WEBVTT

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The last time I tried to run my own internet

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radio station was probably back in 2009. It was

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called Q109 Rock from Beyond the Dial. I had

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my own little ice cast server running. My music

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licensing was handled through a company called

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SW Cast and honestly it worked pretty well. It

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wasn't pretty, it wasn't fancy, but I was streaming

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rock music to whoever wanted to listen. And I

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was doing it completely legally before I even

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ever got into broadcast radio and got into the

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whole broadcast engineering side of things. I

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didn't start officially. First real job in commercial

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radio till 2014. and I haven't ran an internet

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radio station since. And I went back the other

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day and I was looking at it because I'm like,

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you know, maybe, maybe I'd like to do that again.

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Man, it's a lot harder now than it used to be.

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My name's Tyler. Welcome to the podcast. And

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today I'm talking about internet radio licensing.

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What it looked like in 2009 versus what it looks

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like now. And well why the gap between those

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two things is I mean larger than the freaking

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Grand Canyon at this point and I I can tell you

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right now I'm not doing another internet radio

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station Quick disclaimer before I get into it.

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This is all my opinion my experience my point

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of view I work and broadcast but this show Isn't

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my employer talking. This is just me now back

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in 2009 there, there was real options out there.

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If you wanted to run a small webcast, SW cast

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was a licensing aggregator, as they call them.

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You pay them. They handled your sound exchange

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and what was it a pro obligations behind the

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scenes. And you went on with, with your life,

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your legal loud city did the same thing. So did

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a stream licensing. And if you wanted the whole

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package, the hosting, the streaming and licensing

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all on their one roof, well, you could go with

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Live 365. Live 365 was the entire stack in one

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subscription. You paid a monthly fee. They covered

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your royalties and you had a station. You could

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even put all your files, all your music on there

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and set up your automation. Thousands of people

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were doing this. hobbyist, music nerds, people

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who just wanted a themed radio station because

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commercial radio wasn't playing what they wanted

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to hear, which fair. I get it. I went via the,

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uh, the ice cast route and I think I did shout

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cast at one time, but I went the ice cast route

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because I wanted more control over the technical

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side because obviously I'm a nerd. If you haven't

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guessed yet. SW cast handled the licensing. I

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handled everything else to me. That was cool.

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You know, arrangement. I don't know. And then,

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and then the hammer came down on SW cast. They

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got caught red handed. The short version is,

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well, they weren't paying what they were supposed

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to be paying sound exchange. They were collecting

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licensing fees from people like me. and not passing

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the money through correctly. Sound exchange obviously

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eventually figured it out. Things went sideways

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fast and SWCast was done. Which meant I was done

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too because you can't continue streaming music

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online without music licensing. They come at

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you fast. My licensing coverage evaporated when

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SWCast shut down. I wasn't going to rebuild the

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whole setup again from scratch. So Q109 went

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dark. I didn't think much about it at the time

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really. I mean, life moved on. I got deeper into

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broadcast engineering less than the hobbyist

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internet radio stuff anyways. And I filed, you

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know, running my own internet radio stream away

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as things I used to do formally an internet radio

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station programmer. janitor because I did all

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the things until recently I you know when I started

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actually really considering doing it again because

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live 365 is still out there it's not the same

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group who owned it back then but they're still

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running and let me tell you that shit's expensive

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for hobbyist stations like 70 bucks a month And

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the thing that you need to understand about music

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licensing, especially for webcasting, it's not

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one license. It's not even two. It's a whole

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blanket. It's a whole stack of shit. Every recorded

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song carries two separate copyrights. One covers

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the composition, the melody, the lyrics, the

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underlying musical work. that's handled by the

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performance rights organizations. You know, the

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guys like ASCAP, BMI, I don't know, SESCAC, S

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-E -S -A -C, I don't know, and GMR. The other

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covers the actual sound recording, you know,

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the specific performance you're hearing. That's

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the sound exchange part. Terrestrial AM and FM

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radio. only ever pays the composition side. Over

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the air, broadcasters have never had to pay sound

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exchange a dime for the master recordings they

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play. That exemption has been baked into U .S.

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law from the start, and there's a whole separate

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fight happening right now about whether that

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should change. Different episode. Webcasters

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pay both, always have. The DMCA made that a law

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back in 1998. So right off the top, you need

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licensing from multiple different organizations

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because ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, SASAC, I don't know,

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GMR, each represent different catalogs. And you

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need all of them if you want to play anything

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without some serious gaps then sound exchange

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on top of all of that the sound exchange rate

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right now for a non -subscription commercial

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webcast or whatever sits at a quarter of a cent

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per performance it doesn't sound like a lot it

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isn't until you start doing the math a a performance

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is one song to one listener so 20 people tune

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in you play a song that's 20 performances run

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12 songs an hour and that's 240 performances

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an hour a small station with 20 consistent listeners

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ends up owing somewhere around three to four

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thousand dollars a year in you know per performance

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royalties alone before a single pro gets paid

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pro and there's a minimum fee on top of that

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a thousand dollars a year per station just to

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be in the program whether anyone's actually listening

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to your station or not so your floor just sound

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exchange is a thousand dollars a year, before

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ASCAP, before BMI, before the other guys, before

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whatever you're paying to actually host and stream

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the audio. In 2009, there was reduced rates for

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small webcasters, a revenue -based structure

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that actually acknowledged the difference between

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hobbyist and the likes of Pandora. That went

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away. at the end of 2015, when the Webcaster

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Settlement Act expired and the copyright royalty

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board just didn't replace it with anything small

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webcaster friendly. Flat per performance rate

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for everybody. That's the ruling that actually

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killed off Live 365 the first time. January 2016,

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Thousands of independent online radio stations

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went dark because, well, the math stopped math

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-ing. Stopped working overnight. Live 365 eventually

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did come back. They got acquired, relaunched,

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and today exist as an all -in -one platform where

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the licensing is bundled into your subscription.

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You pay somewhere between 60... and a hundred

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dollars a month at the entry level and they cover

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ASCAP, BMI, sound exchange, GMR and the rest.

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It's the easy button if you actually want to

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do this kind of stuff. The trade -off though

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is you're on their platform, their infrastructure,

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their rules on licensing, hour caps and, you

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know, overage billing. But for a small, operator,

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it's a, it's a pretty decent choice because the

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alternative is doing all that leg work yourself.

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And you really don't want to get into that mess.

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You know, I don't, I don't think anyways, unless

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you're really motivated, but you know, you know,

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and I, I get the appeal of doing it yourself.

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I mean, shit, I ran my own ice cast and shellcast

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servers back in the day. I liked the control,

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but you know, assembling the stack manually means

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a sound exchange minimum of a thousand bucks

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a year. BMI starting around 350 ASCAP, I think

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is around the same. And then you got the other

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guys who don't even publish their rates to the

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public. So you have to call and ask going in

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blind on two of the four. Yeah. I don't want

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to do it. Then there's the reporting aspect.

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Just cause you got licensing doesn't mean you're

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good. Sound exchange wants a monthly statement

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of account track by track. They call them ASRC

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codes. I don't even know what the hell that means.

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Every song, but basically every song you played

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into how many listeners. Yeah, it's not impossible,

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but a real administrative burden that will eat

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time that You're probably not planning to spend

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doing. I mean, there's also platforms like radio

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.co. They'll hand you the streaming side of it

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and nothing else. The licensing is still your

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problem. They'll point you toward a, um, you

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know, the licensing bodies and wish you luck

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on your adventure, but they're not going to help

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you do that part. Realistic DIY. has to land

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somewhere north of $1 ,700 a year. Before one

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person has ever actually listened to your radio

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station, and that's before the per -performance

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overages once you grow past whatever the minimum

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covers. In 2009, that wasn't the situation. The

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small webcaster provisions made it manageable.

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Aggregators like SWCAS made it more manageable.

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The whole ecosystem existed to let the small

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operators participate. Well, as we know, that

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whole system is now mainly gone. What's left

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is, well, pay for life 365 or figure it out yourself

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and hope you budget accordingly. There's no in

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-between anymore. I'll be honest, man, when I

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started thinking about spinning up a new station,

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cause I got a lot of music I want to play. I

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would love to go back and relive some of my on

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air shenanigans. I don't know. But, you know,

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I wanted, I wanted to dust off the old skills,

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set up an ice cast, find a license aggregator,

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point a stream at something else. Cause it's

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never been easier. Than it is right now Because

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in 2009 the tools weren't great either better

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tools nowadays cheaper hardware running a Solid

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stream. That's not the hard part anymore. The

00:14:36.799 --> 00:14:40.759
hard part is the legal compliance man, and that's

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gotten way more expensive way more complicated

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since that whole small webcaster provision expired

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I hadn't looked into it since I Got out of the

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game, but holy crap, man. And I want to, you

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know, I want to be clear. I'm not saying artists

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and labels shouldn't get paid. Obviously they

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need to get paid. That's not the argument. Sound

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exchange exists because webcasters were playing

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music and the people who made it, they weren't

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seeing a dime. That was a real problem and it

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needed to be fixed, but The problem is the rate

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structure they fixed it with doesn't distinguish

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between a hobbyist little bitty station, you

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know, running out of your closet to 30 people

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in a company worth billions of dollars. I art

00:15:30.840 --> 00:15:34.480
doing the same thing. Pandora, who is now owned

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by Sirius XM can absorb a quarter cent per performance

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across hundreds of millions of listeners and

00:15:41.580 --> 00:15:44.919
build a whole business model around it. The retiree

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who just wants to stream some classic rock to

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his friends, he can't do the thousand dollar

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minimum before anyone's heard his single song.

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The law that was supposed to level the playing

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field ended up entrenching the advantage of scale.

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That's the part that's hard to sit with. If I

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were doing this today, honestly, I'd probably

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just go live 365, give up the ice cast server,

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give up to control, everything approach, pay

00:16:21.470 --> 00:16:23.509
the monthly fee, let them handle the paperwork

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because the alternative isn't really viable at

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the scale I'd be wanting to operate at. Q109

00:16:31.649 --> 00:16:34.990
man, raw from beyond the dial. It's not coming

00:16:34.990 --> 00:16:39.269
back. Not because I don't want it to, because

00:16:39.269 --> 00:16:43.799
I just, I can't afford that. That's the... That's

00:16:43.799 --> 00:16:46.419
a that's a hard thing to say out loud. Maybe

00:16:46.419 --> 00:16:48.679
maybe I'll spin up one of those playlist websites

00:16:48.679 --> 00:16:51.100
I'll make playlists for Spotify or Apple music

00:16:51.100 --> 00:16:54.299
or something. I'll do that instead. I guess It's

00:16:54.299 --> 00:17:00.240
way cheaper to get into And you think about like

00:17:00.240 --> 00:17:04.420
the other thing That we didn't really talk about

00:17:04.420 --> 00:17:08.859
You know with the artists getting paid You look

00:17:08.859 --> 00:17:11.549
at the guys like Spotify and Apple music Apple

00:17:11.549 --> 00:17:14.329
music paying a little bit more to the artist

00:17:14.329 --> 00:17:16.569
than Spotify, but they still ain't paying them

00:17:16.569 --> 00:17:19.789
that much either. So that's the show for now.

00:17:19.849 --> 00:17:22.410
If you want to keep up with it, subscribe wherever

00:17:22.410 --> 00:17:28.950
you listen. And if, if anything else, if you

00:17:28.950 --> 00:17:32.190
want to buy me a coffee, you can head over to

00:17:32.190 --> 00:17:35.430
Tyler Woodward dot me. It did a little link at

00:17:35.430 --> 00:17:38.329
the top of the page. Also make sure you subscribe

00:17:38.329 --> 00:17:41.859
with Apple podcast now. I'm going to have ad

00:17:41.859 --> 00:17:45.559
-free episodes and eventually exclusive episodes

00:17:45.559 --> 00:17:48.119
for members on there that you can get or nobody

00:17:48.119 --> 00:17:52.079
else can get. Also, it really just helps pay

00:17:52.079 --> 00:17:54.779
the hosting costs. That's all it's really going

00:17:54.779 --> 00:17:57.960
to. So again, Tyler Woodward dot me. You can

00:17:57.960 --> 00:17:59.779
find all the socials there. You can find past

00:17:59.779 --> 00:18:01.920
episodes. You can shoot me a message if you like.

00:18:03.299 --> 00:18:06.319
I'll catch you guys next Tuesday with more random

00:18:06.319 --> 00:18:10.259
thoughts from some guy in Wisconsin. Have a good

00:18:10.259 --> 00:18:10.559
one.