Calling the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, "No. 1 on my bad guy list" Cuban claimed the Act has made streaming media providers the "poster children of abuse by the music industry." The 1998 Act requires that Webcasters negotiate with the Recording Industry Association of America to determine a licensing fee for streaming content. If they can't agree, an arbitration panel sets the rates.
Cuban claims the Act unjustly imposes royalty fees upon music streamed over the Internet and on portable devices that are significantly higher than the fees paid by traditional media.
His solution? "Move your servers to Canada."
Cuban advocated the move as a way to avoid the fees imposed by the Copyright Act. Cuban said Canada's friendly attitude towards the Internet industry, including a promise not to impose Internet taxes, has made moving servers something Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) is "examining very closely."
More pet peeves
During his speech, Cuban also pleaded with content providers to stop allowing companies to link directly to media streams instead of to the Web page where the stream is hosted. He argued that if this practice continues, companies will be forced to pay even if streams fail to generate revenue.
Next on his list of personal peeves? "Stop playing this game of 'my Webcast is bigger than your Webcast.' "
Cuban admitted that, in promoting the streaming Victoria's Secret fashion show, he had helped create much of the hype about the huge numbers of users logging into any given Webcast. But he said the practice of promoting Webcasts as "the biggest ever" is confusing and makes people in the industry "look clueless" because reporting methods are so inconsistent.
"Yahoo! Broadcasting is probably not going to put out numbers any longer because there's just no upside to saying this event is bigger than that," Cuban said.
The trouble with Real ...
Cuban reserved some of his harshest comments for streaming media giant
RealNetworks (Nasdaq: RNWK). His frustration with the company is due to what he called
"inconsistent pricing plans." Cuban said RealNetworks often plays one
company against another when negotiating the fee it will charge for hosting
media streams.
"I'm thrilled to pay for them [the streams] but be consistent," Cuban exclaimed.
