15 August 2005 10:57 am
I know I really need to get these rants under control but I also know that, that is probably never going to happen. So at least for the time being I can channel it into something productive like articles for Rawice.
Over recent times people downloading music has pretty much taken precedent over pirate radio stations despite their internet popularity. Perhaps also due to the fact that many of them are dieing of their own according before the music industry can shut them down.
They still exist with abundance though, there are far more internet radio stations out there broadcasting without a licence than there are legitimate ones. The problem isn't with the people who broadcast though, it's with the music industry.
With downloaders, people don't want to pay. They know they should but they simply don't want to (hey, who does?). This isn't the cause with small webcasters though, most of them do want to do it legally and get licensed.
The reason for this is that if they get big they will need to be licensed in order to avoid huge lawsuits and few start these operations without dreams of becoming the next major internet radio station.
Have you ever looked into getting licensed though? I managed to setup a streaming server in under an hour yet I've been researching webcasting licensing for years and I still don't have my head around it.
The broadcasting industry has changed a lot over recent years – the internet has given people voices, blogs have become a mainstream media form and almost anyone with some technical knowledge and a minimal amount of money can start a radio station. But the music industry, indeed most of the business world has been ignoring it and ignoring the chances.
Hell, even computer giant Microsoft were ignoring the internet until recently. It's only over the past five years they have showed much interest and why, because their competition was starting to give them a beating. If a tech company like Microsoft are doing that you can image what the rest of the media is doing.
News Corp, the Rupert Murrdock run company that owns Sky, Fox and indeed half of the media only really began venturing into the online market when they bought out My Space last month.
No industry has hid underneath its bed and covered its eyes than the entertainment industry though. Chucking lawsuits like spit balls in every direction and reject the internet as any kind of useful medium that isn't just used by criminals and nerds has been their attitude since it was invented and still pretty much remains so today.
This has really backfired at them though – if the music industry had opened itself up to the kind of licensing programs we have now with iTunes and all the other online music sellers when Napster was around how much extra revenue would they have generated by now?
It's the same with internet radio broadcasting – you can't apply the rules that you traditionally have. These aren't huge corporations with massive capital to put into license fees and hire a team of lawyers to go through all the paperwork. These are being run by friends and until they majorly simplify the process people simply are not able to license the music.
To be able to license music you need to get loads of difference licenses – you need a separate one for each of the three main artist representation organisations and you need to pay RIAA royalties. All of them will want to know how much listeners you have (and will have even if you haven't launched yet) and exactly how much revenue you will generate. Should be easy enough for those with an army of accountants to make the predictions or who have time machines sitting around in our basements.
Getting this isn't information isn't exactly easy though – half the web pages out there either don't cover the information at all or point out it's "coming real soon." It's 2005, if it hasn't come already it probably never will. Internet radio is soon going to be bulldozed by pod casting and streaming video so they are already way behind the times.
Ok so you're done and you have worked it out. Now all you have to do is obey the licensing rules. Don't forget to record what your playing, don't play too many songs from one album within any three hour period and hell hath no fury like you will feel if you don't identify each song to the listener somewhere.
I'm not saying they don't have a choice in broadcasting music illegally, of course they do, they could just not broadcast. But that isn't a real solution. They need to play the music to exist and they want to pay license fees – I want to know why the music industry and turning them down.
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