Web Radio Negotiations Carry Poison Pill

Adambomb writes "It seems that the deal that saved Net radio at the 11th hour, the new terms that would limit the maximum fee for multiple-channel Web radio broadcasts, contains a hook. To qualify for the cap, broadcasters must work to ensure that stream-ripping is not feasible. Given that the analog hole will always exist as far as I can imagine in such scenarios, is this even possible?" The article mentions the measures Net stations could easily take but have been reluctant to — lowering bit rates, playing jingles over the music, cross-fading songs. How long before they are backed into using these techniques?

What the.... fuck... was this?

[Sneakernets (1026296)]

Impossible. Nothing was saved. As long as microphones and Full duplex cards exist, and a headphone jack, you cannot...

Why is my nose bleeding?

Re:

[bmgoau (801508)]

In other news: Several defendants in cases against piracy, bought to the courts by the RIAA, have mysteriously disappeared, died of cancer, heart attacks and car crashes. Amazingly all of their families have donated their entire estates to a charity setup to support artists forced into poverty by the growing piracy epidemic.

Re:What the.... fuck... was this?

[AKAImBatman (238306)]

I don't think that the analog hole is the real concern. The question that everyone should be asking is: How many pirates get their music from web radio? Does anyone even bother trying to record web radio?

It seems to me that the RIAA members are stuck back in the 1980's when everyone used their tape decks to record music over the airwaves. We're not there anymore. Most people care enough about the audio quality that they'll either purchase the song from iTunes (more convenient, less hassle!) or download a copy from P2P that someone else has already pirated. And I can tell you that the "someone else" probably didn't use net radio as a master. He probably went out and purchased a single CD, ripped it, and (if he was enough of a jerk) returned it to the store as defective.

The RIAA and its members need to get their heads out of their rears and get with modern times. Dollars to donuts says that any study on the piracy of net radio would find it to be nearly non-existent. Their worries amount to nothing more than chicken little crying "The sky is falling, the sky is falling!" If by some miraculous event the studies showed that people were stream ripping, then maybe it would be a good time to embrace services like iTunes to their fullest extent?

Offering the product that people want at a price the market will bear is the best thing that any music company can do. The people who would spend the time engaging in stream ripping or P2P piracy aren't going to pay for the music anyway, so you gain very little by spending your time trying to stop them. Having DJs talk over music has never stopped freeloaders in the past, so I don't see why it would stop them now.

Simple...

[sterno (16320)]

Q: How many pirates get their music from web radio?
A: ZERO
Does anyone even bother trying to record web radio?
A: No

Hello RIAA. See that bag there. It has no cats in it. It will never have cats in it again. Get over it.

Italian Radio

[Bios_Hakr (68586)]

When I lived in Italy, I noticed the DJs always talked over the first and last 20 seconds of every song. A friend told me it was so that people don't record the music.

It's kind of annoying, but understandable. The RIAA wants to use MTV and radio as an advertisement for CDs and DVDs. The artists want to use the CDs and DVDs as an advertisement for live performances. The radio stations want to use music as a filler between their own advertisements.

In the end, everyone makes money.

Re:

[thegnu (557446)]

The RIAA wants to use MTV and radio as an advertisement for CDs and DVDs
Yes, but they charge for every play, then pocket the money. They're full of it, and treat consumers and artists (their suppliers) like shit. The reason why MTV and VH1 don't play music videos anymore is because the RIAA decided that music videos were no longer valuable as promotion (WHAT!!!?), and so they started charging per play. So MTV examined their books, and said fuck it, we're running Real World.

And it's been that way ever sin

[/blockquote]

[thegnu (557446)]

[/blockquote]
[/blockquote][/blockquote][/blockquote]
errrm....
[/blockquote]

Re:Italian Radio

[value_added (719364)]

When I lived in Italy, I noticed the DJs always talked over the first and last 20 seconds of every song. A friend told me it was so that people don't record the music.

That's been going on since the 60's that I remember, and probably longer. It has everything to do with the DJ's sense of self-importance (making a living delivering monologues will do that to you), and the station's need to interject commercial sponsor or promotional messages wherever and whenever possible. Any musical intro to a song would invite a voice over. The tail end of a song, if not cut off altogether would similarly be talked over.

There was a brief respite during the 70s when people started buying LP albums (singles were dismissed), migrated to FM, and drugs became popular. On a given night, it wasn't unusual to hear the entire side of an LP album being played without interruption of any kind.

Things changed over time, of course. Drugs fell out of use, the "album version" was replaced by the single, and the need to make money became paramount. Some stations even resorted to increasing the speed at which songs played. Today, commercial radio is like AM radio was way back when (lots of commercials, interruptions, self-promotion, and a limited but rotating playlist) and AM radio turned into .. well, that's another subject. I'm surprised to see that people still listen to commercial radio of any kind.

Re:

[jellomizer (103300)]

But that is always the natural progression. As people get older they get sick of listening to the new crap and get CDs of their old favorate songs of yesteryear which they use to hear on the radio when listening to the Radio was cool....

Already done?

[jgiam (971425)]

Sky.fm and Smoothjazz.com are already doing crossfading. Plus they crossfade jingles into the end of a track, so if you try to stream-rip, the jingle gets saved too. I can't speak for the other Internet Radio stations.

Re:

[steveo777 (183629)]

It's actually pretty easy to get rid of the crossfading.
1. Grab some nice sound editing software (probably just steal it, you know, because you're a pirate).
2. Record tracks and split them up so that you catch the crossfades at both the beginning and end.
3. Once you have two versions of the same song, with different crossfades, use your new software to find and extract only the waves with "double strength". And subtract half of that from your actual songs until all you have is the add, or another song.
4. N

Payola killed the radio star

[vivaoporto (1064484)]

lowering bit rates, playing jingles over the music, cross-fading songs. How long before they are backed into using these techniques?

That can be really annoying. I remember listening to over the air radio in Brasil, in the middle nineties. FM radios were beginning to consolidate, and to cave into the pressure of the Majors, they began with this annoying habit to cut the music, crossfade into the other, to play the station jingle over three times over the song right over the catchy chorus. The list goes on and on.

Today, it is impossible to listen to radio there, not because of all these problems, but because payola there is rampant, and if you are lucky, you get to listen the same 50 songs over and over and over again. Once I recorded 24 hours of radio programming, and I was able to identify a group of 8 songs (I can remember the exact number) that played at least 4 times that particular day, and one that played every 2 hours. That was a special spot on the programming called "the song of the week", played every two hours, every day, for 7 days. The other radios had a similar sport, with variations in the name ("the best of the week, the hit of the week"). It is a mafia, and it is not exclusive on U.S.

Payola killed the radio star, and the internet will kill the payola star. Well, at least one man can dream.

Re:

[Carewolf (581105)]

Danish Radio P3 has a "song of the week" too, called "the unavoidable of the week", but that's is usually new upcomming music noone has heard off, and completely outside what the mafiaa is pushing. This creates hits for new independent artists all the time. So the concept isn't necessarily bad.

Re:Payola killed the radio star

[Xiaran (836924)]

My radio station of choice is triplej in Australia. They have an album of the week rather than a song... and it tend to be new music(either that or the new album of a known artist). DJs will play any track off the album and there will be interviews and discussion of the music, history of the band etc.

JJJ is a favourite of mine too

[Nazlfrag (1035012)]

Listen live [abc.net.au] or browse the archives [abc.net.au].

The geeks will love Dr. Karl [abc.net.au] and the other science shows, like his recent call-in show with Sir Roger Penrose and Dr Kip Thorne (links to mp3) [abc.net.au].

Re:

[KDR_11k (778916)]

50? That sounds like way more than the stations here seem to play, they got maybe one hour worth of music that they shuffle and reshuffle all day while making horribly bad jokes and retarded lottery games. It's hell to work in a job where coworkers want to have the radio running for the whole time (not an office job though, mostly manual labor). Pop songs have way too mcuh repetition in them if you listen to them only once (they loop the chorus at least ten times after the verses are over, just to hammer it

Re:

[jollyreaper (513215)]

[quote]That can be really annoying. I remember listening to over the air radio in Brasil, in the middle nineties. FM radios were beginning to consolidate, and to cave into the pressure of the Majors, they began with this annoying habit to cut the music, crossfade into the other, to play the station jingle over three times over the song right over the catchy chorus. The list goes on and on.[/quote]

Wow, that completely sucks. It's like the broadcast stations these days always squishing the credits and playing

Analog hole and stream ripping

[kill-1 (36256)]

I'd say that making an analog recording isn't stream ripping. I think stream really means the digital bit stream, so no problem here.

Digital hole

[Joce640k (829181)]

All the sound cards I own have an option to record "what you hear".

If you can hear it you can record it digitally.

Even without this there's SP-DIF connectors, etc., no analog conversion needed.

It's all moot though. So long as the RIAA sells CDs in shops then all music will have perfect copies available on P2P, no matter how much DRM they put into the online versions (sorry to break it to you, but your emperor's naked!)

Re:

[morgan_greywolf (835522)]

All the sound cards I own have an option to record "what you hear".

Even with the sound hardware integrated onto many motherboards these days with the regular VIA, etc., 5.1 audio chipsets, the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture pretty much allows you to capture anything the sound card is putting out. So if it can be played on Linux, it can be captured on Linux.

Makes me wonder if they'll preclude open source platforms from listening to Internet radio streams.

Re:

[rtb61 (674572)]

The reality is there is very little stream ripping going on. Who really would bother, listen to an hour of music to rip three minutes, when it is so easy to get it else where and most often from a friend who already has the music your after.

You listen to web radio basically when you couldn't be bothered turning on a regular radio or you want to listen to a range of music that is no available via regular radio and mots importantly you are really interested in listen to any specific music your just after a

Re:

[joto (134244)]

However, if you're just listening to the stream, you might as well back it up to your hard drive, and then if you hear something you like, you can pluck it out later with some audio program.

Or more easily, you could get download the playlist of the show, and search for the songs in your favourite file-sharing program. What the radio-stations really need to keep secret from us pirates, is the names of the songs they are playing.

Granted most web radio is pretty bad quality

Exactly.

I think it would be n

But WHY?

[aliquis (678370)]

How many do rip music streams? Really? I have listened to lots of di.fm and similair back in the days when I was to lazy to download new MP3s but I have never ripped any stream. I know one guy who did but he only burned the whole mix to a CD-R to play in his car anyway, so it was just a sort of delayed playback.

What's the problem here? The money lost must be so very small.

Same with radio station nowadays, do they really need this kind of system longer? How many people care about casette tapes and record from radio?

They need to understand that we just download our illegal music file by file at even higher quality instead of ripping streams ;D, this is a non-issue.

Re:

[IamTheRealMike (537420)]

It's a convenience thing. Recording stuff to cassette then separating it out to get more or less what you would have bought on CD is/was a pain in the ass and took a lot of time. Stream-ripping might be theoretically equivalent but it's a lot easier - click a few buttons, go to work, come back and you have a ton of MP3s more or less identical to what you could have bought. Yes I know people wouldn't actually buy every track they hear on the radio, but even if you assume the average person might buy 1 in 100

Re:

[drspliff (652992)]

One of the main radio stations I listen to in the UK has a no-pirating policy:

• Everything's streamed at 96kbps which is good enough quality to listen to.
• There are no track names on the stream like other radio stations (this would be very tedious to do anyway, because it's all mixed live from vinyl)
• If a record hasn't been released yet, the DJ's obliged to talk all over it or (after a few beers) try and sing along to stop people ripping it.
• The DJs randomly talk over it anyway.

Re:

[Tony Hoyle (11698)]

In the UK even using a VCR is technically a copyright violation - we never updated our laws to cope with the 20th century (and we have no hope with the 21st).

Of course no court in the land would prosecute someone for recording a TV programme, so the law is widely ignored, creating a worse situation since nobody gives a crap about it.

Re:But WHY?

[CastrTroy (595695)]

Crossfading and jingles is not harmless to the listener. It destroys the music. If it was harmless, then it wouldn't deter people from streamripping. How would you like it if you were watching a movie, and they decided to play some jingle instead of the dialog from the final scene? I can't remember which country it was (Finland?) but I hear they weren't allowed to play commercials or cut scenes from movies when they were played on TV, because it ruined the artistic integrity, and it's not the way the movie was meant to be seen. Although much music and movies today is lacking in artistic integrity, it's still wrong to cut up and play something over someone else's song.

Re:But WHY?

[Lumpy (12016)]

I do. I rip a NPR stream, specifically the car talk and prairie home companion on saturdays to listen to in my car during the week on my commute. No I do not see the reasoning behind buying it in a form that is not playable on my mp3 player (I dont use the ipod in the company car, I use an iRiver) ignoring the fact that I already paid for the show anyways with my taxes and generous donations to my local NPR station.

So I use an automatic stream rip to time shift. I know of guys that time shift "Bob and Tom" radio show because they travel 240 miles a day for work and cant stand having to tune in a different station every 60 minutes.

My world has lots of people that stream rip.

Crossfading songs?!?

[jbarr (2233)]

Cool! Now, I can hear music just like the DJ's played it back in the 70's!

Seriously though, while crossfading makes separating songs pretty much impossible, that presentation style was so distinctive. It really is a lost art, because it took real finesse for DJ's to get it sounding right with vinyl.

Re:Crossfading songs?!?

[by Anonymous Coward]

I'm a DJ at a local radio station, we're on both online streams, and the AM band. My co-host and I _always_ cross-fade one song into the other. We don't like delays, and we hate that second of dead air between songs. It took me a while to get the hang of it, and it really is an art. It takes timing, skill, precision, and an ear for music, being off by so much as a tenth o a second completely ruins the transition. It takes planning, we don't just take a a bunch of songs out at random and cue them in succession. Some tracks just don't transition well into others. It even allows us (or allows me, anyway) to broaden and diversify our sets by getting away with playing tracks that, stylistically, are outside the confines of our designated programming. Hell, last week, I pulled off a seamless transition from Black Tape for a Blue Girl to oldschool Enslaved, just to prove that point. I'd never have gotten away with it without cross-fading.

We pride ourselves on being able to pull off transitions so seamless at times, our listeners have actually had to check our online playlists to tell when we go from one track to the next. I think it shows that we really love what we do. It makes putting together a 3-6 hour show more fun for us, as it isn't simply cuing music, as much as it is an actual performance. and we'd like to think it makes the show more fun and entertaining for the listeners. Our feedback suggests that our listeners do indeed appreciate the extra effort.

Neither of us have ever really had the thought of how this may complicate the process of ripping streams cross our minds. Frankly, I don't see a point, nor do I care much.

It's not as if you can't find the bulk of what we play (unless it's a promo direct from the record label, or some obscure live recording sent to us from the band, or some of our own original material) on BitTorrent or SoulSeek. You have the artist and title, all you need is bloody 30 seconds to run a search, and given a decent connection, two minutes to download the song.

Re:Crossfading songs?!?

[megabyte405 (608258)]

I think you're confusing skilled crossfading (probably with beatmatching, which is generally appreciated) with automatic, "train-wreck" crossfading, where a computer (or a person) simply starts playing one track before the previous one ends, fading between them. That effectively "ruins" the beginning and end of a track, whereas what you're describing adds value to (at least the live) listening experience.

Re:Crossfading songs?!?

[cosinezero (833532)]

"It really is a lost art, because it took real finesse for DJ's to get it sounding right with vinyl."

-->It's not a lost art at all; djs in clubs do it every night, with much greater technical skill. Many match beats, some even match key, others even use various tricks with the mixer to provide greater range of blending options.

Really, the art is not dead; in fact, it's come a long, long way.

No matter, it still beats normal radio

[Opportunist (166417)]

Even if they cut songs, talk into them and play some annoying jingle, compared to standard radio it's still gold. How often can you listen to the same crappy song before the urge to shoot the box is overwhelming? Currently, I measure my work hours in "umbrellas" (ya know that audio pollution called a song, right?). When I've heard it 8 times, my day is over, my 8 hours are done.

Does anyone really "record" off internet radio? Sit there for 12 hours like we used to in the pre-internet times in hopes that "your" song comes up and you can hit record? Oh, of course you can today just use software to do that, but still, simply sucking it from some P2P is easier.

Not to mention a "hole" that is more important than the audio hole. It's just like in real estate: Location, location, location. What keeps me from tuning into a station from Genericstan that doesn't care about the mafiaa?

Get your terms straight

[suv4x4 (956391)]

Stream-ripping isn't analog recording. Stream-ripping becomes unfeasible with DRM (well unless the hack is trivially accessible and not pursued or fixed... which is never the case).

So the analog hole doesn't mean anything. They want to prevent direct digital ripping of the music on the station.

Sword of Damocles

[magus_melchior (262681)]

I'm convinced that all this (rate hike, denied appeals, last-minute "change of heart") was orchestrated expressly to get every web broadcaster into a deal that favors the recording industry. It's disgusting, in a "Lex Luthor teasing Superman with kryptonite" sort of way.

Crossfading?

[MMC Monster (602931)]

I actually like cross fading of music. Am I really in the minority about that? Given the number of music players that have the option, I can't believe that I am.

My Story

[Zo0ok (209803)]

I used to listen to music quite much. I bought everything on CD. My iPod made me listen to my music more, and I bought more and more music. After a while they started putting copy-protection on CDs. Around that time I more or less stopped buying music - not as a statement... but I was annoyed and I didnt really find so much interesting music either.

A few days ago I tried www.live365.com, which I havnt used in years. It is great! If it remains open I believe I will subscribe to it (to get CD-quality no-ad radio, that I can play in my HIFI-system at home). I also think I will start buying CDs with those artists I discover at live365. Really. No promises, no threats. I just think live365 may help me find CDs to buy. If they close it I doubt I will discover those artists.

Seems like an OK compromise--wait don't shoot!!

[u-bend (1095729)]

You know, I don't *like* it, and yes, I'd like to be able to rip a stream so that I can store the file and listen to it later to decide if I want to buy it, but it seems to me that the only onus on the radio stations under this "catch" is to stay vaguely abreast of those who are breaking their systems. Apple did this, quietly mending their DRM when it was broken to keep the RIAA off their back. When it comes down to it, if the RIAA and record companies are so lame that they feel they need these types of nominal assurances (and there's *always* going to be a way to get around them), then, well, I don't like it, but I'd much rather not say goodbye to Pandora and Last.fm, where I've been exposed to most of the great music I've *legally bought* in the last couple of years. On a slightly related note, I hope that Apple, with the digital distribution leverage that it has, is able to prove with its DRM-free tracks, that the old model doesn't work, but that may be too much to ask from the RIAA.

This wont work

[jonwil (467024)]

All that will happen is that people will continue to do what they do now, that is, when they hear something on the radio (internet or otherwise) they will either buy the song/CD or they will go to and download it.

Why not give customers what they want?

[dpbsmith (263124)]

What happened to the wave of business books a few years back about the importance of putting the customer first, and showing that the companies that just concentrated on satisfying the customer--actually, I think "delighting, not just satisfying" was one of the phrases--consistently outperformed the companies that engaged in all the clever-clever manipulation and chiseling and trickery?

If people want to record the stream, let 'em.

They've been doing it for decades, folks. I remember a guy in college whose nickname was "tapes" because he had a huge collection of tapes of popular music recorded off the air. At 1-7/8 ips on open-reel tapes on an analog tape recorder, which dates me and the period.

People always have been able to do stuff like that.

And it never amounts to a hill of beans, in terms of hurting artists or recording companies or whatever, because it's just too much work organizing the recordings and editing the stream to find the starting and stopping points and labelling the tape boxes. And, these days, either accepting handwritten scribbled labels or futzing some more looking for cover art or pictures of the artist or editing CD labels or formatting LightScribe text.

And it tends to be a lifecycle thing. You do that when you're in college and short on cash. People who are willing to put that much work into it are also people who are deeply committed to listening to music and sooner or later most of them get a job and a salary and suddenly they no longer have six hours to edit and organize recording but they do have a credit card and money to buy CDs or iTunes downloads or whatever.

It's like worrying about the possibility that someone could pay for one newspaper but take two out of the vending box. Does it ever happen? Sure. Does it make it worth building a complicated, more expensive vending box? Obviously not, and the newspaper folks obviously understand the tradeoff.

If the music companies just focussed on pleasing the customer, they'd do a lot better than they're doing now. It almost seems as if they're more concerned about the sheer abstract principle of the thing ("but they're robbing me!") than about dollars and cents. They're certainly not showing any concern for their customers.

Re:

[Don_dumb (927108)]

As another person has pointed out, all national and local (there are alot of stations) BBC radio is simultaneously streamed online, along with many radio shows to listen to whenever. All in streaming formats, so there is (at least here in the UK) definitely some radio worth tuning in for.
But it is usually just easier to use one of these [wikipedia.org].

Re:Ummmm...

[jrumney (197329)]

But it is usually just easier to use one of these.

Actually, I use one of these [bbc.co.uk]. Same form factor and user interface, but with the global choice of stations that internet radio has over standard AM/FM broadcast. There are some very good Jazz stations with good bitrates in Switzerland and France that I listen to a lot, AFAIK there is nothing of the sort locally since Jazz FM became Smooth FM.

Re:Ummmm...

[jabuzz (182671)]

Thing is that in the UK they are f*&ked when it comes to stream ripping. Any sane person stream rips either the Freeview (digital terrestrial TV with absolutely no DRM) version if available (has higher bitrates) or the DAB version. You do end up with an MP2, but it is a perfect digital copy and free of any DRM.

If you want music, you can just stream rip the Freeview music channels, the hits, TMF, and E4 (weekend morning only for E4). Full of music videos but here is the deal while the video itself is not suitable for stream ripping, as it is overlayed with channel graphics and other stuff, the audio is and you get a nice DMR free 192kbps MP2 file with no fades when you demux it from the video. It is dead easy to cookie cutter out the tracks if you are so enclined.

It would take at least a decade to force out the existing DRM free TV and radio.

Re:

[Tony Hoyle (11698)]

Probably longer than that. It's based on the european DVB standards (which is partly why the boxes are so cheap) and encrypting the channels has been ruled out - to the point that very few of the boxes produced since the ondigital debacle several years ago even have CAM slots.

To encrypt a music channel you'd have to force 70 million people to buy new freeview decoders (by 2012 everyone will have at least one as the analogue signal will start disappearing). Not gonna happen.

Not only that...

[N Monkey (313423)]

Thing is that in the UK they are f*&ked when it comes to stream ripping. Any sane person stream rips either the Freeview (digital terrestrial TV with absolutely no DRM) version if available (has higher bitrates) or the DAB version.

Not only that, but some DAB radios (e.g. http://www.pure-digital.com/Products/Product.asp?P roduct=VL-60767 [pure-digital.com]) already come with an SD card slot so you can record the transmission. (It apparently also has a USB connector but I don't know if that can be used to transfer music.)

Re:

[Tatarize (682683)]

No. Just close the audio hole. Total audio saturation, even at the analog level.

Re:

[DaveCar (189300)]

Try an AACPlus stream at 24Kbps. Yes, you read that right: 24.

Something like one of the channels at di.fm.

For the kind of listening I do with the radio (casual, background stuff) the quality is really quite incredible.

If you use Linux the FAAD GStreamer plugin decodes it.

Re:

[danpsmith (922127)]

We have P2P, usenet, friends, and even clever use of google to find illegal music ripped straight from CD. Does the record industry seriously believe thayt stream ripping is seriously affecting their sales?

No, that's just what they say they believe. People have been recording FM for years. The truth of the matter is that the RIAA doesn't like online radio because online radio isn't controllable via payola whereas terrestrial radio is. They'd rather bankrupt it than lose their stranglehold on all mass me

Re:Why would anyone stream-rip?

[init100 (915886)]

One difference is that the RIAA can lurk on filesharing networks, sending you an invoice if they see your IP address, but there is no way that they can know if the radio stream is saved to the harddrive when a user listens to a webcast. It is thus completely safe from a legal standpoint.

Re:

[Spy der Mann (805235)]

Sir, I'm sorry to inform you that you have broken the law according to the DMCA. Our lawyers will contact you soon.
 
:( Really. Do you remember the case of the guy who spoke about the shift-key [slashdot.org]?