Slashdot Mirror

I remember when I used to listen to the internet radio station http://www.3wk.com/. When I first started listening, they were a thriving website. There were no ads, only every now and then would they have a PSA on air telling you that you could become a subscriber, and they would have a downloads page where you could download selected songs every week.
Then the fees for broadcasting over the internet skyrocketed, and the site turned into an epelectic siezure of flashing ads. Every few songs would be interupted by a Geico ad, and it wasn't the same place I grew to love.

I think the companies need to understand how to deal with the internet, and know how to not choke it off, because it's here to stay.
Hopefully this acceptance of music streaming will allow internet radio stations to start thriving again.

It depends on the genre, it can be very difficult. It's probably doable for a classical
station. For my own favorite, indie on 3WK, it's painful. The owners
would be happy to do so if there were sufficient material available however, they don't
have the time or resources to actually track down 100% "free" content. In addition,
they'd really like to be able to play the occasional track from Modest Mouse or Beck,
as their mood suits them.

Not only have they been picking on Apple, but they have also been coming after my fav Internet radio station (3wk.com) this week.

I know the RIAA is pure evil and all, but why *now*? Call me a conspiracy nut, but it looks to me like they have realy been going apeshit (even moreso than usual) lately.

I've been doing this for sometime, recording about an hour of 3WK each night for listening to on the way to work. I've used bluecanard's freeware software sound recorder. It converts any sound on your system to MP3, and is command line driven. So, I just make a batch file that opens up the stream in my browser, then wait a few seconds, and fires off the commands to record it.

Although, now that I notice it, it seems they have a beta version of an internet radio recorder that would be right up your alley, and mine too. Answered a question, and learned something new and beneficial myself. Wow, gotta love how THAT worked out.

FreedomAudio http://www.freedomaudio.com/ - uses the q public liscense, java, and runs inside the web browser. a few bigger internet radios use it 3WK Underground Radio Even if you are streaming just local bands you may be subject to RIAA intervention.

3WK is a pretty good source for streaming underground music.

It also occurs to me that the main issue with the royalty payments must be with the ability to record the stream, and the possibility that the stream is close to CD quality. From the beginning, I thought a solution would be to dilute the quality of the broadcast to radio quality (less than 96 kbits) or to deliver the content as 3WK does, and deliver a high quality mono broadcast.

Typically, I use webcasted music to be exposed to new bands and genres, and I don't see how the music industry could be opposed to that. Sheesh.

mikegraham.net

No, it really wasn't a troll, although maybe I was a little harsh. I was just annoyed by the absolute arrogance of MP3 to not even ask how anyone else felt about them doing it. In a perfect world, my.mp3.com is an awesome idea. In the real world, though, it's so incredibly easy to get around its copyright protections that it's almost like having no protections. If they had approached some of the people whose music they'd be storing to work out a way to make it more pirate-proof, it would be hard to be nearly as annoyed at them.

I have absolutely no objection whatsoever to the service they run which allows bands to put their stuff up for free, and although I don't use it, I'm glad that there are places like mp3.com which are doing that.

Not trying to steer you away from mp3.com, but give some internet radio stations a try sometime -- I hate the local radio stations around here and get most of mine via the internet as well. Undergroundradio 3WK happens to be my current fave, with lots of great indie stuff, and is good if you have RealPlayer, although windowsmedia.com has loads of great internet radio stations if you own the Windows Media Player.

Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com