Poet Kenneth Goldsmith created UbuWeb in 1996 as an online repository for obscure avant-garde art that, by virtue of having little commercial potential, was hard to find. Audio was an early component of the archive, owing to Kenneth’s interest in sound poetry, an even more obscure art form.

Since then he’s served as the chief, and only, curator and proprietor of UbuWeb, which has become an invaluable resource for anyone with an interest in underground and unpopular culture. Kenneth chronicled his efforts in the new book “Duchamp Is My Lawyer: The Polemics, Pragmatics, and Poetics of UbuWeb.” He joins this episode to recount some of these tales, telling us what inspired him to build UbuWeb in the first place, and why he maintains it using simple html code of the sort used in the early web, rather than updating to use the latest database and dynamic website platforms.

Because much of the work on UbuWeb is archived without explicit permission from the creators – living or dead – Kenneth explains why he views “cease and desist” orders as an invitation to dialog and how community radio station WFMU was one of his inspirations. We also get into the relationship between piracy and preservation, why he loves “the misuses of UbuWeb” and the value of “folk archiving” and “folk law.”

Show Notes:

• UbuWeb
• UbuWeb Sound
• Kenneth Goldsmith at the University of Pennsylvania Department of English
• Playlists and archives for Kenny G’s Hour of Pain on WFMU
• Duchamp Is My Lawyer at Columbia University Press
• Duchamp Is My Lawyer at Amazon (Radio Survivor will receive a small commission if you purchase from this link)
• What Is an Interlaced GIF?

The post Podcast #256 – The Robin Hood of the Avant-Garde appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Internet radio experienced a sea change in the middle of the last decade that washed away many independent broadcasters, and changed the atmosphere for others. While the medium continues to sail on, it is also more fractured – and more diverse – than ten years ago. That’s why this evolution is one of the decade’s most important radio trends.

Internet Radio’s Indie Roots

Independent broadcasters have been a cornerstone of internet radio since the very beginning. Looking back 26 years to the very first internet broadcasts, we see that – much like terrestrial radio – they were initiated by hobbyists and experimenters, not big media companies.

In fact, one can argue that the U.S. commercial radio industry largely neglected internet radio for a good portion of its first two decades. I think we can mark the founding of iHeartRadio as an app and platform in 2008 as the turn, when American commercial broadcasting finally embraced the internet as a useful and profitable medium, rather than a pesky nuisance. I don’t mean that commercial stations weren’t streaming before then. Rather, that streams were treated as low priority obligations.

During that time thousands upon thousands of independent internet radio operations were founded, taking advantage of a very low cost of entry and an absence of any sort of governmental licensing. Esepecially in the late 90s and early 2000s, it was mostly a matter of getting a Live365 account, loading up some music, and going for it.

The DMCA Takes a Bite, but not a Mouthful

Beginning with the passage of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in 1998, internet broadcasting transitioned from its anything goes days to being a little more regulated. This was due to being required to pay royalties to songwriters and musicians for playing their music.

However, thanks to lobbying efforts on their behalf, small, independent and hobbyist webcasters got a break from Congress, twice. The Small Webcaster Settlement Acts of 2002 and 2009 established reasonable performance royalty rates for internet broadcasters not intent on going commercial, making much income, or serving large audiences. In effect, they were for webcasters that are akin to a small community LPFM or college station.

While this meant running a legit internet radio operation in the U.S. wasn’t free, the costs could be low enough to be comparable to, or less than, any number of other hobbies. Live365, then one of the biggest platforms offering streaming radio services, make it particularly easy by bundling those royalty payment in with the hosting costs. Some of the smallest webcasters could be on the hook for less than $100 a year – less than the cost of cup of Starbucks a day.

2016: The Year of the Great Seachange

The independent internet radio train ran off the rails in the middle of this last decade, January 2016 to be exact. That’s when the medium was dealt two massive blows: the expiration of the Small Webcaster Settlement Act of 2009 and the closure of Live365. Though the expiration of the Settlement Act was perhaps the final nail in the coffin, Live365 had been struggling for some time before hand, largely due to the loss of key investors. Its demise on January 31 of that year left some 5000 internet broadcasters of all sizes scrambling for new hosts.

Despite the hopes and prayers of many a small webcaster, Congress never took up their cause again, and their royalty rates skyrocketed. Instead of paying a percentage of revenue as under the Settlement Act, they would started having to pay royalties based upon tracks streamed per listener. That meant a station that averaged 100 listeners tuned it at any time – not a huge audience – playing an average of 15 songs an hour, was on the hook for as much as $22,000 a year.

An untold number of independent internet broadcasters called it quits. That number is untold because there’s no central authority or accounting. But anecdotal evidence from looking at the Shoutcast directory of internet radio stations and monitoring internet forums indicated that the reduction was pretty substantial, especially amongst stations that served narrow niches and very small audiences.

Many mid-sized independent broadcasters seem to have been able to hold on by virtue of fundraising or ad revenue. SomaFM is one such group, which survives on listener contributions. Back in 2016 founder and operator Rusty Hodge told me that he anticipated his costs to jump to as much as $20,000 a month, and he would be implementing automatic stream time-outs for people listening for more than a couple hours, to be sure SomeFM wouldn’t be streaming music to empty rooms.

Non-commercial terrestrial stations dodged the bullet because the royalties for their online streams are negotiated separately by groups like National Public Radio and the National Federation of Community Broadcasters. Commensurate with their non-commercial and non-profit status, their rates remained reasonable, though only as a result of careful diligence.

Short-Lived Alternatives

Many small U.S. webcasters left homeless by the closure of Live365 migrated to the France-based Radionomy service, which acquired the Shoutcast internet radio server technology and Winamp media player app from AOL in 2014. That’s because Radionomy offered free streaming hosting, even covering royalties, to broadcasters who could maintain a minimum audience size. In exchange broadcasters agreed to have a few minutes of advertising inserted into their streams every hour.

However, the bloom started to fall from that rose pretty quickly. In February of 2016 four major record labels filed suit against Radionomy claiming non-payment of royalties since “late 2014.” The service soldiered on, but stopped serving U.S. based listeners and broadcasters earlier this year. At the end of November the service shut down altogether.

Radionomy broadcasters were offered the opportunity to migrate their stations to the Shoutcast for Business service. While it’s reasonably priced – starting at about $15 a month – that doesn’t include any royalty coverage. Accounting for and paying royalties is up to the individual broadcaster, and that’s where the significant costs set it.

After Live365 closed in 2016, other U.S. webcasters turned to a company called StreamLicensing.com. The company offered to cover a station’s royalties for a cost lower than paying them directly. It seems the way they did this was probably by aggregating all the member stations into one license and single payment, using the economy of scale to reduce the liability of individual broadcasters. Stations had to find their own stream hosting – which is easier, with costs very proportionate to audience size – and StreamLicensing.com took care of royalties beginning at about $60 a month. Though more expensive than the lowest cost pre–2016 Live365 plans, that $720 annual rate was still on par with cable TV or a gym membership.

But beginning last year I started hearing scuttlebutt that not all was well with the company and that the numbers weren’t adding up. Whatever the case really was, StreamLicensing.com shut down in May of this year, again setting dozens or even hundreds of small webcasters adrift.

The Re-Birth of Live365 Is a Bright Spot

The story for small webcasters hasn’t been all doom and gloom since 2016. In 2017 Live365 was resurrected by a young internet entrepreneur named Jon Stephenson. The new service also offers internet radio hosting and royalty coverage for one monthly fee. The costs begin at $59 a month if your station runs Live365-placed ads – not much more than the old StreamLicensing.com alone without hosting – or $79 a month if you want to remain ad-free.

These introductory plans limit a station to 1500 total listening hours a month – equivalent to an average of 2 listeners per hour. But since the reality is that listeners tune in and out, and few should be listening for more than a few hours at a time, this is more than enough to sustain a small niche webcaster.

Of course, that adds up to $708 to $948 a year, and still might be too much for some would-be broadcasters. The price is not the fault of Live365 or other similar providers because their costs are pretty well fixed, especially the royalties. But small webcasters do still benefit from the economy of scale and and the convenience of one-stop-shopping these platforms offer.

If we’re being honest, spending $1000 a year or so to be a broadcaster is still a bargain compared to the costs of starting and running a terrestrial broadcast station, even a low-power FM. Many folks will spend more on a set of golf clubs, a digital camera or a couple cases of wine.

Early Promise Tarnished

It’s the contrast with the early promise of internet broadcasting that makes the situation feel unfair. In 1997 it seemed that all you needed to be a broadcaster was an internet connection and a few bucks a month to host the stream. The realities of intellectual property and commerce quickly caught up, but for a while – about 14 years, actually – the scrappy indie webacaster caught a break. But by 2016 it seems like folks stopped caring, especially Congress.

It’s not really clear why no congressperson saw fit to try renewing the Small Webcaster Settlement Act. Maybe the rise of streaming music services like Pandora and Spotify, music hosting sites like SoundCloud, or on-demand music show and podcast services like MixCloud made it seem like there were plenty of other opportunities for folks to get their audio out across the interwebs, whether by playlist, DJ set or podcast.

The opportunity hasn’t gone away. Live365 and similar services still offer the most cost-effective way to start broadcasting on the internet legitimately. But it’s probably not the sort of thing you do on a whim. At the same time there are many more outlets for casting out audio on the internet, and that is a net good.

Internet Radio Is Fundamentally Changed

That doesn’t change the fact that internet radio in the U.S. fundamentally changed in 2016. I’m certain many of the broadcasters who found themselves high and dry that year just gave up. This doesn’t mark the end of indie internet radio, just a major shift.

It should be mentioned that it’s conceivable to run an internet radio station without any costly royalty obligations. If you only run talk programming, with no music, then you bare no liability. But no music means you’re not using any commercially released music at all, not as bumpers or stingers or music beds. Now, podcasters manage to do this by relying on royalty-free music libraries, contracting directly with musicians or making their own music. So it should be possible for a talk-only internet station to pull this off.

Another option is to work directly with artists and labels to obtain permission to play their music royalty-free, or pay them directly. Note that this may not be as simple as it seems. If an artist is signed to a label it’s not good enough for them to say you can use their recordings, since the label will own some portion of them. You’ll need the label to give the OK, too. If an independent artist also self-releases, then you’ll have an easier time.

The Free Music Archive was actually founded to provide community and other non-commercial terrestrial radio stations high-quality royalty-free music alternatives back in the early days of the DMCA, before separate negotiations brought their rates down to a reasonable level. While the FMA’s ownership has shifted twice in the past 12 months, experiencing some downtime in the process, the music uploaded there from 2009 to 2017.

Also keep in mind that beyond the performance royalties, there are royalties owed songwriters via rights organizations like ASCAP and BMI. If an artist owns their songs and recordings, then again you’re free and clear. But if they’re playing cover versions or their label shares in the composition ownership (not unusual), then you’ll need more stakeholders coming to agreement. It’s not impossible, but it’s also not straightforward.

Some internet broadcasters have skirted the royalty issue by pivoting to video. Last year I wrote about the new breed of “YouTube pirates” who run live streams of music accompanied by static or looping images. They’re kind of the internet equivalent of FrankenFM channel 6 TV stations that maintain the bare minimum amount of video service to qualify as television stations, while primarily functioning as radio stations.

In harmony with my advice above, it seems that many YouTube stations survive by relying on independent music that falls outside the mainstream music industry’s royalty structure. For instance, the Netherlands-based Chillhop Music channel streams “jazzy beats / loft hip hop” that’s mostly devoid of recognizable hits.

Other channels that skirt closer to major label tunes end up playing a cat-and-mouse game with YouTube. The only real penalty seems to be having your channel shut down, which results in the loss of a potentially large listener and subscriber base. But there’s no indication that a bill from SoundExchange or other royalty collections authority will show up in your mail, in part because you don’t need to provide any legal identity to set up a YouTube channel.

The irony is that YouTube isn’t a radio platform, and that hosting streaming video is more expensive that streaming audio by a significant margin. But YouTube is free, and there are few free radio streaming options out there. In particular, there are none even remotely as prominent as YouTube.

The Future Is Fractured

So maybe the future of internet radio is video? I know that many podcast listeners actually consume their favorite shows – like Joe Rogan’s – on YouTube and think of the platform as the place to find podcasts.

In reality that’s probably overstating things. Like all online media, internet radio has become more fractured in the last decade. While some platforms and opportunities have disappeared, others have come to the fore.

If you’re looking to create a traditional 24/7 live streaming station using copyrighted music, services like Live365 are there to help you do this legally at a variety of price points. YouTube is there to let you stream for free if you don’t mind dealing with that platform’s restrictions, and the likelihood that you’ll need to rely on underground, independent and unsigned artists if you want your channel to stay up for the long haul.

If you don’t mind confining yourself to an on-demand show, DJ set or virtual mixtape, then Mixcloud is a pretty good alternative, since the service is free and covers all royalties.

Both YouTube and Mixcloud are largely confined to the web and their own apps on mobile devices, and platforms like Chromecast, Roku and Apple TV. That does give audiences a fair number of ways to listen, though not appearing alongside pure-play streaming radio stations, like on iHeartRadio or TuneIn.

I will note that the Sonos wireless speaker system supports Mixcloud. It also supports YouTube Music, which sort of lets you access the music available on YouTube, but I haven’t yet figured out how to hear any of the live streaming stations – just their archive streams.

The last decade was marked by a significant shake-up in internet radio, and I don’t think we’ll ever turn back the clock to the heady days of the mid–2000s, when it seemed like medium would be the new “pirate radio,” as the mainstream press often proclaimed. That doesn’t mean there isn’t ample opportunity to broadcast online.

Rather, our definition of radio has expanded. If the platform is about getting audio programs out to an audience, then we can argue it’s radio. If it’s on the ’net, then it’s internet radio. It may change, and morph from platform to platform. But it’s still here as we enter the third decade of the 21st century.

The post The Near-Death of Independent Internet Radio Is One of the Most Important Radio Trends of the Decade appeared first on Radio Survivor.

What if I told you there’s an online archive of hundreds of avant-garde media works that exists with little regard for copyright, though it respects the wishes of artists and their estates? Would you believe it’s been there for 22 years, without fail?

That archive is UbuWeb. I’m pretty sure I first learned about it a dozen years ago from the dearly departed (but still available) WFMU Beware of the Blog. The project was actually funded by a former ‘FMU DJ, Kenny G, a/k/a Kenneth Goldsmith, a poet and uncreative writing teacher at the University of Pennsylvania.

For the 15-year anniversary of UbuWeb Goldsmith wrote,

UbuWeb began in 1996 as a site focusing on visual and concrete poetry. With the advent of the graphical web browser, we began scanning old concrete poems, astonished by how fresh they looked backlit by the computer screen. Shortly thereafter, when streaming audio became available, it made sense to extend our scope to sound poetry, and as bandwidth increased we later added MP3s as well as video. Sound poetry opened up a whole new terrain: certain of John Cage’s readings of his mesostic texts could be termed “sound poetry,” hence we included them.

Focusing more on the sound archive, he continues,

In 2005, we acquired a collection called The 365 Days Project, a year’s worth of outrageous MP3s that can be best described as celebrity gaffs, recordings of children screeching, how-to records, song-poems, propagandistic religious ditties, spoken word pieces, even ventriloquist acts. However, buried deep within The 365 Days Project were rare tracks by the legendary avant-gardist Nicolas Slominsky, an early-to-mid-twentieth century conductor, performer, and composer belting out advertisements and children’s ditties on the piano in an off-key voice. UbuWeb had already been hosting historical recordings from the 1920s he conducted of Charles Ives, Carl Ruggles, and Edgard Varèse in our Sound section, yet nestled in amongst oddballs like Louis Farrakhan singing calypso or high school choir’s renditions of “Fox On The Run,” Slominsky fit into both categories—high and low—equally well.

Radio Survivor, of course, is all about sound and radio, and there is plenty of the latter. In fact, many titles come from broadcasts on the country’s first community radio station, KPFA. This includes recordings of the aforementioned Slominsky, John Cage and avant-garde musician Charlotte Moorman.

UbuWeb came back into my consciousness by way of a late night internet garden path walk. After attending a screening of Sonic Youth-related documentary pieces and filmed live performances, I went looking for a way to see the entirety of the Charles Atlas documentary “Put Blood in the Music,” a portion of which was part of the screening.

Coming up empty, it occurred to me that it might be on Ubu. Turns out, it’s not. However, as I got to clicking around, watching and listening I became fully entranced (again).

Over the last weekend I’ve enjoyed John Oswald‘s pioneering copyright-jamming “Plunderphonics,” the works of Argentinian new music composer Alan Courtis and a playlist of “History of Electronic / Electroacoustic Music (1937-2001).” When I have trouble deciding amongst the vast catalog of artists, I just turn on UbuWeb Radio, hosted by WFMU:

For those concerned about Ubu’s laissez-faire attitude about copyright, I’ll refer you to an interview that radio scholar Brian Fauteux conducted with Goldsmith in 2014 for Radio Survivor. Therein he explains the site’s value founded on the contemporary reality that, “[i]f it doesn’t exist on the internet, it doesn’t exist.”

Then there is the note at the bottom of the sounds page that reads, in part:

we don’t wish to take whatever small profits might be made from those taking the efforts to gather, manufacture and properly distribute such recordings. Instead, we hope that by streaming these works, it will serve as an enticement for UbuWeb visitors to support the small labels making this work available.

All MP3s served on UbuWeb are either out-of-print, incredibly difficult to find, or, in our opinion, absurdly overpriced.

Moveover, the site’s volunteer curators and administrators have often worked with artists and their estates to take down works or add other ones upon request. Again, the idea is not to pirate or help would-be consumers circumvent buying recordings. Rather, in most cases these recordings are not commercially available, may never have been, or are utterly out-of-print and not released in any contemporary digital formats.

There is always a balance between retaining an accessible cultural history and absolute obedience to the letter of the law. Somewhere in that fuzzy middle lies an approach where one might ask forgiveness, if necessary, rather than putting on your own handcuffs and lacing up your straightjacket.

As Goldsmith told Brian Fauteux, “An archive activist is someone who does what they do without asking permission or securing funds. They simple do it — and then let the world deal with the fact that it is done. If we had to ask for permission, we wouldn’t exist.”

I think that’s quite compatible with the ethos freeform community and college radio, where DJs are allowed or even encouraged to play works from far outside the mainstream and collage them together, whether or not the disc, tape, file or found sound was expressly sent to the station for broadcast. I have no doubts that dozens or hundreds of DJs are violating the letter of copyright law right now, and yet nothing will come of it. That’s because whatever violation is happening is victimless.

Central to this ethos is that these platforms are truly non-profit and non-commercial. No money is lost and no artist loses a sale (or the .0001 cents they get from a play on Spotify).

And if some artist calls the station and says, “please don’t play my work,” my advice is to respect their wishes. But how many calls like that have you received? Right.

The post UbuWeb’s Treasure Trove of Avant-Garde Radio and Sound appeared first on Radio Survivor.

In the U.S. the copyright situation for music and sound recordings made before 1972 is a mess of different and conflicting state laws. That’s because there is no overarching federal law. The unintended consequence is that archivists, librarians and artists are often afraid to duplicate, distribute or repurpose very old recordings that – if they were books or movies – otherwise would be in the public domain, free of copyright. That’s because they don’t want to inadvertently violate a state copyright law or put their organizations in legal jeopardy.

Katharine Trendacosta is a policy analyst with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who explains this situation, and why it needs to be resolved. And while there are bills in Congress to sort out copyright, they don’t go far enough to repair the problem with the public domain and sound recordings.

Radio Survivor is a listener-supported podcast. You can support us two ways:

Make a monthly contribution through our Patreon campaign.

Make a one-time or recurring donation with any major credit card via PayPal.

Show Notes:

• EFF: CLASSICS Is the Future of Assaults Against the Public Domain
• Radio Survivor Podcast #1: The Free Music Archive
• The “most interesting” public domain songs at the Free Music Archive

Feature image “gramophone 02” by byronv2 on flickr, used under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC 2.0) license.

The post Podcast #156 – Can We Strengthen Audio’s Public Domain? appeared first on Radio Survivor.

“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.

The post Is YouTube the Home of the New Radio Pirates? appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Another major threat to small and medium sized internet radio stations has surfaced. As Torrent Freak first reported Tuesday, on February 26 four major recording labels filed suit in federal court against internet radio platform Radionomy, charging that the company engaged in copyright infringement.

The plaintiffs–Arista Records, LaFace Records, Sony Music and Zomba Records–allege that stations hosted by Radionomy have played music owned by them but have not paid statutory performance royalties in the US since “late 2014.” The suit also alleges that some stations available on Radionomy would not qualify for statutory licensing because they stream the music of a single artist, which is prohibited under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

All the more curious, the plaintiffs add that Radionomy admits to not paying royalties. In the complaint they write,

“In fact, however, Defendants do not – and have admitted to Plaintiffs that they do not – comply with any such requirements: they have no license or authorization to reproduce, publicly perform, and/or display Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works in the U.S. Moreover, Defendants have refused to comply with Plaintiffs’ requests and demands to remove the infringing works from Defendants’ service and/or to cease streaming or allowing their users to stream, reproduce, publicly perform, or display Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works on Defendants’ service.”

The labels are asking both for unspecified monetary damages as well as a permanent injunction against Radionomy from streaming without payment of royalties.

Since the demise of Live365 on January 31, an untold number of small and mid-sized webcasters moved their stations over to Radionomy. The service is attractive because it is completely free for broadcasters who have a minimum audience size. In exchange broadcasters agree to air commercials supplied by Radionomy.

From Radionomy’s “Producer’s News” blog

For webcasters faced with shutting down their streams as a result of new, much higher performance royalty rates, Radionomy’s deal seems irresistible. Yet, for many it also seemed too good to be true. I’ve fielded several emails from Radio Survivor readers asking us to look into Radionomy and find out how it could afford to cover both bandwidth and music royalties without charging webcasters anything. I also wondered, and have made several inquiries to Radionomy in the last month or so which have gone unanswered.

This suit from the four major recording labels would seem to indicate that the Radionomy deal for US webcasters, at the very least, may indeed be too good to be true. In fact, the complaint specifically cites Radionomy’s own marketing, charging that the company,

“assisted and encouraged others to engage in, massive reproduction, public performance, and/or display of hundreds, if not thousands, of Plaintiffs’ copyrighted sound recordings and cover art images in the U.S., in violation of the U.S. Copyright Act and California state law.”

A strange twist to the story is that Radionomy itself is majority owned by the French multinational Vivendi, which also owns the Universal Music Group, claimed to be the world’s largest recording company. That an online radio business owned by one of the world’s largest entertainment companies–and therefore a company built on intellectual property–would willfully choose not to pay copyright royalties is difficult to fathom. It would be a delicious sort of irony if there weren’t so many well-meaning small broadcasters caught up in the mix.

For better or worse, this suit answers one of my biggest questions: who, if anyone, would go after internet stations that don’t pay performance royalties? The answer is: the record labels will. However, at least at this stage, the labels are choosing to pursue a very big fish, rather than chase down schools of minnows. By suing Radionomy the labels are effectively threatening thousands of stations, but it remains to be seen if they are up to spending the necessary resources to go after individual small hobby stations that decide to go “pirate” because they can no longer afford to stay legal with royalty payment.

Radionomy also owns Winamp and the Shoutcast streaming radio technology and platform, which it purchased from AOL in 2014, saving them from imminent demise. This leads many in the internet radio community to wonder if Winamp and Shoutcast are again under threat. Shoutcast, in particular, remains important as one of the most popular streaming audio server technologies, while Shoutcast.com remains one of the most comprehensive directories of internet radio stations. It would be regrettable to see a repeat of December 2013, when AOL announced that these services would close at the end of the year.

Stay tuned, as we await a statement of some kind from Radionomy.

The post Major Labels Sue Internet Radio Platform Radionomy for Copyright Infringement appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Thousands of internet radio stations have gone silent in 2016, while thousands more may yet shut down, primarily because of new performance royalty fees that have skyrocketed for small and mid-sized internet radio stations. In this piece I explore how this challenge might encourage some webcasters to give up complying with the law and simply stop paying royalties altogether. Will this make them a new–perhaps reluctant–class of radio pirate?

The History of Pirate Radio Is as Long as Radio Itself

The impulse to be a broadcaster is not a new one. Technically speaking, the very first broadcasters were pirates, because there was no license at the time. Ever since, there have been those who qualify to broadcast under the law and prevailing practice, and those who don’t, whether it’s a matter of economics, identity, politics or proclivity. And since broadcasting really isn’t that hard, there have continued to be radio pirates, who transmit because they can, not because they’re allowed.

There is a multitude of rationales for unlicensed broadcasting. Some broadcasters protest the way licenses are granted, while others deny the authority of the government to regulate the airwaves. Still others don’t give a hoot about the FCC–or never stopped to consider legality–and are simply interested in being on the air, and consider the risk to be no greater than taking illegal drugs or driving over the speed limit.

And so it remained from about 1926, when the Federal Radio Commission first tried to impose order upon the once-anarchic American electromagnetic spectrum, until the dawn of the new millennium. By that time two things had changed. First, the FCC created low-power FM, which provided a more accessible legalized path to broadcasting for many people and groups otherwise shut out, thereby addressing at least one raison d’être of many unlicensed broadcasters.

The other was the emergence of internet radio. While the first pioneering live webcasts started in the mid–90s, it was around the turn of the century that the ability to both broadcast online and receive those streams became more accessible. The open source Shoutcast streaming platform was released in 1998 and Live365 first offered its webcast services to just about anyone with an internet connection in 1999.

The Internet Alternative

While pirate radio never went away, that was the beginning of when many critics of pirate radio could make a convincing argument–especially to middle class pirates–that internet radio was a suitable alternative to unlicensed broadcasting. All the would-be broadcaster needed was a computer, an internet connection, and maybe another $15 to $20 a month for the streaming service, and she could have her own station. Even factoring in the cost of the PC and ISP, the total cost was way below that of starting a commercial station, buying an existing station, or even starting an LPFM.

Starting an online station wasn’t necessarily less costly than starting a small pirate station. But, the reasoning went, the difficulty of obtaining decent equipment (in 2000) combined with the inherent risk of engaging in an illegal activity made internet broadcasting the better option.

Sixteen years ago, before the invention of the smartphone and mobile broadband, many fewer people could hear your internet station than today. Yet, that audience could be worldwide, rather than bounded by a five or ten mile radius from your transmitter. Although at the time you might not have served less affluent listeners without a home computer or internet service, you also didn’t risk a visit from an FCC field agent.

That extremely low bar to entry combined with the growth and proliferation of internet access really did make internet radio a viable path for new broadcasters, many with fresh voices and perspectives. While the inevitable imposition of music royalties onto internet radio provided occasional speed bumps along the way, these were smoothed out enough to permit most broadcasters–from small one-person outfits to sophisticated outfits with dozens of DJs–to keep their streams alive and thriving.

From NYC’s East Village Radio to San Francisco’s Mutiny Radio, today there exist dozens of online stations that have explicitly migrated from unlicensed FM to internet radio. On top of that, there are countless stations that dipped their toes into the unlicensed airwaves, or just considered doing so, before settling on a webcast instead.

Alternative Denied

Now this alternative is threatened, and may be coming to an end. In its place we may have a new form of pirate radio: internet pirate radio.

With the lapsing of the Webcaster Settlement Act of 2009 and the passage of new, higher royalty rates for internet radio stations, many small to medium-sized webcasters are seeing their royalty payments go up by as much as ten times. Thousands of internet radio stations are facing the reality that they can no longer afford to keep streaming.

Actually, what I meant to write is that most small webcasters no longer can afford to keep streaming legally. There is nothing actually stopping them from keeping their stations going, and just not paying any royalties. You see, the collection of royalty rates is not so different from licensing terrestrial broadcasts. While there is a statutory obligation to get a license or pay royalties, there is no barrier in place that stops you from doing so without that license or payment. Just like a radio pirate can buy a transmitter and antenna and turn it on, the internet broadcaster can stream away and never send in a check.

Of course, every pirate has to keep looking over his shoulder. The terrestrial broadcaster has to worry about the FCC. Though, the FCC isn’t like a police force, roaming the streets and scanning the dials looking for unauthorized transmissions. So the threat to the terrestrial pirate comes from complaints to the FCC that eventually prompt an investigation–it’s not exactly a fast process.

On the internet there is no FCC or equivalent. No government agency is monitoring internet radio stations looking for those that haven’t paid their royalties. So, on the surface, pirate internet broadcasting seems even less risky than pirate radio.

However, the folks who collect royalties are on the lookout. In particular, the groups that collect songwriting royalties, like ASCAP and BMI, have been at this game long before internet radio came along, sniffing out bars, restaurants and radio stations that don’t pay royalties on the music they play. These groups are infamous for being pit bulls. And while they don’t have the authority of the federal government, they do have an army of lawyers who can make a violator’s life quite miserable. But, since these royalties haven’t changed, they should continue to be within reach of most existing webcasters.

SoundExchange is the new kid on the block, brought into existence to collect those performance royalties that went into effect in the digital age of the new millennium. Its ability to police non-payment is mostly untested, having only tangled in court with big broadcasters like SiriusXM. And it’s the performance royalties that are collected by SoundExchange that have gone through the roof–and that small and mid-sized webcasters now would love to avoid paying.

Birth of the Internet Radio Pirate

The question is: if an internet station simply quits sending checks to SoundExchange, what would happen? That station would probably start receiving sternly worded letters in the mail. But what if the station just ignored those letters? Then what?

Moreover, what about the new station, that’s never had a relationship with SoundExchange. How long until it gets found and the stern letters come in?

To be clear, this is a thought experiment. I really don’t know what would happen, and I’m not advising anyone to give this a try.

Still, let’s also consider that tactical evasion is also a time-honored technique of pirate radio. For the unlicensed terrestrial broadcaster this includes strategies like limiting publicity, keeping the studio and transmitter located separately, avoiding 24/7 broadcasts, or going mobile and changing broadcast locations.

For the internet broadcaster I’ve already heard talk of using a streaming host outside the US and then obscuring where the stream originates from. Or perhaps one could keep things on the down-low, and only publicize to a smallish circle of listeners. In many ways it’s probably easier to keep an internet station a secret than a terrestrial station, especially if one is savvy in the way the internet works.

The point behind this thought experiment is to show how American internet radio is built upon a kind of social contract. Internet broadcasters agree to pay royalties both because they understand the reasoning, and because those royalties are reasonable. But when one half of the bargain breaks, what’s left to keep the contract intact?

Will we have a new class of internet radio pirate that is actively avoiding payment of royalties rather than avoiding detection by the FCC? Is the American recording industry inadvertently encouraging a new breed of scofflaws, who will actively investigate and implement tactics for avoiding detection?

The problem with a cat and mouse game is that sometimes the cat wins. But at this very moment we don’t actually know what that looks like. Will SoundExchange start dragging mom-and-pop webcasters into court? Or will the Recording Industry Association of America decide to take up the mantle instead, effecting a repeat of the mid–2000s, when it chose to sue thousands of its own customers for file-sharing?

The big question: is it all worth it? Wouldn’t it be better for SoundExchange, recording artists and the recording industry to collect 2015-level royalties from thousands of small internet stations, rather than have to spend resources to chase down these new breed pirates, all while losing that revenue stream from the thousands of stations that chose to stay legal and shut down because they couldn’t afford to stay in business?

Furthermore, if the choice is between starting an internet station with the risk of being sued by the recording industry, or starting a terrestrial station and risk being detected and fined by the FCC, which is the better choice? With the internet alternative effectively denied, being an unlicensed broadcaster might look more attractive. I’m sure the FCC (and commercial broadcasters) would be happy about that.

Of course, one might argue that the best choice is just to give up hopes of being a broadcaster. That might be true, but is that the best for American culture and broadcasting?

What we see coming into effect is the law of unintended consequences. The final question is: who will suffer, and who will suffer most?

The post Will Performance Royalties Create a New Class of Radio Pirate? appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Internet radio expert Kurt Hanson declared January 31 to be Sunday Bloody Sunday for the medium. Most significantly, that was the day that Live365 turned off 5000-some internet radio streams it hosted for broadcasters large and small. The shutdown comes after several other internet stations announced their closure, and countless more quietly went away. The result is a vast reduction in the diversity of American Internet radio.

The big culprit for this great silencing is a new performance royalty rate that small and medium sized webcasters are obligated to pay for playing musis on their streams. Live365 was done in by the confluence of these new rates and a loss of significant investors.

These new rates officially went into effect January 1, and it’s taken some weeks for the reverberations to be felt, in part because they were only decided upon in mid-December. On episode 31 of our podcast we talked with Paul Merrell of StreamLicensing.com, which offers a service to webcasters to bundle their royalty payments into a monthly fee. Merrell said that his company is slowly raising rates for small broadcasters with the hope that a new reduced rate deal will be reached soon enough to provide relief.

But at the monent no such deal has happened, and there’s no indication that one is in the works. It is the case that rate reductions for small and mid-sized webcasters have generally come at the 13th hour–after new, prohibitively expensive rates have already gone into effect. However, with the loss of Live365 there’s never before been this kind of mass extinction of Internet radio stations.

There is some organizing happening with the goal of forging music royalty rates that will allow small and midsize webcasters to keep broadcasting in the US. The Future of Music Coalition put up a site called RadioDiversity.org to begin gathering people together for the effort. While FMC advocates on behalf of musicians and has supported higher royalty rates for the likes of Pandora and Spotify, the organization recognizes the value that small webcasters contribute by exposing listeners to a wide array of artists who don’t receive attention from iHeartRadio and other major station groups.

There are two petitions urging Congress to act on the issue: one at GoPettion with over 5500 signatures. I also understand that there is some organizing going on amongst some mid-sized webcasters, behind the scenes.

One of the complications with music royalties is that it is the domain of the Copyright Royalty Board to set rates, and those are now already set for the next five years. A change in those rates requires action of the CRB, or Congress has to authorize another party to negotiate those rates on behalf of musicians. In 2009 the Webcaster Settlement Act gave that authority to SoundExchange, the independent non-profit that, by law, collects royalty payments on behalf of musicians. However, it’s not clear that SoundExchange can independently pursue revised rates without that nod, although the CRB could possibly authorize such an agreement made by SoundExchange.

So, nothing much has changed since January 1. Situation normal—all f’d up.

Small and medium-size webcasters are still in a holding pattern. They face the decision to bet on the hope that a new lower rate will be negotiated soon and keep broadcasting, or deciding to hedge that bet by shutting down until and unless new rates come to fruition. Internet radio listeners face the real possibility that there continues to be a slow and steady die-off of stations as the year progresses.

This threatens to be a real blow to internet radio diversity, and a tremendous blow to American radio as a whole.

The post Independent Internet Radio Still Imperiled appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Live365 is one of the oldest streaming radio service providers, having provided online broadcast tools to countless webcasters, small and large, since July 1999. Early on the service made it comparatively easy for just about anyone to start her own internet radio station, and remained a popular option. It’s sad to learn, then, that Live365 is shutting down at the end of January.

In an email sent to current Live365 broadcasters on January 15, the company wrote,

“We are sad that we are closing our doors at the end of this month. There are always possibilities that we can come back in one form or another, but at this point in time, January 31, 2016 is the last day that Live365’s streaming servers and website will be maintained and supported.”

The email cites as causes the dual pressures that Matthew reported at the beginning of the year: the loss of key long-time investors and the expiration of the Webcaster Settlement Act of 2009. The latter factor greatly increases the music performance royalties that Live365 paid on behalf of many client broadcasters who qualified for lower rates based on the WSA (larger broadcasters had the option to pay royalties directly to SoundExchange). Learn more about the scale of this increase in our earlier coverage and on our podcast.

The loss of Live365 is tremendous blow to the diversity of internet radio that was supported by thousands of niche broadcasters, often running their stations more as hobbies than businesses. While the company has made arrangements with other services for customers to migrate to, it’s likely that a large percentage of the small broadcasters on Live365’s stable of approximately 5,000 stations will not have the resources to keep broadcasting come February 1. That’s both because of the new royalty rates and because Live365 offered very reasonably priced options that allowed so-called “personal broadcasters” with small audiences to start streaming for under $100 a year.

Even if a new settlement is reached for small internet broadcasters to pay rates closer to 2015 levels, the closure of Live365 means a corner has been turned for American internet radio. It may be some time until becoming an internet radio broadcaster in the United States is again quite as accessible as it was with Live365.

The post Live365 to Broadcasters: We’re Shutting Down Jan. 31 appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Last week, the D.C. Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals affirmed (see the full decision here) the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB)’s decision regarding the establishment of webcasting royalty rates, rejecting an appeal by college radio organization, the Intercollegiate Broadcasting System (IBS). These webcasting royalties are paid to musical performers who appear on the sound recordings played by any US radio station on its internet stream. In the decision, Chief Judge Garland writes,

Intercollegiate Broadcasting System, Inc., appeals a determination by the Copyright Royalty Board setting royalty rates for webcasting. Three years ago, we vacated and remanded the Board’s prior determination on this subject, concluding that its members had been appointed in violation of the Constitution’s Appointments Clause. Thereafter, the Librarian of Congress appointed a new Board, which made the determination at issue here. Intercollegiate contends that the new Board’s determination again violated the Appointments Clause because it was tainted by the previous Board’s decision. The appellant also disputes the merits of the Board’s determination. For the reasons set forth below, we reject both challenges.”

In effect the IBS argued that because the previous incarnation of CRB was not properly constituted, any of its decisions required essentially a full and thorough re-review, including new hearings, in order to be constitutional. Instead, the new CRB had only done a review of the case before deciding to uphold the prior decision. However, the Court found that review to be adequate, therefore also upholding the board’s decision leaving the fees in place.

On Radio Survivor we’ve been covering the ins and outs of webcasting royalty rates. Back in December, 2010, the Copyright Royalty Board released its Initial Determination of Rates and Terms for the period 2011-2015 (these terms were finalized in 2011). Within those terms were rates for student broadcasters based on a settlement agreement made between another college radio organization, College Broadcasters Inc. (CBI) and SoundExchange (the third-party group that collects and distributes royalties to artists and copyright holders). Although both CBI and IBS work to advocate for college radio stations, the groups have different perspectives on webcasting rates. IBS expressed concerns about those rates and ultimately submitted a series of appeals.

In addition to IBS’ arguments about the procedures related to the appointment of the Copyright Royalty Board, the group also protested the rates set by the Board (a minimum flat fee for webcasting royalties of $500 a year), arguing that many college radio stations have tiny budgets and cannot afford that high a rate. According to the decision, IBS proposed lower rates for student broadcasters, specifically asking for “…two new categories of noncommercial webcasters: ‘small’ noncommercial webcasters (defined as noncommercial webcasters with usage up to 15,914 ATH [aggregate tuning hours] per month) and ‘very small’ noncommercial webcasters (defined as noncommercial webcasters with usage up to 6,365 ATH per month).”

Additionally, the U.S. Court of Appeals decision cites CBI’s agreement with SoundExchange as evidence that student broadcasters can afford the $500 a year rate. It also argues that SoundExchange’s own administrative fees are more than this minimum rate:

By contrast, the Board found affirmative evidence that noncommercial webcasters were indeed both ‘able and willing to pay the proposed fees.’ The most persuasive such evidence — as well as support for a $500 minimum fee as the amount that willing buyers and sellers would negotiate — was that College Broadcasters, an organization representing noncommercial educational broadcasters, had already reached a voluntary agreement with SoundExchange (the nonprofit entity that collects statutory royalties and distributes them to the copyright holders) that included the same fee.

…Finally, the Board also relied on testimony from SoundExchange’s chief operating officer, who testified that its average annual administrative cost per station or channel was approximately $825.”

This decision serves as a reminder that webcasters are required to pay the existing royalty rates. As Paul and I discussed in this week’s Radio Survivor Podcast, there has been some conflicting information about whether or not IBS stations needed to continue paying annual fees to SoundExchange while the case was being decided. It should now be clear that fees are required for all stations. In the meantime, College Broadcasters Inc. (CBI), has been operating under its existing agreement (in place until the end of 2015) and also penned a new settlement with SoundExchange last year, setting webcasting royalty rates and reporting requirements for its student broadcasters beginning in 2016.

It’s important for all webcasters to not only be aware of webcasting fees and regulations, but to also monitor any proposed changes on the horizon in order to plan for annual expenses and also to ensure compliance. In the early days of the Internet, it was a bit of the wild west and there was the perception that it was essentially free to run an online radio station. However, that’s not the case and anyone running an online radio station needs to be clear about responsibilities related to licensing fees. For more details, see SoundExchange’s website for a breakdown of the different fee structures for various types of webcasters.

The post U.S. Court of Appeals Rejects IBS’ Challenges to Copyright Royalty Board Webcasting Rates appeared first on Radio Survivor.

College Broadcasters Inc. (CBI) has announced that it has reached a settlement with SoundExchange in regards to the fees paid by student webcasters. According to a press release from CBI, this tentative settlement will “freeze royalty payments for the next five years. It would also continue to allow student webcasters to continue to file proxy reports in lieu of detailed data due to the nature of their operations and the size of the online audiences.”

The agreement still needs to be approved by the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB). It will update CBI’s previous agreement with SoundExchange, which is in place through 2015. In the new agreement, more student stations will be able to cut down on paperwork by filing proxy reports since “…the threshold for being able to report via proxy has risen from 55,000 total listening hours per month via the Internet to 80,000 total listening hours,” according to CBI President Greg Weston.

The post College Broadcasters Inc. Reaches Settlement with SoundExchange Regarding Fees for Student Webcasters appeared first on Radio Survivor.

“The Office will use the information it gathers to report to Congress,” the Notice says, which is doing its own review. The LOC posts 24 questions to the public, four of which appear under the title “Revenues and Investment.” Here they are:

“18. How have developments in the music marketplace affected the income of songwriters, composers, and recording artists?
19. Are revenues attributable to the performance and sale of music fairly divided between creators and distributors of musical works and sound recordings?
20. In what ways are investment decisions by creators, music publishers, and record labels, including the investment in the development of new projects and talent, impacted by music licensing issues?
21. How do licensing concerns impact the ability to invest in new distribution models?”

I think the above quartet of questions encompass just about every copyright brouhaha I’ve posted on over the past decade. Here’s betting that broadcasters will have plenty to say about question 19; Pandora will speak to question 21; labels and musicians will massively chime in on questions 18 and 19; and a slew of music sharing developers will give question 20 a poke.

You can weigh in on these matters yourself. Here’s the comment submission form. Feedback is due by May 16, 2014.

The post Copyright Office asks cold hard cash questions in music inquiry appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Fighting off as-yet-undiagnosed intermittent internet issues I still managed to watch a good portion of several Monday sessions from the Future of Music Summit in Washington, DC. While I cannot report substantially on any one session, I can give my overall impressions of the day.

It seems like there were three major recurring themes:
1. Terrestrial radio should pay performance royalties
2. There is not enough transparency is what and how artists are paid
3. Things always come back to Spotify

Indeed, there seemed to be something darn close to unanimity on #1. I didn’t even hear broadcast attorney and Broadcast Law blogger David Oxenford raise any serious objection to the idea (though, it’s possible I missed it when my stream buffered).

That agreement even reaches to the federal government. During the morning presentation on “Federal Agencies and Copyright,” Shira Perlmutter from the Patent and Trademark Office and Jacqueline Charlesworth from the Copyright Office discussed a “green paper” from the Department of Commerce Internet Policy Task Force (PDF). In that paper the task force unequivocally supports requiring AM and FM broadcasters to pay for the right to air sound recordings.

There’s nothing new with #2, and, of course, that remains a problem that gets only more complex in the digital world. There was, however, spirited debate about who is responsible and what to do about this lack of transparency. Some folks blame record labels, while others blame the streaming services for failing to give enough information in their reports. Plenty were willing to blame both parties.

But there did seem to be agreement that efforts to sidestep the organizations that collect and distribute royalties to artists–like ASCAP and SoundExchange–threaten to be steps backward for transparency. Such efforts include [the deals Clear Channel has struck with record labels](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/13/business/media/clear-channel-warner-music-deal-rewrites-the-rules-on-royalties.html) in which the broadcaster agrees to pay royalties for music played on its terrestrial stations in exchange for lower rates for its online iHeartRadio streams.

One solution to promote transparency proposed by music industry veteran Jim Griffin is that every recorded song should have a globally unique identifier so that it can be accurately tracked. You see, just minor differences in spelling and even punctuation in song and album titles can lead to fits when rights organizations are correlating information of sales and plays. The hope is that having a single ID for each track would cut down on this sort of problem, leading to more accuracy in artist payments.

Finally, it seemed like every conversation that dealt even a little bit with royalty payments and artist income always veered back to Spotify. On this there was nothing close to any sort of unanimous opinion, though the discussion and debate was respectful. While people’s opinions are heartfelt–it does deal directly with artists’ livelihoods–panelists and audience members made reasoned arguments.

I heard the most spirited discussion during the day’s final panel on “Making Sense of New Platforms for Music.” David Macias, president of music marketing and distribution company Thirty Tiger, spoke in support of Spotify, noting some of the points he raised in a Billboard Op-Ed he authored back in July. In particular, he said that Spotify pays rights holders 70% of income generated from subscriptions and advertisements, which is the same that iTunes pays. He said that streaming services have been “a plus for artists, a plus for consumers.”

Emily Smith of the Whitesmith Entertainment talent management firm reflected that when she uses a streaming service like Spotify, “Isn’t it cool that Merge (records) and Arcade Fire will get paid every time I listen to their new single over and over again?”

Spotify is based in Sweden. As a result Macias said that the company makes up a bigger portion of the music business in that country–serving 15% of the population–and generates 70% of all prerecorded music revenues. However, at the same time some Swedish artists are threatening to sue Universal and Warner Music over the royalties they are receiving from Spotify play. While the artists are not threatening Spotify directly (yet), the net benefit for artists is still unclear even in Spotify’s home country.

Some audience members were less sanguine about Spotify, with one person saying that his statements from the company don’t give him all the information that he would like. Another person questioned the accuracy of Macias’ payment stats.

White responded that “if you’re not seeing the money you think you should get, go yell at your label.”

Watching the summit from the other side of the country I wished I could join the evening’s social events so that I might listen in to some of the passionate exchanges that will erupt after a few drinks. I look forward to what I may learn from Tuesday’s sessions, including an appearance by FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel.

The post Radio should pay & no consensus on Spotify: Impressions from day 1 of the Future of Music Summit appeared first on Radio Survivor.

By now everybody knows that Pandora has prevailed, at least for the moment, in its legal effort to win the right to stream all content from the ASCAP repertory. The Southern District of New York has ruled that efforts to limit what Pandora can play violated a consent decree between the online streamer and the rights holder organization. Various music publishers, including EMI and Sony, had pulled “new media” content rights in a bid to negotiate directly with online services. Pandora argued that ASCAP shouldn’t allow this and has won.

Meanwhile I am scratching my head as I make my way through ASCAP’s cavernous definitions of “new media transmissions” and “new media services,” which were evidently the categories that music publishers attached to Pandora in their bid to limit its access to ASCAP content. You can drive a digital truck through this text. And are Pandora et al., really “new media” services anymore?

Here is the “new media” language. Gird thy loins and read:

First, ASCAP defines a “new media transmission” as “a digital audio transmission that, in addition to requiring a public performance license, also requires the Music User to comply with the license requirements of 17 U.S.C. §114, §115 and/or §106(1).” Don’t be intimidated by the statute numbers. We’re talking about exclusive rights definitions, compulsory licensing, and similar rules. Nothing shocking so far.

But second, “new media” can also mean:

(ii) a digital transmission of a music video or a user-uploaded video (i.e., a video uploaded to the Service by the end-user) that, in addition to requiring a public performance license, also requires that the Music User, in order to offer the music video or user-uploaded video on or via the Service, obtain a license directly from the owner or administrator of the rights in the musical composition(s) embodied therein for rights other than the right of public performance (e.g., synchronization or mechanical rights); or

(iii) a digital transmission made from a digital music file either (a) uploaded by an end-user to the server and/or (b) matched from a file on the end-user’s computer or device to a digital music file on the Service’s server (such server, in either case, often referred to as either the “cloud” or a “locker”).

The aforementioned is probably referencing YouTube and/or SoundCloud and similar venues. Third:

A “New Media Service” shall mean any standalone offering by a “Music User” (including, without limitation, by any “On-line Music User”) by which a New Media Transmission of musical compositions is made available or accessible (i) exclusively by means of the Internet, a wireless mobile telecommunications network, and/or a computer network and (ii) to the public, whether or not, in exchange for a subscription fee, other fee or charge; and whether or not such offering includes exposure to advertisements before, during and/or after the transmission of such compositions.

The “subscription fee” mention presumably activates Pandora’s incorporation into this definition. BUT, fourth:

The term “New Media Service” shall specifically exclude transmissions made by any “Broadcaster” . . . who is transmitting Works in ASCAP’s repertory . . . both (x) by means of the Internet, a wireless mobile telecommunications network, and/or a computer network, and (y) over the air, or via cable television or direct broadcast satellite, or via other existing or yet-to-be developed transmission technologies to audiences using radios, television sets, computers, or other receiving or playing devices.

So if you are doing radio via the Internet AND via AM/FM you are cool. It is only if you are streaming solely via the ‘Net that you suddenly become “new media.” This would explain some of Pandora’s interest in the acquisition of “Hits 102.7 FM” in Rapid City, South Dakota, and ASCAP’s bid to stop the purchase.

This all strikes me as a whole lot of artifice. New media? Pandora is more than a dozen years old. YouTube is looking at a decade in 2015. Obviously ASCAP sees it differently, and is doubling down for the big Southern District Court showdown on rates scheduled for early December.

“ASCAP looks forward to the December 4th trial,” a statement proclaims, “where ASCAP will demonstrate the true value of songwriters’ and composers’ performance rights, a value that Pandora’s music streaming competitors have recognized by negotiating rather than litigating with creators of music.”

The post ASCAP/Pandora war notes: is online radio really still “new media”? appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Last week I had a conversation about radio and musicians with Casey Rae, Executive Director of the Future of Music Coalition. He told me “Commercial radio has made it difficult for artists to have access to the airwaves, no matter how talented. Radio is still a big resource. This is why the musician community rallied around LPFM, they knew instinctively that the local was important.”

We were talking about FMC’s upcoming Future of Music Summit. Happening October 28 and 29 in Washington, DC, this will be the group’s 12th such event. Rae was telling me why broadcasters, listeners and radio enthusiasts should be concerned about the future of music and interested in the Summit.

At the Summit Rae said “We have a lot to talk about on the LPFM side, it represents 10 years of effort.” Prometheus Radio Project will be there for the second day of the event which Rae said “is about sustainable local cultural communities, (and) radio is part of this.”

“Radio can do something internet can’t,” he continued, “it’s live and local. With the introduction of potentially thousands more local (LPFM) stations, we’ll take time to reflect on what that victory means. It’s an exciting conversation to have.”

Beyond just LPFM, Rae notes that “noncommercial radio is playing a huge curatorial role,” so NPR will be at the Summit as well.

A big issue on the minds of both musicians and broadcasters is the question of performance royalties. Rae said the issue of artist compensation will receive a lot of consideration at the Summit.

Terrestrial radio has been statutorily exempt from performance royalties in the US; radio in the rest of the world is not. But US internet and satellite broadcasters do have to pay performers and labels for the recordings that are played. Musicians, especially those who are independent or recording for smaller labels, would benefit from the additional income stream. At the same time broadcasters are understandably wary of new costs.

Bills have been introduced to Congress to extend these obligations to terrestrial radio, while Clear Channel has gone out on its own to strike payment deals with major labels for its broadcast stations in order to get better rates for its online streams. Yet, these deals have so far left out independent artists and labels.

Rae said, “The question is parity, who should pay how much and under what conditions. This may look like a marketplace scuffle, but musicians are huge stakeholders.”

“The good news is,” Rae told me, “if there were a terrestrial performance right enacted we would be working with our friends in the noncommercial community to make sure legislation were not punitive, and that royalties would be scaled.” He said “The whole point is that it would be something that would serve and support the music community, to get (back on the air) the array of voices missing in radio the last decade.”

The rules that govern royalties and compensation are in copyright law. So Summit attendees will hear a keynote address from Jacqueline C. Charlesworth Appointed General Counsel and Associate Register of Copyrights.

At the Summit “(w)e put the focus squarely on musicians and songwriters,” Rae said. "Getting played on the radio is the coolest thing in the universe.

“Musicians are not a monolithic group. They have a range of perspectives on what is meaningful compensation and what a good digital marketplace looks like. We include independent labels and people from broadcast to talk about these issues.”

Ultimately, Rae said “The core idea is to get together people who represent any aspect of the music industry and have conversations about where the industry is heading.” Happening “in the shadow of DC policy making,” he promises the Summit will be “different than your typical industry conference.”

Registration for the Future of Music Summit is open now. For musicians who might like to attend there’s a limited number of $20 scholarships, along with student discounts. Those who are unable to make it to DC in October will be able to watch a live webcast.

The post The future of music and radio to be discussed at the Future of Music Summit appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Why, you may be wondering, did Pandora buy “Hits 102.7 FM” in Rapid City, South Dakota? Just out of curiosity, I checked the station’s website. Here’s the bio for Hits 102.7 deejay Christy Russell:

“Hey it’s Mike talking about Christy

Afternoons on HITS 102.7! I have waited for about a year for Christy to put in her bio for the DJ page. Somehow she kept ignoring my requests. There have been times I believe she said, ‘I don’t care, why don’t you just put something in there’ Big mistake so here we go.

There are no current pictures of Christy. I had to get an old publicity photo of her I had to buy on e-bay. Christy and I worked together when we both lived in Kansas City. Because of that, she only agreed to work at Hits if she was in the afternoon and I was in the mornings and there’s some sort of clause that says I can’t be in the studio while she’s in the building blah blah blah. . . . “

Obviously Pandora didn’t purchase the signal for its corporate family spirit.  Royalty concerns prompted the sale. Pandora is in a big fight with ASCAP; in an op-ed published in The Hill, Pandora general counsel Christopher Harrison charges that the rightsholder is:

“(a) discriminating in license fees and terms between Pandora and other similarly situated licensees such as Clear Channel’s iHeartRadio; (b) failing to provide required transparency in identifying songs ASCAP claims it can license to Pandora; and (c) creating a scheme by which member-publishers can withdraw their catalogs from ASCAP’s license for Pandora but allow them to remain for everyone else, including competitors like iHeartRadio.”

Some kind of new legal action is on the way. In the meantime Pandora thinks that if it owns a terrestrial signal, it can qualify for some rates made available to broadcasters under the terms of a deal between the Radio Licensing Marketing Committee (RMLC) and ASCAP and BMI.

In the more immediate meantime, Pandora will actually have to manage Hits 102.7 FM. “We will apply Pandora’s insights about listening habits to program music that accurately reflects local listeners’ evolving tastes,” Harrison’s post concludes.

Lots of luck with that. Christy’s bio continues:

“Since she didn’t give me anything to put down for her bio I can only imagine what she might said. Like, ‘Mike Swafford is an amazing individual. I feel very fortunate to have known him during my lifetime. He has contributed to the success of my life in every way imaginable. He is responsible for the great job I have done raising my sons with his excellent parenting advice. He has given me words of wisdom that have gotten me through troubled times. And he changed the spark plugs in my car once.’ I’m sure she would have gone on and on but this is a little embarrassing for me.”

The post Hey Pandora: good luck with Rapid City “Hits 102.7” FM appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Back in August, SoundExchange, the non-profit that distributes performance royalties to artists who have received digital airplay, issued a remarkable announcement. Over 50,000 artists and bands had yet to claim their royalty checks, the outfit noted. To clear the books, SoundExchange created a searchable database of groups that it thinks still haven’t registered to get paid.

“This list also includes more than $31 million in royalties that are three or more years old,” noted the press release.

Just for kicks, I typed “radio” into the database, and out came no less than 77 groups with the term in their band or group name. These include “Radio Moscow,” “Kill Radio,” “Danger Radio,” “Black Market Radio,” “Detroit Mutant Radio,” “Hank Penny & His Radio Cowboys,” “Memphis Radio Kings,” “Radioclit,” “The Primitive Radio Gods,” “The Radio Angels,” the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra.

This is about copyright, so it is complicated, of course. In some instances one or more members of these bands have registered with SoundExchange, but not all of them have, so not everybody has gotten what they’re owed.

What’s crucial is that, according to the announcement, today [Monday, October 15] might be the last day to register with SoundExchange and claim royalties that are over three years due:

“Register by Oct. 15 as you may risk losing any royalties collected three (3) or more years ago by SoundExchange.

SoundExchange is authorized by law to release older unclaimed royalties to offset our costs and distribute proportionally to those we already pay. We have repeatedly held off on doing this, but we need your help to spread the word and get recording artists and record labels to register.”

So heads up, Radio Sweethearts, Radio Taxi, Radio Birdman, Radiolites, Static Radio NJ, Radioradio, Radio Malanga, All Day Radio, All Night Radio, and Crash Radio, it’s now or possibly never. If you haven’t already, get thee to SoundExchange and register. Hopefully operators are standing by. If you’ve done something about this announcement, give us a holler below to tell us how it went.

The post Where are you Kill Radio? Almost 80 radio themed bands may still be owed royalties appeared first on Radio Survivor.

This is certainly an indicator of strong growth for internet radio and streaming services. Music royalties agency SoundExchange announced Tuesday that it ended the year collecting $292 million in royalty payments, up 17% from 2010. These royalties are paid by internet, satellite and cable TV music-only services for the right to play sound recordings, and are distributed to the owners of the sound recording rights. The payments are based upon listener hours, which means a service pays more royalties when more listeners are tuned in. Terrestrial radio is excepted from these royalties by statute, though all broadcasters are obligated to pay songwriting royalties via agencies like ASCAP and BMI.

SoundExchange also reports that 15,300 new artists, labels and rights holders were registered last year, and therefore became eligible to receive royalty payments.

I am definitely of two minds with regard to these payments, often known as “mechanical” royalties. On the one hand, I think it is only fair for musicians to be paid when services base their income on playing recorded music. But on the other hand, there are many non-commercial services that do not turn a profit, and for whom these payments can be burden. Furthermore, it is reasonable to question how much money individual artists see from these collections, since the major record companies arguably own the majority of mechanicals rights.

Even the for-profit services like SiriusXM satellite radio and Pandora have been protesting. They say that the SoundExchange fees are too high and that the terrestrial radio exemption is unfair. Last fall SiriusXM made waves by reaching out to the major labels to negotiate individual contracts that would bypass SoundExchange, in the hope of reducing its rates. Such a move is legal because SoundExchange is the default statutory collection agency for those who don’t have other agreements with rights holders. The catch with bypassing SoundExchange is that you end up with a lot of individual contracts to hammer out. The risk for artists with such arrangements is that those who own the rights to their recordings might have difficulty collecting their due royalties.

In any event, this rise in royalty payments are a strong sign that more listeners are turning to online radio and music streaming services, in addition to the more established satellite and cable providers.

The post Internet, satellite and cable music royalty payments up 17% in 2011 appeared first on Radio Survivor.

I am reading Representative Lamar Smith’s (R-TX) proposed Stop Online Piracy Act, and it scares the heck out of me. Like the oft-criticized Protect IP Act making its way through the Senate, the House bill is ostensibly designed to stop pirate content sites by allowing the U.S. Attorney General to get a court order forcing a DNS redirect and denying them financial services (credit card access; PayPal; advertising).

But after my initial reading, Smith’s law seems much, much worse. Full of vague language, it appears tailor-made to allow big content to bully legit music sharing sites and force them to curtail their activities.

Consider these provisions. Smith’s legislation defines a site as “dedicated to theft of U.S. property” if “it is taking, or has taken, deliberate actions to avoid confirming a high probability of the use of the U.S.-directed site to carry out acts that constitute a violation” of U.S. copyright laws.

“High probability”? What the bleep does that mean?? So if a content company’s lawyer decides that your music site is relying too much on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s safe harbor provisions, is your host and your credit card company going to get a knock on the door?

Basically SOPA proposes that a complainant just has to post a notice to an ISP or financial services company that includes an explanation of “the specific facts to support the claim that the Internet site, or portion thereof, is dedicated to theft of U.S. property and to clearly show that immediate and irreparable injury, loss, or damage will result to the holder of the intellectual property right harmed by the activities described.”

As with the DMCA, the site in question can appeal this claim via a counter-notification, but:

Any provider of a notification or counter notification who knowingly materially misrepresents under this section—(A) that a site is an Internet site dedicated to the theft of U.S. property, or (B) that such site does not meet the criteria of an Internet site dedicated to the theft of U.S. property, shall be liable for damages, including costs and attorneys’ fees, incurred by the person injured by such misrepresentation as a result of the misrepresentation.

And even if an effective counter-notification is made, the law lets plaintiffs file personal lawsuits against the site or the site’s host. This all seems like a way to end run the DMCA’s protections for music sites against censorious copyright slapsuits, especially with that “high probability” clause tacked on.

Never mind the big guys, like Google, that understandably hate these provisions. Where does this leave sites like Mixter or Jamendo or Turntable.fm, not to mention file and blog filled college and community radio sites?

Is Congress really going to pass this law? Very worrisome.

The post Stop Online Piracy Act: an online music sharing killer? appeared first on Radio Survivor.

Catch up on stories you might have missed from the past week in radio.

Dirty Money

Talk radio’s biggest names are paid millions of dollars to “use a script, outline or set of talking points,” according to a new report. The Heritage Foundation pays roughly $2m for Rush Limbaugh and $1.3 for Sean Hannity. Glenn Beck has an endorsement deal with FreedomWorks and Mark Levin is sponsored by Americans For Prosperity. One leader of a conservative grassroots group decided buying endorsements from talk radio hosts was both too expensive and ethically suspect. “I wish more of the grassroots knew the reality,” the unnamed source told Politico, that “these guys were getting paid seven figures a year to say this stuff.”

Photo by dbking, from WikiMedia Commons

According to Politico, some talk radio sponsorships include “embedded ads.” No doubt weaving specific initiatives, fundraising pleas, even guest spots for officials from the highest bidding groups into program content has certainly paid dividends. Last year Limbaugh and Hannity brought in over 40,000 new Heritage memberships starting at the $25 level and 50,000 people signed up for FreedomWorks email in the first three months of their Beck contract.

Michael Hood of BlatherWatch thinks loyal dittoheads “deserved to be suckered” but he’s mostly worried about these messages leaving the echo chamber and polluting the mainstream. “There’s nothing illegal about this, unfortunately,” he writes. “Old broadcast ethics have been flushed ignominiously down the golden executive toilets of these values-thumping whores.”

…The company with a mandated monopoly on so-called HD broadcasting is now offering cash prizes to stations that begin using HD2 and HD3 multicast channels in advertising clients’ on-air campaigns. RBR reports that iBiquity is hoping to push an increase in HD radio marketing with their new incentive program. They will reportedly hand out a few thousand bucks in September.

…Radio Bilingue announced June 15th that they must suspend LA Public Media, citing CPB Digital funding cuts. Launched to provide innovative new public media for Latinos, African-Americans and Asian-Americans, the program was not sustainable without ongoing support from CPB. However, that appropriation was recently slashed by Congress. …The most popular media company among members of Congress and their spouses is Walt Disney Co, which counts 30 members among its investors, according to a new report from the Center for Responsive Politics. Comcast is next in line with 22 Congressional stakeholders. No outlet aimed at underrepresented Americans made the list of 19 different news organizations or media conglomerates favored by elected representatives.

Sounds Illegal

Photo from Broward Sheriff's Office

The Broward County Sheriff’s Office and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) agents raided the home of a Pompano Beach man, confiscating a transmitter, mixer, laptop and portable air conditioner. The Sun-Sentinel of Ft. Lauderdale reported Friday that Mercius Dorvilus was arrested and charged with a third degree felony for operating an unlicensed Haitian radio station on 92.7 FM. …Meanwhile a radio host in Atlanta concluded a tirade on his talk show Tuesday with some haunting instructions for his listeners. Get a gun and learn how to use it, he insisted, because “we need more dead thugs.” Neal Boortz, also known as Mighty Whitey, spews nationally-syndicated racism to an estimated 19m listeners per week. God Bless America.

…A pair of New Jersey shock jocks who manipulated a nude photo of themselves taken by a freelance photographer and then posted it without crediting him, find themselves in front of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. According to The Hollywood Reporter, photographer Peter Murphy’s lawsuit against the WKXW jocks could change copyright law.

…On Thursday the Senate Judiciary Committee passed the Commercial Felony Streaming Act on a voice vote, just one month after it was introduced. That is fast action for the US Senate, on any subject. As CommLawBlog noted Friday, the bill would impose felonies on some unauthorized streaming of copyrighted content. Streaming 10 or more performances within a period of 180 days in pursuit of profit could result in up to 5 years in prison. A range of creative unions support the measure which is intended to reclassify streaming as no different than downloading.

Venture Hype

Pandora went public to plenty of press nationwide. Meanwhile the local Bay Area press hyped the music discovery service’s impact on the economic development in Oakland. TechDirt’s Mike Masnick asked why no one else seemed to be talking about misleading reports regarding Pandora’s profitability.

…While Spotify declined to comment on their latest $100m boost, the popular European service is expected to launch in the US by the end of the summer. The Future of Music Coalition broke down Spotify’s significance against the cloud music backdrop:

Spotify offers a fully interactive experience where users can have complete control over the entire Spotify catalog: Listeners can play, pause, rewind, and create/share playlists from the millions of songs Spotify offers. And, these features are available to any user, regardless of the music s/he currently “owns.” The European version of Spotify is “tiered,” with free listening (there are some limitiations and audio ads), as well as commercial-free, unlimited and mobile access for a monthly fee.

But even if this service gets huge in America, will it amount to a meaningful revenue stream for musicians?

Numero promotional image

…The announcement of iTunes Match excited many music fans earlier this month, but the independent soul label Numero Group has announced it will opt out of the service. Label co-owner Ken Shipley blogged about feeling insulted by Apple. Contacted by Ars Technica, co-owner Rob Sevier said iTunes Match is “brilliant” from the consumer point of view, “but as a user of copyrights, it’s flawed.” He is concerned the service will effectively legitimize piracy.

…New York Times technology columnist David Pogue blogged Thursday that he finds the term “in the cloud” pretentious and annoying, but his greater concern is about data limits:

All of these mega-trends consume enormous amounts of bandwidth. All of that uploading and downloading, all of that syncing, all of that cloud computing assumes you have a fast, capacious pipe to the Internet. But your cellphone company doesn’t want you to have a fast, capacious pipe. There’s not a single cellphone carrier anymore that offers an unlimited data plan at full speed. T-Mobile gives you unlimited data, but if you exceed a certain threshold, your connection is automatically slowed down. And a few lucky AT&T iPhone owners still have unlimited plans, grandfathered in from the olden days — but I’ll bet you that’ll go away, too.

O.K., that’s cellphones. You can understand the cellphone carriers’ point of view. All of these iPhones and Android phones use enormous amounts of wireless cellular capacity, and it was slowing down the pipes for everyone. Caps are necessary, they can argue, or else the whole network will grind to a halt.

But that’s not the worst mega-trend. The worst is caps on home data plans. That’s right: Time Warner, Comcast and other broadband providers are putting limits on how much data you get every month, even at home.

And that, my friends, is one crazy scary development.

Wonky Advocacy

The members of Kentucky-based pop group My Morning Jacket have added their names to the growing list of artists who vocally support public media and network neutrality. They sent a strong letter to the Kentucky delegation in Congress, which included this great line: “It is our belief that funding public broadcasting and maintaining open Internet access are two essential components in nourishing the vital music scene in the state of Kentucky.”

My Morning Jacket promotional image

…Two of my favorite radio blogs posted geeky analyses of an increasingly common engineering tactic. Arcade Radio Trivia is against feeding HD to FM translators. Broadcast Law Blog warns that building and operating an FM translator to retransmit an HD2 signal may not be as easy as it seems.

…And the biggest news for policy advocates from the past week was the release of the FCC’s report on The Information Needs of Communities. Policy analyst and public media champion Jessica Clark called the report strong on diagnosis but weak on prescription. According to Current, the report directly cites advocacy by the Association of Independents in Radio. Clark also blogged about what independent producers can learn from the report for MQ2.

Educational Band

The New York Times followed up its WRVU coverage with a legitimate question for students. Where do you find music? …College Radio Day is in the works for October, although it is still unclear what it will accomplish other than establishing a brand identity like Record Store Day. …A fire at Trinity College knocked WRTC off the air and offline, though reports were cursory.

…The Community-mindedness and free-form aesthetic of WRVU Nashville maybe didn’t add up to a viable broadcast service, Current reported on their blog Wednesday. While this particular post featured the most pro-college radio quotes I’ve seen on Current all year, the premise of the ‘balanced’ coverage still rings false. The value of student media goes far beyond everyday listenership or Arbitron ratings. As Josh Stearns of Free Press waxed nostalgically at this year’s Media Reform Conference, so many people working for democracy and justice today have a background in college radio. Classical music fans should think twice before celebrating student license takeovers.

Radio Summer panelists, photo by Dave Id

…Prometheus kicked off LPFM outreach efforts with the first Radio Summer event, featuring Vanessa Maria Graber, Todd Urick, Tracy Rosenberg and Susan Galleymore. Now you can watch the entire 90-minute long video shot at the San Francisco Public Library or listen to a 30-minute audio version edited for broadcast on KDVS.

Changing Workforce

According to the Pittsburgh News-Tribune, 20 staffers at WDUQ Pittsburgh have received termination notices, effective June 30th. 100 hours of jazz is being cut to 6. It is unclear if the revamped station will be hiring.(*) …A cost-cutting study at BBC Radio asked interesting questions about possible staff reductions, but will likely be shunned. …Despite all sorts of changes, the Crimson Tide Sports Network still does a booming business carrying Alabama football games each season on more than 60 affiliate stations. But other formats are closing in on the radio side of the operation.

…And lastly, this week marks the end of a long relationship between Nic Harcourt and KCRW Santa Monica. After KCRW announced the widely-respected DJ would be leaving the station after 12 years to take a job with MTV, Harcourt took to the LA Times on Friday to insist he was “disappointed to be misrepresented” by his former station. He will soon launch a new radio show on KCSN, based at Cal State Northridge.

*UPDATED: According to a press release sent June 23, 2011, Essential Public Media has hired 14 staffers for WDUQ in Pittsburgh.

The post The Past Week In Radio appeared first on Radio Survivor.

If it’s possible to have a crush on a radio station, then I have a crush on WFMU. The eclectic, freeform non-commercial New Jersey community radio station was an innovator in online streaming, offering on-demand show archives years before the word podcast was ever coined. In 2007 the station initiated the Free Music Archive as a curated library of audio and music available for free download and use.

On Thursday WFMU announced that the FMA has received a major grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Jason Sigal, managing director of the Free Music Archive, says

We’ve come a long way since our beta-launch last April, but we have even bigger goals for this project. I’m honored that the MacArthur Foundation shares in our vision. This is good news for everyone who likes free music, especially for artists with music to share, curators in need of an online platform, and producers in search of quality audio for their creative projects.

What’s most unique and interesting about the FMA is that it’s not a music-sharing site, nor is it an open archive like Archive.org. The curated aspect of it is important, with the artists and musicians featured being asked to contribute by an array of curators, such as radio stations WFMU and KEXP, record labels ESP-Disk and other cultural institutions. The idea isn’t to create a comprehensive archive so much as an archive of interesting and compelling music that is not just free to download, but also pre-cleared for reuse, typically under a Creative Commons license.

Back in July 2008 when the FMA was just getting off the ground I interviewed WFMU station manager Ken Freedman about the project and its goals. You can listen to the interview at the mediageek radioshow website.

The post WFMU's Free Music Archive Receives MacArthur Grant appeared first on Radio Survivor.

As we’ve reported, National Public Radio has been filing comments with the Federal Communications Commission a lot these days, talking up its localism initiative, Android app, and new mobile site. NPR’s latest commentary to the FCC on its National Broadband Plan reiterates all these points. But here’s the paragraph in the filing that got our attention:

“Rights: Copyright laws, especially those relating to music, have become highly complex and confusing, causing significant difficulties for public media entities striving to expand and improve their public service offerings to a growing audience on multiple platforms. While it is widely recognized and accepted that content creators have undeniable rights, attention must be given to the use of content for public service by public media entities. In a general sense and for purposes of simplification, Congress needs to consider the creation of a common public media waiver enabling the use of music regardless of distribution platform.”

Doubtless you’re wondering what this “common public media waiver” would look like, detail-wise. Sorry folks. That’s all NPR has to say about the matter in this document. But it’s no surprise that NPR might have some issues here. As the service points out, radio listeners download NPR podcasts over 15 million times each month and its new mobile device site gets 4.5 million views a week. So we’re talking about a shifting array of royalty challenges on every conceivable platform—terrestrial, Internet, and mobile. That can’t be much fun.

Then there’s some vague language suggesting that NPR would like to spend more of its Corporation for Public Broadcasting money on web based initiatives, at least that’s one way to read it:

“Any effort to increase funding for public media must include a re-examination of and
changes to the outdated methods currently used for distribution of federal funds. While maintaining scrupulous adherence to transparency and accountability, and while maintaining funding support for existing stations serving their communities, flexibility must be provided to use public funds for deeper, expanded and more responsive local and regional information needs. Exploration and adoption of digital, web-based content creation and distribution assets, for example, are essential components of a public media construct that meets the needs of today’s America.”

The post NPR calls for Congress to create "common public media waiver" appeared first on Radio Survivor.