part15 network

We currently run a live show Friday evenings 9-11 PM CST. Kind of the "few folks sitting in the local diner shooting the bull" type thing.

I like the idea!

I found a p2p oddcast system and have set it up,it works pretty good....except I cant get the line in to work. It plays in winamp 5.05 but wont feed the DSP! Winamp feeds it just fine when using its own playlist. If I can solve this,I am on the web! Can anyone help with this???
UPDATE:I found all the tricks and got it working,RadioFreeErie is online!!!!! Have a listen..................................
http://www.streamerp2p.com/index.php

Regards,Lee

I know this is pretty negative, but here goes....

Are you paying royalties for the content that you are streaming? BMI, ASCAP, and RIAA have specific contracts for streaming, I'm not sure about SESAC since we have a blanket that covers us and I didn't do too much looking.

And yes the RIAA wants money even if ALL your content is 100% original talk radio. How they expect to get paid for something that you create, record, and distribute is beyond me, but they still want the money.

Umm,no I do not. Since it is peer-to-peer I dont think it is public. I also dont think they will bother a small operation in an obscure corner of the web. I hope.... Regards,Lee

And yes the RIAA wants money even if ALL your content is 100% original talk radio. How they expect to get paid for something that you create, record, and distribute is beyond me, but they still want the money.

Eh? Got a link to that one?

1998-1999 $200
2000 $250
2001 $300, or $250 if only news/talk/sports
2002 $350, or $250 if only news/talk/sports
2003 $400, or $250 if only news/talk/sports plus $50 contribution to data fund
2004 $500, or $250 if only news/talk/sports plus $25 contribution to data fund plus a usage fee for programming streamed in excess of 146,000 aggregate tuning hours in any month of $0.0002176 per performance or $0.00251 per aggregate tuning hour ($0.0002 per aggregate tuning hour for news/talk/sports).
2005 $500, or $250 if only news/talk/sports plus $25 contribution to data fund plus a usage fee for programming streamed in excess of 146,000 aggregate tuning hours in any month of $0.0002176 per performance or $0.00251 per aggregate tuning hour ($0.0002 per aggregate tuning hour for news/talk/sports).

http://www.soundexchange.com/rates.html

Now if I am only reading news, having talk shows, or announcing sporting events and not using any music... Why would I pay them anything?

Now if I am only reading news, having talk shows, or announcing sporting events and not using any music... Why would I pay them anything?

I think that if you weren't using materials managed by the RIAA/ASCAP/BMI then you wouldn't, in part because you would have no reason to use soundexchange.com

It seems to me that people who use soundexchange.com do so to comply with RIAA/ASCAP/BMI requirements to pay for the use of materials the RIAA/ASCAP/BMI manage. If you are not using those materials there would seem to be no need to pay.

If you're 'playing all the hits' you would pay the higher rate, in part because you are using entire works and in part because it is the bulk of your programing inventory.

I believe the news/talk/sports tier assumes you are using RIAA/ASCAP/BMI materials in the same way mainstream news/talk/sports broadcasters would - bumpers, intro/outro, doughnuts, transitions, backgrounds and things like that.

If I recall, there is a discounted license level for that kind of use, its name escapes me right now, and I have heard that it includes limits on use of things like no more than 80 seconds of any work can be used and stuff like that.

I think that if you were to write your own news and get your own music and sound effects then you would not have any reason to use soundexchange.com

It seem to me that you could use any free or low volume bandwidth host or buy streaming bandwidth bundled with a web site host service or even use a full blown streaming server like fatcow or sprycast or qc1.

Experimental broadcasting for a better tomorrow!

Lee,

Your idea regarding sharing programming is nice. Perhaps it could also be done with "podcasting" as well as streaming.

Regarding the fees, I need to ask a question since I don't know much about this. If you produce your own programming without copyrighted material from others and it is your own intellectual property then you can claim copyright on your work. Could it be that by paying the fee to soundexchange you are also being included in a copyright protection database and may be entitled to user fees from others for use of your work? That could explain the charge even though you don't use others' protected material.

Otherwise, it appears that there is no reason not to make one's work available gratis or for a fee to whomever one chooses (such as posting on this board) without the need to register with a clearing house.

Neil

I dont know all the details about fees for using others music,there are lots of opinions on what is legal or not. I am confident that if I set up a stream to you and only you and put whatever content I want on it,they would be hard pressed to say it isnt legal,let alone find it. It looks like oddcast and other streamers have direct capabilities which would work well. Imagine a full duplex stream between two part 15 stations! I would love to try it at least once......
I was oddcasting for the last few days until it just stopped working. I re-installed the software but it still wont stream. It connects just fine but complains there is no DSP output. Gatesware trouble,I'm sure! Go figure...
Regards,Lee

Could it be that by paying the fee to soundexchange you are also being included in a copyright protection database and may be entitled to user fees from others for use of your work?

To the best of my knowledge you would only be entitled to fees is if you had a releasing agreement with an RIAA member or an ASCAP/BMI contractor. Artists under contract to the various agencies who are part of the recording/releasing/licensing industry earn royalties from the fees collected.

I believe those kinds of agreements cover things like sheet music and even play scripts that theater companies use, too. I understand that copyright law is the basis on which those rights are recognized, conferered, transferred, bought and sold.

If I am correct, you are the sole owner of any intellectual material you create (unless you sell the rights to someone else) and are free to broadcast, print or other wise distrubute that material. That would seem to include webcast, broadcast, recording and even peer to peer file sharing.

Example: I can write my own music, record my own audio file, broadcast the song on Part 15, streaming internet, podcasting, CDs, file sharing and by public performance without paying anyone a nickle. I can give a restaurant owner my CD han he or she can play that song at a place of business without paying ASCAP.

It might be that there are widely held misconceptions about the collective role of associations like the RIAA/ASCAP/BMI/MPAA in broadcasting.

So, in my opinion, as long as all the intellectual property is yours, you can distrubute it in any way you wish. The only fees you'd pay would be for the use of the medium (streaming bandwidth, CD duplication fees, venue rental), not the material.

If you can convince an agent or agency that there will be sufficient demand, you can sign a contract and have your intellectual property represented by the associations and collect your royalties 🙂

Experimental broadcasting for a better tomorrow!

The primary royalty collecting agencies for recorded media like music would be ASCAP and BMI. Even then they only are supposed to collect royalties for artists who are members of ascap and/or bmi.

The RIAA is not a royalty collecting agency. It is "Recording Industry Association of America". The RIAA is a group of several hundred record lables. Now while that's a considerable piece of the music world, it's certainly not all of it. In any case, they do not "protect artist rights", they want to see that artists signed to member labels get paid their royalties (via ASCAP and/or BMI). Because they get a piece of that, of course. They protect "The Recording Industry" as they like to style themselves.

Ok, so say you wrote a little song. Just got an idea one morning for a nifty little song and decided to write it down or maybe record it for use on your part15 station or whatever.

Ok, how do you go about getting it copyrighted?

It already is. It was copyrighted as soon as you were writing it down or recording it. I'm not sure of the precise enforceable legal instant, but somewhere between when you jot down the title and when you finish scribbling the first chorus.. it's there. From that point on, you are the person who gets to decide what that piece of music can legally do. However, you'll need to be able to prove that you are the one who created that song.

Soo.. there's "registering" a copyright. Which is a fancy way of saying you send 2 copies to the US Library of Congress along with a fee to cover the costs of them keeping them on file. When the official paper comes through, it'll state that the registered copy is on file with them. That notification is about all the proof it's possible to have of owning a song. And it's pretty darned good proof. If you end up in court in a lawsuit because somebody is using your song against your wishes, who are you going to call as a witness? The US Library of Congress..

Ok, so how do you get paid of that? Well, if you feel your song has potential to really be popular with a lot of people, to the point where it might actually make enough money to be worth the time and expense, you can join ASCAP and/or BMI. Then you'll be a member and theoretically they'll collect royalties for your song and after doing all their math, decide if you actually made anything off it. The point/market-share systems they use are rather complex and you can check out their websites if you really wanted to know. If you aren't an official member though, they don't do anything for you.

There's nothing on Soundexchange's site to imply they're doing anything but collecting for the standard agencies. So, they'll track what you play, match it against the ASCAP and BMI lists and figure in you're # of listeners, and pay ASCAP/BMI what they're due. And keep any that's "left over". As profit.

ASCAP and BMI also will take anything they can get, because they aren't charity organizations either. Nor are they government branches or anything. They're private companies making a profit by collecting money for their members. The RIAA is a bunch of companies that make money *off* ASCAP, BMI, composers, etc.

Now, if you use the material of the composer/songwriter/artists which are members of ASCAP or BMI, then those artists are entitled to their nominal fee, and their employees (ASCAP and BMI) have lawyers to help make sure they get it. So, if you're playing "all hit radio" or whatever you want to call it, then there is no doubt that the "devil must have his due", and you just budget accordingly.

But for a project like this, if one is talking about material of your own creation? The RIAA doesn't have jurisdiction over that (*unless* maybe you work for a major record label, in which case I don't know what those contracts look like these days). But it'd be pretty silly to pay blanket royalty fees to some company for your own work.

I admit, I don't know as much about recorded or broadcasted spoken word so far as what organizations are around that can collect and etc. I'm a composer, so my interests tended more to music. But the basic principles of copyright still would apply, and as originator of a work/idea, you immediately have copyright for your natural life plus 70 yrs. If they haven't increased it again.. so lets say "plus at least 70 yrs" in case they up it a bit in the next year or so. But as long as you don't give it away or sign it away, it's *yours*.

Daniel

You own the rights to your own original content. I seriously doubt the RIAA or any of the others could legally make you pay a fee to air your own original material.

One option is that we each "license" our programming under Creative Commons ( http://www.creativecommons.org/ ) with a share and share alike offering.

If you need bumper music and etc. check out Magnatune ( http://www.magnatune.com/ ). Their licensing and usage fee's are very fair and airplay/podcast play is allowed. You can even be eligible/authorized to "buy" their labeled material for free using their internal CC#.

I'm very interested in this network idea and would like to see it work.

Please note that I am not a lawyer, and do not pretend to know everything about this subject. I did spend several weeks looking into this matter for our stream, so I do have a little knowledge, but not enough for it to be considered good legal advice.

Here's what I read about:

#1 ASCAP, BMI, & SESAC represent the ARTISTS, and represent their copyright of the musical notes and the lyics.

#2 RIAA (paid through SoundExchange or SX as it is often refered to) represents the recording companies and their copyrights to the media that the music is recorded onto.

In order for a public performance on the web, you must pay for the music and the media (both #1 and #2). It gets even more cluttered when you start looking at "ephemeral" recordings, and recordings stored on hard drives, and on demand content. Why don't broadcasters have to pay RIAA when they broadcast the music... Because they started before the RIAA formed, and they are "grandfathered" in without payment (the RIAA is not happy about this).

Now all of us that use a computer to play back our music make ephemeral recordings. The RIAA says that this is OK for a radio station as long as the music is not stored for more than 6 months, if stored longer they want more money. If the content is a live (public) stream, they want their money for public performance. The only time that they say they do not want money is for a live performance in your studio (you then become the recording company). You do have to file an election with the copyright board to elect to pay royalties (link on the SX website)

Now it also gets different with a stream because the BMI, ASCAP, and SESAC want a performance fee for your small webcast, where they don't care about part 15 broadcast. In truth I didn't look into SESAC too much because when I sent them an email, they looked up our current license and told me that as long as our stream came from college owned servers, I could do just about anything I wanted on or off campus. ASCAP has a form on their website, and I forget what BMI has. Once I found out we were covered I pretty much stopped looking.

How all this relates to a "closed" transportation backbone like what you propose I have no idea. I would say that the less you talk aboutit, the better off you would be. I'm sure that the RIAA would want money for an ephemeral recording, not sure about the artist companies since the end product would be part 15 broadcast. I'm sure if you really start looking and asking, the RIAA wants money for syndicated shows distributed on CD, as you are once again making a recording of the copyrighted works.

I often refer to this whole thing as a legal minefield. And all I am saying is that you need to be careful about how you talk about these kinds of things, and the links that you drop. Remember that the RIAA knows how to use google just as well as anyone else. I think forming a network of part 15 stations is a good idea, just becareful how you talk about the transport of the content.

And yes I still do not know how the RIAA thinks they can collect for an all talk stream. If I am producing all content (talking) and have a contract for the production music that allows for other recordings (like most do), in my mind they can STUFF IT! It's my content, and I own all the rights to it. Next thing they will do is try to get money from every religious stream because the Bible must be copyright somewhere... They are just a little too greedy for my tastes. ASCAP, BMI, SESAC are very reasonable for education, religious, and most non-commercial uses, I just wish the RIAA would be similar.

A discussion with our licensing group resulted in the following -

Original works not registered with RIAA/SX or copyrighted are not subject to royalties.

I also asked:

If these works/artists are not members of RIAA/SX/ASCAP/BMI and their materials are copyrighted you should have permission from the individual artists to broadcast them. Again no royalties would be due.