Deadline Looming for Webcasters… Or Not

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mojo-photo-radiosilence.jpgAs the Sunday (July 15) due date for internet broadcasters to pay new royalty rates approaches, it’s still not clear who will be left on the web on Monday. The new rates, as we’ve discussed here before, follow a Copyright Royalty Board ruling earlier this year specifying higher per-listener-per-song rates paid to artists and labels retroactive to January, 2006, potentially putting webcasters large and small out of business. There are some last-minute developments; first, on Wednesday a federal appeals court denied a petition from webcasters hoping to delay the rate increase. Then, late on Thursday night, two U.S. representatives introduced a bill that would at least postpone the Copyright Board ruling, although Billboard quotes sources as saying “it’s unlikely this bill could or would be passed quickly.”

The unlikely coalition of companies like Yahoo, AOL, and Viacom (who say 47 percent their 2006 revenue would go to the new royalties) with independent webcasters like BAGeL Radio and noncommercial stations like KCRW makes parsing the situation a bit difficult; are big corporations just trying to get out of paying artists what their music is worth by raising the flag of “musical diversity?” On the other hand, KCRW’s own Celia Hirschmann reports (pdf link) that SoundExchange, the RIAA offshoot that advised the Copyright Board on the new rules, has engaged in some shady tactics of its own, like proposing a “compromise” proposal that required webcasters to abandon support for new rules in the meantime.

In any event, Billboard again quotes their super-secret sources as saying there is “no present intention” to enforce the new rules: the new rates are apparently a “right” the artists and labels will hold, but whether to exercise it or not will be up to them. Unless they do so, webcasters large and small will still be on your computers on Monday.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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