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Both ASCAP and BMI allow people to pay a license to play music. There's also SESAC, though I believe they cover mostly European copyright holders. None of these organizations covers all artists, so you generally have to pay them all or track which songs you're playing to ensure that you're in compliance. If you're attempting to license a single song, you're best served contacting the copyright holder directly.

Each PRO has their own way of determining how royalties are paid. I think they come up with formulas and algorithms to determine the "weight" of each song in their catalog and then pay based off of that. Again this is only for live performances - broadcast plays are distinctly tracked.

You can probably investigate more of the specifics on their websites here:
http://www.bmi.com/licensing/
http://www.ascap.com/about/
http://sesac.com/licensing/learn_more.html

Just FYI, to be fully legit, Webcasters must pay fees to copyright holders BMI, ASCAP, and SESAC, as well as to the RIAA.

I want to select songs that I think would go well together and make mix or compilation cds and sell them.

That is pretty much impossible to do legally, unless you restrict yourself to songs by your brother's garage band. The RIAA cartel controls the copyrights to most every artist anyone has ever heard of, and the RIAA has absolutely zero interest in dealing with you.

Is there a difference DJing for clubs versus for private events versus in private homes?

US copyright law has the following definition:
To perform or display a work ''publicly'' means - to perform or display it at a place open to the public or at any place where a substantial number of persons outside of a normal circle of a family and its social acquaintances is gathered

If it's a private party of YOUR family and social circle then it's a fair use. You can play your personal CD's at your own New Years Eve party with your crew. You can play whatever your friend's bring too.

If it's open to the public and/or you're hired to DJ's for profit then it is a public performance and you need for pay for public performance licencing...

what a DJ needs to do to be legal

The three major performance rights organizations are ASCAP, SESAC, and BMI. You'd need to sign up with one or more of them. ASCAP is the largest and slightly more expensive than BMI. SESAC is signifigantly smaller and cheaper and only represents European artists. If you only sign up with one then you can only (legally) play the artists associated with that group.

I *think* ASCAP and BMI cost somewhere between $100 and $270 per year each, and I *think* SESAC is under $90 per year.

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You'll still have to have a license for any music you want to play... assuming that its artists who are covered by restrictive contracts. You'all know about the fees that clubs, bars, and other venues have to pay to the good folks at ASCAP, SESAC and BMI... There really won't be any competition for clearchan-hell. On the other hand, if you've really wanted to see what AXELF sounds like on the "airwaves," this might be just the thing for you.

Ummm...no...not even close.

Radio stations pay royalties to ASCAP, BMI and SESAC.

Online webcasters, in addition to paying ASCAP/BMI/SESAC fees, pay royalties to SoundExchange.

The notable difference between what you've said and the actual situation is that the RIAA has a limitted membership consisting of only the larger labels. However, membership in the groups that collect royalties is basically unlimitted. Royalties are distributed to labels/artists based on statistical sampling done at random to determine what percentage of the pie each label/artist is entitled to. It might end up favoring the big labels, but doing it differently would make the whole process incredibly complex.

• BMI
• SESAC

DeanT

OK, I found some current linkage:

http://www.sesac.com/pdf/music_2003.pdf

Above is an example licensing agreement for "Music in a Business" -- what you are supposed to pay for music on hold; playing cd's in a break room, etc. For up to 500 employees (for our purpose we are going to license it for a single person) .. the fee is a little over a hundred bucks per year. Get licenses from ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC for a couple hundred bucks a year and you're licensed to play almost any domestic recording you want to up to 500 people. The broadcast licenses are a little different and are generally based on revenue. If you don't make any money with your broadcast, they are about as cheap as the above licensing with the added benefit that your name is put on a broadcaster list and record labels will start sending you CD's (especially if you get on the phone with them)

Remember that the music business stays the huge behemoth that it is by shoving things down peoples' throats. If you act like you are a part of the machine, they'll be really friendly with you. Of course, I didn't mention that most of the CD's that you'd get would be candypop singles of Britney Spears and whatnot; but if you're into it, I guess it's maybe worth it.

I always just took them to the record store. They bought them even though they had a nice big "not for resale" label burned into them.. go figure.

~GoRK

Let me get you started in the right direction:

You don't need to "buy the rights to rebroadcast the songs from the record companies, song writers, and publishers". You merely need to pay royalties for the public performances of copyrighted compositions to ASCAP, BMI and possibly SESAC. The total of all these will be around 5-6% of your stations gross revenue.

Copyright law specifically exempts FCC-licensed radio stations from any fees for public performance of the "Sound Recording" (that is, the copyrights owned by the record companies).

As for the power you will need to cover a decent sized metro area - you sure don't need 50-100,000 watts. The FCC breaks the license classes down into 3 main groups, Class A, B and C. Class A are typically around 5kw, Class B, 50kw, and Class C, 100kw. But an important distinction here is that these amounts are not transmitter power, but ERP (effective radiated power). Also, depending upon your transmitter's HAAT (Height above average terrain), you may be authorized for a lower power than the class of license's maximum.

You would be surprised how well 1000 watts ERP on a hill into a good circular-polarized antenna system will cover a metro area. In fact, in Los Angeles, one station transmits a mere 600 watts from Mt. Wilson and covers all of the greater Los Angeles metro area. In their case, it's the height that gives them the coverage, not so much the power.

You can learn more about station coverage contours, power and classes from the FCC.

But before you get into all that, you should read the FCC's Broadcast Station Application Process. Did I forget to mention that you need to either buy an existing license or apply for a new one? And before you can even apply for a new license, you'll need to prove that you have the financial resources to complete the station and do a technical feasibility study - usually a spacing study for commercial FM (to make sure you can fit your station into the band without causing interference to existing stations) or a Interference study for noncommercial/educational stations (in the 88.1-91.9 part of the band. You can't do these yourself, you'll need to hire a company who specializes in this and has access to the FCCs databases. Dataworld is a company that has been doing this for over 25 years.

Before you get started on this, you should do a lot of background reading. An FCC licensed station is not a toy o hobby and there is a tremendous amount of responsibility that comes with it. Fortunately, the FCC has a How to Apply for a Broadcast Station section of their site. Unfortunately, it starts off like this:

Potential applicants for radio and television services should be aware that frequencies for these services are always in heavy demand. For example, the Commission received approximately 30,000 inquiries from persons seeking to start radio broadcast stations last year. Where broadcast frequencies remain available, competing applications are routinely received. Thus, you are cautioned at the outset that the filing of an application does not guarantee that you will receive a broadcast station construction permit. You should also be aware that in many areas of the country, no frequencies may be available on which a new station could commence operating without causing interference to existing stations, which would violate FCC rules.

There are so many other things you're going to have to think about before you apply for a license as well.

• Is the transmitter going to be at the same location as the studio? If not, how are you going to get the signal to the transmitter? (A STL, microwave band studio transmitter link, is a popular way - but you'll need a license for this too...
• If your studio is going to be co-located with your transmitter, you have to pay a lot of concern to keeping RF interference from your transmiter out of your audio signals. This means 600 ohm balanced audio feeds, not the typical RCA or miniplug consumer unbalanced audio lines.
• The minimum hardware you'll need is a transmitter/exciter, audio processor/stereo generator, antenna system, tower, Emergency alert system hardware, etc.
• You may be required to provide the FCC with a "Proof of Performance" - going out with a GPS and signal strenght meter, and proving that your transmitter and antenna system are operating as planned.
• You'll also need some monitoring instruments to make sure that your station isn't putting out too much power, or transmitting with too high of deviation (overmodulation).
• Last you'll need a way to feed audio. A Linux box playing MP3s probably won't cut it. At a minimum, you need to schedule the "legal IDs" at the top of the hour. There are commercial broadcast automation packages out there that cost under $2000, alas they all run under Windoze. There is no reason you couldn't write one for Linux.
• And I think you need at least a small mixer and a microphone so that when you need to, you can address the audience. (And aternatively play music when you're doing upgrades to the automation system.)

I suggest you subscribe or read online Radio Shopper, a radio tech centric newsletter that also covers things that small operators need to do to fufill their oblications to the FCC and the community. And of corse, it's a great place to find used transmitters and antenna systems.

Some places to get a feel for the prices of this equipment are Broadcast Supply Worldwide and Harris Broadcast. If you are on a budget and need used equipment, Mooretronix is a great place to start.

Here's a great pictorial of the installation of a new FM antenna system and 60kw transmitter for KPFK in Los Angeles. Just to give you an idea of what is required. KPFK is a non-profit.

I also suggest reading Bob Gonsett's CGC Communicator, a really great technical newsletter for broadcasters in the Southern California area. There are hundreds of his past newsletters online, and you can read about the saga of new stations in SoCal, as well as issues with construction permits (station upgrades). Lots of good info here.

I hope this has helped give you some good background on what all is involved in starting a radio station. I've worked at a couple small commercial broadcast stations in the past. I assisted in some upgrades to the transmitters and antenna systems, so I got to see all that was involved with just the construction permit with the FCC. I even got to assist in a proof of performance once, back in the days before GPS. We had to do it all using topo and street maps.

So don't give up hope - you CAN start your own radio station. But it's really hard to do with just one person. And it will take a bunch of money. Get a critical mass of people together in your town, form a non-profit, there is a really good chance that it you're not in one of the top 100 radio markets that you can get a license and start a station.

I encourage you to try!

--rusty

The problem lies in the fine line between distribution and broadcast. When you distribute an MP3 online, you run the risk of violating the distributor's copyright to the actual CD medium. So, if that MP3 happens to be of a song by Metallica, and you don't have permission from the recording company, or its agent, you've violated copyright law for duplicating the CD (or a portion of it).

On the other hand, when you stream an MP3 online, you're broadcasting it. Broadcast isn't distribution, it's public performance. Public performance rights belong to the songwriters. If you broadcast that Metallica MP3 without permission from artist, or from one of the appropriate songwriter's associations, you've violated copyright law.

Thankfully, getting permission from the songwriter's associations--that's ASCAP, BMI and SESAC--is a piece of cake. The licensing rate depends on a number of factors -- available here, here and here -- but for the most part, for small internet broadcasters the fees are minimal. ASCAP charges about $250 a year to start... BMI is more expensive, SESAC is considerably less (something like $50 or $75 annually.)

The United States has additional rules for online broadcasters that don't apply to airwave broadcasters. For instance, you can't provide music on-demand... you can't announce your playlist in advance... and you can't play too many songs from the same artist/album in a row. Nor can your playlist repeat predictably or too frequently.

Other countries have less restrictive rules.

Where things get messy is where you start to provide audio on-demand, or whenever audio is made available for download. In those cases, distribution rights apply as well as (or instead of) public performance rights...

BRx.

Stations pay a flat fee depending on type of broadcast/range and (supposedly) the artists are compinsated indirectly via the service.

There are some Internet streaming services that have already made blanket agreements with these copywrite repositories, so it's best to read the fine print.

Before the CD, music was distributed on platters of (supposedly) vinyl consisting of a spiral groove of two orthogonal analog waveforms. This was the medium for most of the 1900s. The effect of the music monopoly on this medium was that only one manufacturing company, usually owned by record company itself, made the medium. Due to this monopoly, there was no incentive to produce good quality records as that did cost a few cents more per unit. The end results was bad quality, with some major record companies like RCA producing total shit (I bought several, and every one of them was horrible quality).

I believe one reason the CD rose in popularity so fast was that the quality was so much better, not just because of the vinyl hiss, but also because of all the clicks and pops from the garbage embedded in the vinyl. The CD wasn't totally immune from this damage, but it could correct a lot of it, and quietly skip a lot more, and you never noticed it.

Also, in the early days of the CD, record companies hadn't yet learned how to cut corners and reduce costs without completely destroying the product. Now days they are learning. The quality of CDs is going down and down as the record companies are trying to push the edge of what consumers will accept.

If there was competition in the media production phase of music production, with a compulsory licensing that allowed anyone to produce the medium and change whatever they wanted to consumers, and simply pay the publishing company that owns the rights to the recording (or the artists directly if they own it) the statutory or arbitrated fees, then the consumer would have a free market choice on who makes the CDs they buy.

In the day of vinyl (and even still today to some degree) a few companies were making reproductions of music on quality media. Usually the costs were very high, almost double. I soon found out that the original record company demanded a fee that was at least equal to, and in some cases more than, the retail cost of their own garbage. This would be a fee they would collect for not even producing the media at all. Compulsory and/or statutory licensing would have prevented this rip off.

There is precendent in statute now. This is already how the law works for certain kinds of reproductions (see The Harry Fox Agency and this licensing information page) and performances (see ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC), although it still does not work perfectly as reported in links found via Google.

Still, I think this would be a good step forward to have this kind of law in place not only for media reproduction, but also for digital online delivery.

"Radio stations are licensed (probably by the RIAA or a similar group) to play CDs on the air. It's very difficult, if not impossible, for a single person to get such a license."

Here are the clearances you have to play music on the radio:

Music Copyright. This covers the composer's ownership of the songs played. In the US, the principal agents for administering these clearances are ASCAP and BMI, although some songs (example: Mannheim Steamroller's music) are handled by SESAC. These folks aren't connected with the record companies or the artists... they're only interested in the songs. Most radio stations buy a blanket license for unlimited use of music, although you can pay on a per-performance basis. (BTW, ASCAP operates under an antitrust settlement going back a number of years, so what they do is subject to monitoring by the court.) You need this license unless: (1) You're not broadcasting ANY music (DOH!) or (2a) ALL the music you broadcast is public domain (major genre: Classical) or (2b) you (or someone else) have made arrangements directly with the copyright holder (You don't need a license for jingles if you pay the jingle company directly, and commercial advertisers are supposed to take care of rights issues themselves. You also don't need any license if the music is 100% your own work.).

Performance Copyright. Yeah, performances are copyright, too (that's the (P) mark you see on CD boxes). Performance copyright is relatively new in the US... IIRC, it started sometime in the 80s. Also note that you can copyright a performance even if the music performed is public domain. AFAIK, there's no performance clearance requirement in the US (although I've not studied the latest copyright revisions). If this is still the case, you don't have to pay anyone if commercial recordings are involved: Artists (and record companies) are supposed to make their money from the increased record sales that resulted from the stations playing their music. But there's one important exception: Live performances. If you want to broadcast a concert (or just a set from the local jazz club), be prepared to pay your friends at the Musician's Union for the privelege of doing so. [Warning to performers: Your local may still want its cut, even if you'd like to do a performance-in-exchange-for-exposure. Check with your business manager before making any deals!]

Grand Dramatic Rights. The only reason to worry about this is if you're going to broadcast a musical (also applies to operas and plays) in its entirety. Individual songs are covered by the music copyright rules above, but beware if you want to play the 3CD complete recording of Les Miz all at once. This is a real gray area, and the law has been unclear as to just where grand rights kick in... if you're thinking of doing this, consult a good IP lawyer first. Grand rights clearances are usually negotiated directly with the publisher/producer/holding company that controls the particular show.

Other comments: If you're a licensed radio station, you should have no trouble whatever getting an ASCAP or BMI license. (In fact, they should be glad to talk to you.) Unless the law has changed significantly, that's all you need to do the kind of broadcasting most people on this thread are talking about. Billboard publications has a good reference that explains all of this: This Business of Music. Most libraries have a copy.

Disclaimer: IANAL, and (at the moment) NOT in the radio business, so don't consider this as gospel! The penalties for copyright violation are severe, and the law is complex (with special provisions for not-for-profit or educational organizations, for example), so don't sign anything or do any broadcasting without the advice of a good intellectual property lawyer.

Alot of people don't realize the power that these companies wield (ASCAP, BMI, SESAC). They have the legal right to enter any store, club, resteraunt, or place of business and demand to see proof of current licensing (with their company, of course). Let me qualify place of business: any retail or business site that plays music covered by ASCAP (& etc.) to generate revenue or productivity. In other words, if the store or office pumps the music over the phone or intercomm, then they are liable. This now includes web sites (you can check out their web licensing contract and fees at their respective sites-- ASCAP, BMI, SESAC). As you can see, they are rather steep--and you have to be careful who you link to.

I find that this truly bites for a couple reasons. The first, I wanted to set up a web site akin to mp3.com that you paid legitimate fees for copyrighted music so I could pay the artists royalties (a cause I deeply believe in). The licensing not only forbids that (I would have to individually contact every record company individually to do it), there fees are prohibitive. Especially the up-front fees. Secondly, it bites because if someone you directly link to decides to distribute music (in any format) on his site, I am liable. I think there reasoning behind it is that I generate revenue (?!) because of that link. I am glad that they can't make you liable for some moron who decided to do the same thing links to you site (you have no real control over that).

I have attempted to contact these companies for alternative liscensing agreements that would permit the site I wanted, but received no response. So, unless you can be assured that you can use GPLd music, you are SOL (remember, a band who does a cover of protected music cannot release their version under GPL, FPL, or any other open distribution license).