secret: Radio airplay registered in the marketplace as a promotional endeavor, which meant no performance rights remuneration for artists. That hardlynoticed policy, comparable to baseball's infamous "reserve clause"—was radio's dirty little glue for holding industry paradigms in place. Flash forward 35 years and the broadcast landscape is wholly unrecognizable. Traditional power structures have shattered amid explosive tech innovation, trailing behind a super-staid terrestrial radio of moldy oldies and politico-talk extremism. Meanwhile, upstart Internet radio, morphing through endless variations, evolutions and brandings, revels in pure access, depth and intuitive payback for the listener. Thus, in 2013 Costello's once-resonant statement turns on its head: Through personal playlists and mobile convenience, social-network trends and customized, precision listening, listeners now advise radio. "Online radio," observes Kevin Connor, KUTX DJ and Austin radio veteran, "gives the individual or small group the opportunity to create something original and fun that would be almost impossible financially to produce on an FFC-licensed FM transmitter. The biggest challenges are covering your royalty Tim Westergren at SXSW 2012 fees and finding your audience. There are so many online stations out there [now], how do you get noticed?" Indeed, Internet radio's popularity is skyrocketing, as reported by