Brian Zisk explains the nuts and bolts of the RIAA’s plan to make webcasting too expensive for anyone but the majors (and all in the name of record keeping and compulsory license fees).

CNET Expert Sound-Off – The law that could kill Webcasting

One proposed reporting requirement that particularly infuriates Webcasters is the need for each and every Webcaster to waste huge amounts of resources entering loads of data already known by the copyright holders. No one disputes the need to submit information uniquely identifying each song since reporting is needed to ensure that copyright holders are compensated when their music is Webcast. The DMCA itself requires that only three data fields be displayed to the listener: the title of the sound recording, the album title, and the name of the featured recording artist. These basic pieces of information also seem to satisfy songwriting organizations such as ASCAP and BMI. Now, let’s take a look at what the copyright office wants Webcasters to submit for each and every song that they play–information that in most cases the RIAA’s SoundExchange database already has or that is totally irrelevant to the reason for the reporting requirements, ostensibly to ensure that copyright owners receive reasonable notice of the use of their sound recordings. The copyright office’s list or requirements reads as follows:

A) The name of the service
B) The channel of the program (AM/FM stations use station ID)
C) The type of program (archived/looped/live)
D) Date of transmission
E) Time of transmission
F) Time zone of origination of transmission
G) Numeric designation of the place of the sound recording within the program
H) Duration of transmission (to nearest second)
I) Sound-recording title
J) The ISRC code of the recording
K) The release year of the album per copyright notice, and in the case of compilation albums, the release year of the album and copyright date of the track
L) Featured recording artist
M) Retail album title
N) The recording label
O) The UPC code of the retail album
P) The catalog number
Q) The copyright owner information
R) The musical genre of the channel or program (station format)

This is absurd! All that’s reasonably needed is enough information to uniquely identify the track, when it was played, and how many people were listening.