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I completely agree. I stopped buying music years ago. I actually think there's quite a bit fan base of music mainly based in Europe: Trance techno, for example. I listen to Digitally Imported radio, which plays constant streams of music (sometimes live) in all different forms of trance, and it even has classical, salsa, and jazz streams.

The thing is though, even though digitally imported is an awesome site, there are tons of online radio stations that tailor to certain genres of music, constantly changing, that users can listen to for free (even ad-free). So if you're sitting in front of the computer all the time like most of us /. folks are, I don't see the need to buy your own music.

If you like trance, DI is awesome. I listen to them all day at work. I even bought the premium account because I wanted to support them.

4. There are only 7 days in the week. And, why would you be listening to internet radio continuously? Wouldn't it grate on your nerves after a while? And, don't you have an FM radio? Or a stereo? Or cable TV?

Oh well...

I can't receive radio in the "bunker" as I call my home office, thus the radio. And di.fm isn't that bad, no talking.

Plus I can also "get" other stations from around the world (say, BBC Radio)

As for the days: Ever heard of time zones? ;) (Yeah, lame excuse, what can I say, not enough coffee).

Hell, Digitally Imported has many flavors of techno. Some are Trace, Hard Trance, Vocal Trance, Euro Dance, Goa-psy Trance, Deep House, Hard House, Classic Techno, Chillout, DJ Mixes which only cover some of the 60 different electronica "Techno" type music genres.

I will be boycotting the RIAA from now on as well, but I would hate to never listen to music again. Where can I get a list of "safe" alternatives to the RIAA so that I won't be sued?

If you're after high quality music and you want to be safe from RIAA&co., try classical music. I know that it isn't exactly the latest fashion but it's a fact that it there is a huge library of classical music that is mostly in public domain.

It is very different to the mainstream music of today but it's also very nice once you get used to it. At least I think so.

Also, one way to get music legally is to listen to mp3/ogg streams. I listen to Digitally Imported and Kohina from time to time.

I never listen to the radio, except when I go to bed late and wake up to my clock radio. I have an MP3-CD player for the car, and MP3s and streaming radio at home.

I just cancelled my cable subscription last month. Well, downgraded to the "basic" package, anyway, since the reception from inside my apartment is horrible. The only thing I watch on TV is NASCAR, and I was tired of paying $50 a month for the few races that weren't on network TV. I do still watch a few good TV shows, but instead of watching on TV, I just download 'em from Kazaa. No commercials, and the quality is usually almost as good on my 17" monitor as it is on my 19" TV with mono sound and an over-compressed AND fuzzy cable signal.

DennyK

If you combine all the trickles of bandwidth you take for granted on an always-on connection it becomes apparent rather quickly that it's not very hard to exceed 1GB/day.

Right now I'm listening to Digitally Imported at 128kbps. Over a 24 hour period that will eat almost a gig and a half (granted, to be kind to their servers I turn it off when I'm AFK, but I'll still be listening to DI or SomaFM 8-10 hours a day most week days, and potentially much more if I'm on some sort of coding binge). Add in IRC (maybe on multiple networks if you're a junkie or have special interests that have their own IRC networks, ie. GamesNET or Freenode), IM (which can be three or four different sessions if you have friends on all the major networks, thank god for gaim/trillian), a SSH session or two that you leave open for convenience, and fetchmail checking your remote mail server every 10-20 minutes or so and you could be using most of your daily bandwidth allotment on things you're not even actively doing, but that just kind of get taken for granted in the background.

If you're a gamer, Half-Life (which has the stingiest netcode I know of in a game that's still heavily played) will typically use almost 200MB over a 24 hour period. I know some people who almost play it that much, too. Other, newer games easily use 2-3x that much, especially if you tip them off to the fact that you have a broadband connection.

Anyway, it's true that bandwidth isn't free, and I don't even think NTL is doing anything particularly wrong by imposing a cap. I kind of wish Comcast would do it, then maybe all these people who keep their connections pegged at the max all day with file sharing traffic (like my roommates before I asked them to stop) would calm down and I could have a decent connection outside of 3am-8am. My likely small additional usage would be worth a reasonable overage charge to me under these circumstances.

I do think all their subscribers should be given the opportunity to bail from any current contracts without penalty, though, since they signed up for "unlimited usage".

This is amazing. Think about how far technology has come, that allows you broadband internet access on an airplane 35,000 ft high, travelling between two continents over nothing but water.

Holy crap.

I know the very first thing I would do, without a doubt, is fire up XMMS and listen to Digitally Imported Radio, and smile :)

At work I listen a lot to various streams from Digitally Imported. When I hear a song I like I write it down. Also, they provide a forum where you can discuss tunes you like with other listeners.

The forum is synched with the song that is playing. If you go the the DI webpage, the current song is listed there, and a link takes you to a forum for that particular song. A lot of the time you will find users who post "If you like this song, you'd like X..." I find it is a great way of finding out about new artists.

Perhaps it's worth mentioning that Digitally Imported hit a record high of about 11,000 concurrent listeners tonight... this is great as on friday they didn't even know if they'd still be broadcasting after the weekend.

Who cares what the news reporters are saying! Go visit your favorite webcasters, and see what they have to say. I guarantee that they have been crunching the numbers on this bill--they don't want to go bankrupt.

My favorite webcaster, Digitally Imported, fully supports the bill.

Again...before you start ranting away and listening to the FUD, check what your local webcaster has to say!

Nicodemus

Reposted from digitally imported's forums

I don't know how it will affect DI, but if anyone was listening to Tag's Trance Trip, he shut off just before 3pm Pacific Time.

He was in tears thanking everyone.

Last song on the air was "Days go by" by Dirty Vegas

The anarchy of the net can prevail though. As streams drop off the air (every shoutcast stream may be affected), we must trade the files via FTP and P2P networks if we are to stop the music cartels. Blank cds are cheap, hand out cds full of mp3s with information about what has been done to our beloved streams.

As the streams are shut off, open up the archives and distribute them. Show them how much worse it will get when they block off one avenue of our expression.

Our culture should not be locked away from us and sold back to us.
------------------

The ideas contained herein are free to republish by anyone not affiliated in any way shape or form with the RIAA and MPAA

Fact: The per song per listener fee for every song an internet radio station plays is 0.14 cents.

Fact: The RIAA is seeking 3 year's retroactive payments from each broadcasting radio station.

Now let's do the math for my personal favorite internet radio station Digitally Imported. Currently they peak at around 6000 listeners, so let's assume an average of 5000 listeners for a 24 hour period. Given the fact that the mainly play trance/house/eurodance music let's also assume that they can play about 6 songs per hour (at the extreme end of the lengths of said tracks). The total cost to the RIAA per year to run this station follows:


total_fee = (number of listeners)(proposed fee)(songs per hour)(8760 hours per year)

total_fee = (5000 listeners)($0.0014)(6 songs)(8760) = $367,920!!!


Furthermore, take into account the retroactive payments. Assuming the station even started at 0 listeners 3 years ago and grew in a linear fashion (Gaining 1667 listeners per year) the total retroactive payments come to:

retro_fee = ($73.58)(1667) + ($73.58)(3333) + ($73.58)(5000) = $735,800!!!


As far as I know, almost all independant broadcasters cannot even afford the yearly fees, let alone this outrageous yearly fee. It's simple math that can't be argued with. When the guy who ran Digitally Imported needed donations to upgrade the server that streamed the music, he was lucky to receive $3,000 over 3 weeks.

For the love of God, at least charge a lower rate or go to a profit percentage method of payment. Most webasters that I know of have no problem with these proposals, but they have been constantly rejected by the CARP commission.

To cover these yearly costs if the stationed turned to a subscription-based system, that would require the listeners to pay $80.00 a year to listen to something that is basically being offered for free as a labor of love by the creator. Now consider that FM radio is free. That would drive more listeners to the crappy cookie-cutter top-10 wasteland that is FM brodcast radio. Whose thumb is held very prominently over this media outlet? The RIAA. Is it any wonder now why they're pushing for such high fees? Drive out the internet radio stations, drive more listeners to their crappy stations, possibly boost their revenue. It's important that we think about these issues when they arrise as the big ten of the media are basically trying to dictate to us what we should and should not be able to use to entertain ourselves. So please, speak out. Raise your voice. Be heard. Thank you for listening to my thoughts on this subject.

For more information on this subject please tune into WolfFM. They are holding an excellent all-day live information broadcast on the topic at hand.

Fact: The per song per listener fee for every song an internet radio station plays is 0.14 cents.

Fact: The RIAA is seeking 3 year's retroactive payments from each broadcasting radio station.

Now let's do the math for my personal favorite internet radio station Digitally Imported. Currently they peak at around 6000 listeners, so let's assume an average of 5000 listeners for a 24 hour period. Given the fact that the mainly play trance/house/eurodance music let's also assume that they can play about 6 songs per hour (at the extreme end of the lengths of said tracks). The total cost to the RIAA per year to run this station follows:


total_fee = (number of listeners)(proposed fee)(songs per hour)(8760 hours per year)

total_fee = (5000 listeners)($0.0014)(6 songs)(8760) = $367,920!!!


Furthermore, take into account the retroactive payments. Assuming the station even started at 0 listeners 3 years ago and grew in a linear fashion (Gaining 1667 listeners per year) the total retroactive payments come to:

retro_fee = ($73.58)(1667) + ($73.58)(3333) + ($73.58)(5000) = $735,800!!!


As far as I know, almost all independant broadcasters cannot even afford the yearly fees, let alone this outrageous yearly fee. It's simple math that can't be argued with. When the guy who ran Digitally Imported needed donations to upgrade the server that streamed the music, he was lucky to receive $3,000 over 3 weeks.

For the love of God, at least charge a lower rate or go to a profit percentage method of payment. Most webasters that I know of have no problem with these proposals, but they have been constantly rejected by the CARP commission.

To cover these yearly costs if the stationed turned to a subscription-based system, that would require the listeners to pay $80.00 a year to listen to something that is basically being offered for free as a labor of love by the creator. Now consider that FM radio is free. That would drive more listeners to the crappy cookie-cutter top-10 wasteland that is FM brodcast radio. Whose thumb is held very prominently over this media outlet? The RIAA. Is it any wonder now why they're pushing for such high fees? Drive out the internet radio stations, drive more listeners to their crappy stations, possibly boost their revenue. It's important that we think about these issues when they arrise as the big ten of the media are basically trying to dictate to us what we should and should not be able to use to entertain ourselves. So please, speak out. Raise your voice. Be heard. Thank you for listening to my thoughts on this subject.

As the DMCA is an American Law, what would happen if they distribute the servers over different nations and continents?

I listen to Digitally Imported Radio at home, school, work, and I know they have multiple servers. Although the majority of them seem to come from europe, etc, what are the ramifications as to the charges if they are not US-Based non-profit organizations/servers?

I know DI is asking for monetary and bandwidth contributions, as their bandwidth is a real b*tch.
On average -- 2000 users @ 16KBps = 31MBps.

I see some server-to-server bandwidth sharing ala p2p, as tonnes of individual servers maybe take 100 or so users. Splits the bandwidth over multiple hosts and multiple locations, and can't be shut down very easily. We're talking something Morpheus-like.

Any thoughts?

DJ Ari from Digitally Imported has a lot of good information on what it means to the larger of the (still) free stations. They also have some information on what you can do to help them out.

http://www.di.fm/sos.php

This sort of thing is exactly why I never listen to (mainstream) radio anyhow. I typically listen to MP3s, NPR, digitally imported (an online radio station, specializing in European Trance, Techno, Hi-NRG ... www.di.fm if you don't trust me) and on rare occasion, I'll listen to our local pop radio station.

This allows me to listen to whatever I want. Without having the same songs being forced into my ears due to the licensing deals, and other fun stuff of that nature.