I’m somewhat hesitant to write this post, for fear of the RIAA goon squad. But sometimes you’ve got to say “fuck it” and just go for what you think is right, even in the face of legal intimidation. I’m hypothetically testing the waters at being an internet broadcaster.
I am renting a streaming server for my Second Life DJ and MC gigs and so whenever I’m not broadcasting an event into SL, I thought I’d go ahead and look into streaming the music I love for anyone to listen to. And that got me toying with the idea of really running an internet radio station. It is not a good time to have these thoughts because the RIAA and their puppet enforcement arm, SoundExchange are out to kill small webcasters.
SoundExchange sets the prices on performance royalty payments for cable, satellite, and internet music broadcasters. Currently they are charging internet broadcasters 500% what traditional radio is paying and 200% of what cable and Satellite are paying. Currently that rate is a $500 dollar a year fee plus $.18 per 100 listeners per song. And at 15 songs per hour that comes to about $23,652.00 a year per 100 listeners. And remember this is not covering the publishing rights which are enforced by ASCAP/BMI. Thats another whole fee and payment structure. ASCAP and BMI rates start at $288 flat annual fee plus $.0006 per listener hour. So if I had 100 listeners on average 24/7 that would be another $525.60. So basically to be legal for a mere 100 listener web stream I’d have to pay over $30,000 just for musical rights licenses. Thats not including server rentals, or the computer hardware to broad cast or the actual purchasing of music to broadcast.
Think about this for asecond and you’ll see that it would cost me over $300 per listener per year. Who’s gioing to pay $300 a year to listen to net radio. Adverisers aren’t because they are only reaching 100 listeners, and Listeners aren’t going to contribute that much. the average donation to public radio is only about $60 per person that donates and only about 10% of public radio listeners donate
So you can see why I’m not going to mention the address of my hypothetical radio station.