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?

Re:Ummmm...

[mlk]

I do. Last.fm is great for my musical needs, and BBC Radio 4 & 7 for comedy.

Italian Radio

[Bios_Hakr]

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.

Payola killed the radio star

[vivaoporto]

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.

Crossfading songs?!?

[jbarr]

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.

No matter, it still beats normal radio

[Opportunist]

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?

Re:But WHY?

[IamTheRealMike]

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 songs they hear on the radio, with streamripping that's still lost sales because they have no incentive to do it.

Do people streamrip? Well, most stations I listen to (and I listen to net radio a lot) have text on their website saying "don't do that" so I assume it's not entirely obscure.

I suspect this will be quite easy to fix though, without DRM. Cross-fading/jingles are all simple solutions because they are fairly harmless for an actual listener, but if somebody wants to stick that track on their iPod or whatever it'll [a] be annoying for them and [b] be obvious to all their friends that they record their music off the radio, which is lame.

Re:Ummmm...

[jrumney]

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.

Digital hole

[Joce640k]

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:Ummmm...

[mybadluck22]

I used to listen to di.fm quite a bit, and it was pretty cool. I was just getting into electronic music, but it was difficult to find stuff I liked, since no radio stations here (Los Angeles) play it consistantly (Granted, a few shows at night do, but you're looking at either listening to that or nothing, and you are only even given that option between a few hours on a few days.) so the net radio was perfect for me. I found it through iTunes' Radio listing, so I never was taken to the di.fm site anyway (I have since gone on my own, but that's not the point). I wound up ripping the stream for a few weeks, and after eliminating the duplicates and such, it was a nice addition to my music library, not to mention pointed me in the right direction. The stream was only 96 kbps, but that's still not unlistenable. Anyway, the point is, now I know what I like, and if any of the artists I found were performing, I'd see them. Unfortunately, many of the artists are European, so the point is moot. Oh well. Oh, and last.fm is cool for stuff like that, too, but I didn't learn about it until much later.

Sword of Damocles

[magus_melchior]

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.

Re:But WHY?

[drspliff]

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.
• 
   
• Most of the DJs are producers too, and will happily give you a preview copy if you ask nicely enough (or if you DJ professionally or semi-professionally).
• 
   
• All the shows are archived at 128kbit or higher mp3 anyway.

Oh, and nobody plays mafia^WRIAA music unless it's part of a mashup, in which case it's the least of their problems.

In such a niche area like this, there's hardly any piracy; the problems only start when you're playing music "owned" by large corporations or copyright federations, which I think is very damaging to the music industry.

Re:Italian Radio

[thegnu]

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 since.

The artists want to use the CDs and DVDs as an advertisement for live performances.

Some of the artists care about making music, too.

The radio stations want to use music as a filler between their own advertisements.

That's why I don't listen to the radio.

I'm sure I'm not alone in this, but I don't watch MTV because they don't have music videos, and if a radio station talks over a goddamn song, it's OVER. So thank you, RIAA.

PS: Oh, and RIAA? I know I may be the minority, but when Napster was around, and you guys hadn't enlightened me to the fact that you're total assholes, I purchased an average of 1 CD a week. Because of music downloads.

Streaming Radio

[verybadradio]

I've run my own radio station (a popular one at that) from my home for about 3 years. I stream at 80kbps. I've nobody complain about quality and I havent heard a single word from anyone about legality. The only thing I ever hear about my radio station is a stream of emails from indie bands who want air time OR people requesting playlists (to download I presume).

Crossfading?

[MMC Monster]

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.

Independent distribution network

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe that any restrictions from the RIAA can only pertain to music owned by its members. I'd love this to result in online sources providing a separate and competing channel for distribution of music not controlled by the RIAA.

The RIAA's power currently stems from one real source. They control the major channels for the marketing and distribution of music. In the past, control of recording studios and equipment has also been a big deal, but with the decreasing costs of recording equipment and improving technology, that has become less of a factor. These two factors have resulted in their ability to own most of the music that many people want to listen to.

If the online music sources were pushed away from music that was controlled by the RIAA, it could push them into providing an alternate distribution network, completely beyond the RIAA's control.

Re:Ummmm...

[jabuzz]

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:Crossfading songs?!?

[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.

My Story

[Zo0ok]

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.

Re:But WHY?

[Tony Hoyle]

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:Ummmm...

[Tony Hoyle]

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.

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

[u-bend]

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.

Re:But WHY?

[Lumpy]

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.

Re:Why would anyone stream-rip?

[init100]

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:Set record source to "Stereo Mix"

[Spy der Mann]

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]?

Re:But WHY?

[CastrTroy]

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:Payola killed the radio star

[jollyreaper]

[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 crap over them. Some shows like Babylon 5 sometimes did funny things over the credits and you completely lost that with the squish-overs. Broadcast radio drove me away years ago because I couldn't get good new music. Hell, I couldn't even get good old music. It's been ten years since I listened to the classic rock station around here and I can still identify all 150 songs they play from the first three notes. Ugh! There were more than 150 classic rock songs out there! Play some deep cuts! or....CD's...mp3's....aaaaaah, the calming solution. Broadcast radio? Dropped it like a bad habit. The VCR meant that my live TV viewing went quickly to tape. Who has the time to spent 15 minutes per show watching commercials? I don't.

We're pretty much on the cusp of being able to directly pay for the shows we like, screw the middle-man. Family Guy was brought back on the strength of DVD sales, Firefly got a movie because of DVD's, you can buy individual shows with itunes, Dead Like Me has direct-to-DVD movies in the works... I think it will be any year now when we'll see a nationally talked about show that starts as an online-only phenomenon. It will probably be a sitcom at first but I think eventually we'll even be able to see big-budget stuff like Heroes made without any network involvement. At this point, there really are no more technical limitations. The only thing holding it back is the business end, and that is an 800lb gorilla. Good ideas can be strangled in the cradle if the gorilla is strong enough.

Re:Payola killed the radio star

[Xiaran]

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.

Control Artists

[realitybath1]

I think some of the industry actions have less to do with controlling consumers and more to do with controlling artists.

If they can limit the distribution and marketing (which is the bulk of what a major player music corp does) options an artist has, then you increase both your control over the artists and the amount you can extract from them in contracts. This is especially important to the music corps. where it comes to areas opened up by newer technology which favor cutting out the middleman and the major players have a track record of complete ineptness.

Crossfading - depends on the kind of music

[smurfsurf]

Crossfading works for some kinds of music, but it kills others.

Obvious example: classical music. Crossfading two symphonies...

I listen to Salsa music on live365. While there are DJs in Clubs that crossfade, I don't like it. Good salsa songs have a well composed beginnings and ends and the artists take great effort to make them stand out to make the whole song a piece of art. Cutting/dilluting the front and end is a sin to the music and disrespects the artists. This might be particular to that kind of music, because it is dance music in the strict sense (couple dance). You especially do some spiffy moves at the end of the song. If the music cross-fades, you prepare for the end and then, instead of the accentuated end, the next song starts which is simply annoying.

That said: If the station is forced to do crossfading, I will cancel my subscription. And don't get my started on the playing jingles over the music and that other crap.

Re:Crossfading songs?!?

[Reziac]

Yep... there's a vast difference.

When I was DJing, I used seamless segues whenever I could work them out -- it's fun to go from one genre or style to a contrasting genre or style by way of such transitions, and it draws the listener along with you, even when the next cut might not otherwise be to their taste.

But as you say, the automated crossfading is just annoying. It creates several seconds of outright NOISE, in no way related to the music. And it ruins songs that have a special beginning or end.

One of the online stations I listen to has started doing it, and at first it was just a couple seconds worth and not so bad, but now it's longer, and the result sounds like bleed-through on an old tape. How long before they do it full-time??!

Re:Crossfading songs?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Crossfading the first and last seconds is legal because it does not change a substantial portion of the music. (It is illegal if the work is several seconds long or the substance of the piece--usually melody--is in the first or last seconds which are normally crossfaded.) A radio station can even remix music, add jingles, or play half a work when their license with the groups such as BMI or ASCAP allows such things.

Infeasible vs. Undesireable

[HTH NE1]

To qualify for the cap, broadcasters must work to ensure that stream-ripping is not feasible.

The article mentions the measures Net stations could easily take but have been reluctant to -- lowering bit rates

No, that makes stream-ripping undesireable. To make it infeasible you need to be like HDTV: increase the bitrate. 1920×1080p60 high definition video has a bitrate of 60 Mbit/s using current MPEG-2 compression technologies. 192 kb/s audio? Try 16 Gbit/s audio! Shove enough garbage data out of human auditory range in the stream that the end user can't keep up with a recorder, only push it to a device that can only output it.

And then you won't have to pay as much in royalty fees as you will be paying in bandwidth costs. Result, you still won't be able to afford to do business against the Big Boys.

The only thing I can hope for in the light of these royalty demands is that it will bring the radio drama back. Learn the foley arts, write some original scripts, and get some perfomers. Just make sure you use no music to set mood.

Unfortunately, regurgitating news and political opinions (is there a difference anymore?) is a lot easier, and thus more likely.