Re: Clear Channel ends streaming broadcasts ... please explain

["Aaron 'Bishop' Read" <aread@speakeasy.net>]

At 10:42 AM 1/4/2003, you wrote:
>At WMFO, we pay the fee annually and streamline as well. No one has said
>jack to us. Is it because Clear Channel or whatever company DOESN'T pay the
>BMI fee? I know that a club in Worcester would not allow bands to play
>covers because BMI had visited them and told them not to play BMI registered
>songs because they hadn't paid the fee.
>
>For something so simple, this is so confusing!
>Tony


Broadcasting on the air (i.e. FM) and broadcasting on the web are two 
totally different things.  And while the licensing organizations have 
managed to make it pretty simple to deal with licensing AM/FM broadcasts - 
they've got out of their way to make it extremely difficult to stream on 
the web.   RIAA has basically had it in for webcasters from the start - 
they don't want music out there in any sort of digital form, 
period...because they're so paranoid about music piracy  (that's a whole 
'nother rant, though).

WMFO's current web situation will, eventually, get them into serious 
debt.  As the rules currently exist WMFO owes at least $500 for every year 
that they have been streaming, backdated to October 1998.   That means if 
you streamed for just one day in 1998 after October, you owe $500 for that 
year.  Ditto for 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2002.  I know WMFO has streamed at 
least in 2000, 2001 and 2002 so at least $1500 is owed to RIAA.

Having been the Operations Director at WMFO I know that WMFO was never 
scoring all that many hits on the webcast...fewer than 10 simultaneous 
listeners...often fewer than 3-4.   So it's unlikely you would exceed the 
minimum level and get into the per-listener/per-song calculations, so it's 
likely just $500/year.

This is JUST for RIAA...it doesn't include any additional fees that ASCAP, 
BMI and SESAC decide to charge WMFO as well.   I recently heard that ASCAP 
and BMI have agreed (for non-commercial stations at least) that their 
standard AM/FM royalty licenses cover streaming on the web.   SESAC is next 
on the list although SESAC has been the most aggressive and obnoxious of 
the three in persuing stations that stream (Allston-Brighton Free Radio and 
WBRS have both gotten repeated nastygrams from SESAC until they coughed up).

I suggest you read up at www.sos-saveourstreams.com and www.kurthanson.com 
for more info about radio streaming.

_________________________________________________________
Aaron "Bishop" Read       aread@speakeasy.net
Fried Bagels Consulting   www.friedbagels.com
AOL-IM: ReadAaron         Brighton, MA 02135