Gaydar Radio Foiled in UK?

[desslock]

Hey does anyone listen to Gaydar Radio? I haven't in about a month, and tried today. There was this message when I attempted to connect:

Due to a change in United Kingdom licensing laws all Internet radio stations
now have to pay to broadcast outside the UK. This effectively means that GaydarRadio will either have to stop broiadcasting outside the UK or charge a subscription fee. We have decided to enter the subscription route rather than cut the station off to out loyal audiences outside the UK.

Sounds to me like the 1920s-era tax and regulation system in Britain, organized to fund Auntie is interfereing with a new technology with a global reach.

Steve

[collegeboyslive]

eww that sucks I used to like gaydar. you can always spoof an ip address

[Lee]

It actually isnt anything to do with needing a license to broadcast a radio station, its actually all to do with needing a license to broadcast music over the airwaves.

Specifically, the song writers licensing fees which, oddly enough () a lot of these web radio stations werent paying in the UK and, a whole lot more arent paying in the USA at the present time either.. They cost a lot of money!

To give you some idea of what it costs to legally license a song for broadcast, right now, in the UK costs somewhere between $50 and $350 to legally broadcast music, for every song broadcast, in the US, the last time i checked, it cost about the same.

In essence, most of these online radio stations are breaking copyright laws by playing tunes that havent been licensed.

Does kind of make you wonder though, if someone is willing to broadcast copyrighted materials over the web so far as 'music' goes, what else are they stealing the rights too?

In my eyes, broadcasting music without having a license, is no different than if i were to go to one of your websites, download every single image and movie you have on them and start offering that same content on one of my sites.. Theft is theft, no matter how you try to gloss it over.

Regards,

Lee

[robin]

Hey does anyone listen to Gaydar Radio? I haven't in about a month, and tried today. There was this message when I attempted to connect:

Due to a change in United Kingdom licensing laws all Internet radio stations
now have to pay to broadcast outside the UK. This effectively means that GaydarRadio will either have to stop broiadcasting outside the UK or charge a subscription fee. We have decided to enter the subscription route rather than cut the station off to out loyal audiences outside the UK.

Sounds to me like the 1920s-era tax and regulation system in Britain, organized to fund Auntie is interfereing with a new technology with a global reach.

Steve

That sucks -- I occassionally listen to it when I'm feeling the need for some music while I work.

[desslock]

It actually isnt anything to do with needing a license to broadcast a radio station, its actually all to do with needing a license to broadcast music over the airwaves.

Does kind of make you wonder though, if someone is willing to broadcast copyrighted materials over the web so far as 'music' goes, what else are they stealing the rights too?

In my eyes, broadcasting music without having a license, is no different

Well I have no problem paying royalties either - but unfortunately if the RIAA had their way we would live in a world purely of large platter phonograph records, and movie theaters as only legal places to show films.

Steve

[JustBryce]

The fees for internet only broadcasting aren't nearly that high anymore.

You take your site revenue and multiply it by 0.0185. Whatever number you come up with you then add $288.00

So if you made $1 Million per year. Your fee would be just over $1500.00 per month and you could stream any song licensed by ASCAP..which is most all of them.

The new fees were enacted in January of 2005 for what they call the ASCAP Experimental License Agreement for Internet Sites & Services.

[desslock]

I just received Podcasting Hacks from O'Reilly, and they say in hack #68 that - at that time - obtaining a license for performer rights from the RIAA was impossible because their terms limited it to "streaming media" and nothing else.

Buying a license from ASCAP for performer rights was spelled out and looks pretty easy.

Anyone know if the RIAA has updated their licensing for podcasts?

Steve

[desslock]

... on the subject of the music industry battling with innovation....

Music Industry Sues XM Over Replay Device
Wall Street Journal May 17, 2006

A new music-industry lawsuit against XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. has brought to a boil a simmering debate over satellite-radio devices that blur the distinction between listening to a song and owning it.

The battle revolves around a new XM device called the Inno, a portable satellite radio made by Pioneer Corp. that allows purchasers to store individual songs that they hear on XM and fashion them into playlists, much like an iPod. Using the Inno, a listener hearing a song he wants to keep can simply punch a button and record it -- and the track will be captured from the beginning of the song. The Inno user can then arrange the songs on the unit's memory any way he likes.

The advent of such devices has irked the recording industry, which believes that they allow users to capture music they hear on the radio and treat it as if they owned it. To stop that, members of the Recording Industry Association of America filed suit in federal court in the Southern District of New York yesterday, charging XM with copyright infringement; unauthorized digital delivery; reproduction infringement; and unfair competition. The RIAA is also seeking damages that include $150,000 for each infringement -- in other words, every time a song was recorded. With the suit, the music industry is signaling that there are limits to how much it is willing to tolerate devices that record music from the radio, particularly when it comes to the device's ability to sort songs.

The suit underscores how technology creates new problems for copyright holders, who are trying to fight off widespread music piracy, even as it creates new business opportunities. The outcome of the case could affect how storage works on future digital radio sets or emerging distribution services.

The issue stems from the type of payment, known as performance rights fees, that XM pays the music industry for the right to broadcast songs. Those fees are much lower than the payments the industry would get if XM cut a deal to sell the songs. XM has contended the stored songs aren't true sales, in part because they stay on the radio only as long as the owner remains a subscriber to XM, and can't be moved, say onto a computer or another music device.

Meanwhile, legislation known as the "Perform Act" is making its way through the House and the Senate. The backers aim to curb the recording abilities of satellite radios and want higher fees for the music industry.

[oceania]

it gets pretty confussing
BMI, RIAA
fact is the internet
(thanks to porn)
has grown so fast
that those tunnel vision companies cant keep up

therefore confusing and vague laws