“Will performance royalties create a new class of radio pirate?”
That was the question I posed in early 2016 after the music royalty rates for small internet radio webcasters skyrocketed with the expiration of the Webcaster Settlement Act of 2009. In essence I wondered if some webcasters would just choose to keep on broadcasting online without paying royalties, hoping to avoid detection by SoundExchange, which collects digital performance royalties on behalf of artists.
Two years later I’ve not found any significant movement of royalty-dodging webcasters. Though, if they were keeping a low profile, I should expect that I wouldn’t know much about them in the first place.
Perhaps I wasn’t looking in the right place.
The New York Times recently turned a spotlight on a new class of internet radio stations using YouTube’s live streaming service. The article reports that the channels routinely play music without proper permission from copyright holders, which is why they’re called “pirate radio stations” in the headline.
The stations highlighted in the article originate from the U.K., France and the Netherlands, which means they wouldn’t be subject to American royalty laws (although there are parallel rules in those countries). In fact, it took quite a bit of searching before I found any “pirate” YouTube stations that obviously originate from the U.S.
By and large the stations seem to focus on niche electronic and rock music subgenres that lie somewhat outside the rock and pop mainstream, often featuring many independent and underground artists. This likely puts them further off the major labels’ radar than if they were routinely streaming Drake or Cardi B.
That said, these channels often include copyright disclaimers, like this one posted by Miami POP Dream:
For COPYRIGHT ISSUES song or picture please contact me on YouTube private messaging system, please messaging us and your song will be removed immediately. Once I have received your message and determined you are the proper owner of this content I will have it removed, no drama at all.
As the Times article notes, YouTube disciplines and shuts down channels for copyright violations, but as far as I can tell that’s the only real risk these broadcasters face. It’s unknown if the music rights agencies, like ASCAP or SoundExchange, have gone after any YouTube “pirates” for back royalties, or if they’re simply satisfied to have them shut down.
Just like real broadcast pirate radio, it’s certainly a game of cat-and-mouse. When YouTube broadcasters have their channels shut down for violations, there’s little to stop them from creating new accounts and new channels. Now, they do lose their subscriber base–which in some cases can be a substantial loss–but that seems to be the most painful penalty.
I find it fascinating that YouTube, a video service, has become a dominant platform for streaming audio. Of course, that’s because there is no similarly prominent free service for audio, especially not live audio streaming. YouTube is also very easy to use.
If we went back in time to 2005 and you told me this would be the case in 2018, that would have sounded ludicrous, because video requires much more costly bandwidth to distribute than audio. But I wouldn’t have known that one of the world’s largest companies–Google–would decide to subsidize the lion’s share of video streaming on the internet.
At the same time, unless you’re playing your own music or music that you’ve obtained artist permission for, streaming on YouTube is precarious and unlikely to be a reliable, long-term solution. Many channel operators may not care, at least initially. They may come to care more once a sizable audience is tuning in.
Some grass may grow up through the cracks in the sidewalk. But there’s often someone with herbicide not too far away.
