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As a former musician, songwriter, and label owner, I relied on getting paid through performance, mechanical, synchronization, and transcription royalties. It was a regular, dependable revenue stream.

But I've gotten so dependent on internet audio streams like Soma-FM's Indie Pop Rocks. Sometimes, it was the only thing keeping me going when I was working my dead end IT job. I'd have the shortcut to the 128kb stream on my desktop and it was the first thing I'd hit, even before checking my e-mail.

When I heard a song I really liked, I'd write down the name on a notepad, check the artist's site to see if an mp3 was available and if not I'd get it from iTMS. Just like radio, internet streams drive sales.

I had thought that ASCAP and BMI (the performing rights organizations that collect and disburse performance royalties) based royalty rates based on a radio or television station's potential audience, but it seems more complex than that, seeing as the Library of Congress is setting basic rates.

Tomorrow, I intend to research this issue and write my congressman (Rep. Delahunt) and senators (Sen. Kerry and Sen. Kennedy) and ask them to look into this issue. I urge everyone who is a constituent of a senator on the telecommunications subcommittee to do the same:

Conrad Burns, MT, Chairman
Ted Stevens, AK (don't mention those "tubes", okay?)
Trent Lott, MS
Kay Bailey Hutchison, TX
Olympia J. Snowe, ME
Sam Brownback, KS
Gordon Smith, OR
Peter G. Fitzgerald, IL
John Ensign, NV
George Allen, VA
John Sununu, NH
Ernest Hollings, SC, Ranking
Daniel K. Inouye, HI
John D. Rockefeller, WV
John F. Kerry, MA
John Breaux, LA
Byron Dorgan, ND
Ron Wyden, OR
Barbara Boxer, CA
Bill Nelson, FL
Maria Cantwell, WA

E-mail and faxes will probably be better received than snail mail, given the fact that mail to government offices gets delayed while it gets irradiated to ameliorate biological threats.

k.

Legally speaking, it's where the company providing the webcast is based, and where the listeners are based. The same thing is true with online casinos. They can't be based in the US and just have a server outside the US. The whole company has to be outside the US, and the owners need to be pretty shielded as well. A while back the FBI arrested some operators of an online casino who weren't even US citizens when their plane flight made a stopover in the USA.

Also, it's just not RIAA music. Legally it's ANY music that you don't have explicit permission from the copyright owner to broadcast. This is a common mis-conception.

Rusty Hodge from SomaFM wrote about moving servers to Canada:

Gary Greenstein, former general counsel for SoundExchange recently said:

The RIAA and the major labels have take the position that the law in the territory of destination of a transmission will govern and that off-shore webcasters streaming into the US will still have liability for transmissions (i.e., public performances) that terminate in the US. Therefore, moving a webcaster's facilities off shore will not immunize them from liability or the reach of US courts, particularly if the owner/operator still has sufficient business in the US.

It's the perfect pleasure drug in Brave New World, but based on / inspired by an ancient mystical entheogenic drug.

SoMa is a district of San Francisco.

http://somafm.com/about/whatissoma.html has a few more definitions of soma.

this law doesn't just affect over the air radio stations, but all streaming web casts. this is a bad deal, and it is supposed to be applied retro actively to 2006 (which will basically put all streaming radio stations out of business).

you can write your congressman or representative here.

for more info on how this will affect streaming radio, check out www.SaveOurInternetRadio.com. i found out about this through soma fm's news section (soma fm is an internet radio station i listen to, i am not affiliated with them)

Internet stations that stream almost completely music are being saddled with outrageously usurious fees.

Soma FM predicts their fees will rise from $20,000 today to $600,000 for 2006, and $1,000,000 in 2007.

Loosing stations like Soma would suck. I listen to a little bit of normal broadcast radio (usually just the urban hit station to pick up the occasional deserving top 20 hit), but otherwise its internet only.

This proposal is an incredible increase for a small web broadcaster like

http://somafm.com/

Without my soma, I won't want to play sex games with all the other children.

"All citizens are expected to be involved socially; spending time alone is discouraged and sexual promiscuity is norm. Recreational drug use has become a pillar of society and all citizens regularly swallow tablets of soma, a narcotic-tranquilizer that makes users mindlessly happy."

Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World

It was actually back in 2002, all thanks to the DMCA CARP ruling. The SomaFM About Page covers what they went through during that time. Now, with the latest fees, they're looking at about $1 million in royalty fees for the year of 2007, compared to $22,000 for 2006.

And all this just as I started listening to them... thanks a lot, Copyright Royalty Board. Assholes.

Listen to Soma FM while you can. It's an awesome station with several streams, each playing a different genre. They've already had to deal with outrageous demands related to the DMCA which were fortunately cut back. And now this. It seems the RIAA, yet again, are using legislation and money as a bludgeoning tactic to quell truly independent outlets of music.

See? This is bullshit. I'm so scared of getting sued by the RIAA, that I don't download music anymore -- and I don't buy CDs either. No, I don't have a 20+G inventory of MP3s. Instead, I use many of the online commercial-free radio stations (Like the fabulous SomaFM.com).

Now I've been a little scared of being hit by the MPAA for downloading Doctor Who and James Burke shows. Oh, wait...

Check out the "Doomed" channel on http://www.somafm.com/ if you can feed your speakers from the computer. Last year they had a dedicated Halloween channel. This year, it appears they're using their spookiest channel for double-duty. It's not light-- mostly metal, industrial, techno-- and there probably won't be a lot you've heard before, but it's definitely scary and a good mix!

    Actually, there are several groups that put up a pretty decent fight against Internet broadcasters.

    Check out somafm.com. They have a bit of their legal history on their about page.

    http://somafm.com/about/

Instructions: http://www.somafm.com/chat/
Search on page for: A Nerd's Guide To Getting Hooked Up

"Do or do not. There is no try." - Little green man who obviousley used Jedi mind tricks

I am not a sucker -- I have not consumed the iPod Kool-Aid. I do like the iPod from an embedded-systems point of view -- good use of resources, space, and they have a good design. Unfortunately, the unit does not have the features I want (FM Radio, FM Transmitter, Scheduled FM recording, Line-In recording, mid rec). My El Cheapo Cowon U2 player works just fine for my needs.

No, I don't download MP3s, and I don't have a big CD collection. I mostly listen to SomaFM's stations, and the news FM station. No need for wasting disk space...

Internet connectivity over cellular networks is already fast enough. However, the cellular carriers have oversold the capacity of their networks (plus they want to give priority to their own subscription-only multimedia services), so they carefully rate-limit services that consume large amounts of bandwidth. For instance, on Verizon's EVDO network (I'm a happy subscriber), I can listen to Secret Agent at 128 kbps for about two minutes before being rate limited to about 1 kbps by Verizon, even though the EVDO network's advertised as capable of 400 kbps and in practice can burst up to around 1000 kbps. (Obviously, there are ways around these kinds of restrictions.)

So for now, my solution is to rip my favorite streams and upload them to my iPod, where I can play them again and again and again. How high am I supposed to jump, again?

http://somafm.com/

Rusty has it figured out. He fought the fights - and almost bowed out. But plucky SOMA survived and thrived. They are non-commercial, and have my 50 bucks, which is more than I can say for KQED!

SOMAs "bottom line" is not profit - it's loving what they do and listen to. Otherwise, there'd be no beloved "Secret Agent". You won't find that on XM!

Rusty has it figured out. He fought the fights - and almost bowed out. But plucky SOMA survived and thrived. They are non-commercial, and have my 50 bucks, which is more than I can say for KQED!

SOMAs "bottom line" is not profit - it's loving what they do and listen to. Otherwise, there'd be no beloved "Secret Agent". You won't find that on XM!

I keep a wishlist at Amazon, because a lot of times, I can't remember which album (or book, but that's more rare) I was interested in. I don't buy from them for many reasons --their patent policy, for one, and because I would rather buy locally or direct from the publisher-- but the service of having them remember the CD I heard online last weekend (lots of online music sources (like SomaFM) link directly to Amazon) is great. If I decide to buy some CD's next week, I'll just hop over to Amazon.com, click my wishlist, and write down the CD's I want. I know, that means they're keeping track of my buying habits, but I guess that's the cost I'm willing to pay for an automatic notetaker. If you want to keep them from knowing everything about you, pepper them with some false demographic data.

I thought this would be nice as I'd get to listen to music at work, however the quality is so bad (highly compressed, low bandwidth)that it's not worth it.

Have you checked out ShoutCast? 30,000+ free internet radio stations, most of them commercial free, and streaming at the bitrate of your choosing (well, most stations). The sound quality is quite good, and can even reach spectacular quality using the combination of Winamp and a plugin called Ozone. Play around with the settings and listen to the difference... it's amazing what analog modeling can do for a 128k music file. Works with MP3s, Streams, and even videos too!

If 30,000+ radio stations seems a little overwhelming, might I suggest my favoriate station Beatblender (128k, streaming WMA) for some great ambient, work-inducing music.

I thought this would be nice as I'd get to listen to music at work, however the quality is so bad (highly compressed, low bandwidth)that it's not worth it.

Have you checked out ShoutCast? 30,000+ free internet radio stations, most of them commercial free, and streaming at the bitrate of your choosing (well, most stations). The sound quality is quite good, and can even reach spectacular quality using the combination of Winamp and a plugin called Ozone. Play around with the settings and listen to the difference... it's amazing what analog modeling can do for a 128k music file. Works with MP3s, Streams, and even videos too!

If 30,000+ radio stations seems a little overwhelming, might I suggest my favoriate station Beatblender (128k, streaming WMA) for some great ambient, work-inducing music.

"8) an exception to 7. You gotta make room for tunes if you're into coding with background music on."

Thankfully Groove Salad takes up very little room. :)

It is actually pretty obtuse looking, when compared to the iPod, or some of Nokia's modern phones. Where's the cool aesthetic design?

I am not one of those people who has a giant repository of MP3s -- I listen to somafm or other Internet radio things. Would a Wi-Fi phone let me play Internet streams?

I am quite happy with my Nokia 3650, though it does not play MP3s. Even this old phone out-features most phones on the market today (camera/video, Bluetooth, Infrared, MMC card slot) -- even though most of these features are kinda crappy. I just don't need another phone.

Also, I am pretty disappointed with phones and handhelds these days. My 3650 does everything my Palm Pilot did in '96. We need something more revolutionary in the same way the original PP was -- sensemaking, and simplicity. I like having the camera (as crappy as it is), but I would like to have more software settings for the camera (light levels, color, etc). They certainly could have done a better job with the operating system, even if they let us upgrade the firmware easily.

I am affraid of the headphone connector for Nokia's N90 -- why couldn't they include a standard headphone jack? Some of us corrode those inline bar-and-tooth connectors within seconds of touching the thing!

If I lived in a larger city, maybe there'd be enough of an independent music scene that this wouldn't be necessary, but in South Texas, it just isn't there (unless you're into Tejano).

here's what i want: something to jack into my ipod, that plays (and maybe lets me record) internet radio, like the fine soma fm.

i guess wifi is the only way to deliver this, airtunes style.

this functionality could be built into future ipods and other music players. i'd pay more for it.

SomaFM.com got shut down by CARP because the were broadcasting indi music over the internet without giving CARP and RIAA royalties, but only for a moment. I think it's all settled now and SomaFM is still free. You can read about the history of this issue here http://www.somafm.com/news

But basically, the RIAA/CARP are a legalized mofia using the power of government to shape the industry right into their own pockets.

I think I speak for most of us on slashdot when I say "fuck em"

http://www.somafm.com/ is my mom's favorite, aside from ours, of course (http://www.theoryradio.org/)

So I don't really see why this is even news. Is it news? Free radio?

I love Sirius and their $12.95/mo fee is totally reasonable for a gah-zillion commercial-free (and Clear Channel-free) channels.

And wasn't there another SlashDot article about XM raising their monthly fees and including streaming audio much like Sirius?

-Normal

P.S. On a side note, from 7-11 tonight (monday) Vanessa and I will be doing our weekly show on http://www.theoryradio.org/ with a webcam on http://www.digitalsquishy.com/webcam.html. It should be weird.

It looks like executables that run on your computer from a vendor with no explanation of what they do, and they keep trying to contact the Real with no explanation of why they need to do that. Repeated emails to Real have gone unanswered as to the purpose of what they're running on my computer.

You just like to bitch

Nope. I just wanted to take advantage of the free offer that comcast had. And Real decided it need to run 3 processes on my computer, even when the rhapsody client wasn't loaded. Doesn't that strike you as odd?

iTunes has free music?

yes

Where?

On the LH side, click on Internet radio. There's so much free music there to listen to, and unlike Rhapsody, it doesn't put "things" on my computer that monitor me and report back.

I've grown fond of atmospheric music. Go to http://somafm.com/ Although there are lots of top 10 stations. And they broadcast in CD quality (chortle). At least as much as Rhapsody does.

WinAMP does the same. Only its even less intrusive than than iTunes.

I also subscribe to Sirius (http://www.sirius.comfor/ my car so you understand I'm not opposed to paying for music. Sirius will also stream to my computer, and magically, they don't load a bunch of stuff that reports back to Sirius. It just plays. Imagine that.

You tell me what Real is trying to hide.

Considering how 48kb/s with AAC is slightly less than CD Quality (Groove Salad for example) I don't see what the problem is with the quality. I've spent over $300 at the iTMS and every album sounds just as good as actual CDs.

Linear notes or information? Do you want music or a biography?

I will give you the last one as a point. I've never resold a CD I purchased so I wouldn't have thought of that.

What are the new movements going on in the electronic music world that the mainstream has yet to become aware of?

Forget the "Hi NRG European Techno" and the crud they play in movies. The repetative beats got old real quick.

For electronic music that is different, here are a couple places to check out. These may not be to your taste, but they definately different then your "unS unS unS unS unS unS unS unS WooooooooOOOOOT WoooooooooOOOOOT! 'Smack my Bitch Up!' unS unS unS unS unS unS unS unS":

Warp Records has released their entire catalog online. I recommend Plaid, Boards of Canada, Squarepusher

Here a couple nice stations playing a range of electronic music:

http://www.live365.com/stations/after_party
http://www.live365.com/stations/mrs_emma_peel
http://somafm.com/listen/

Oh, how I miss MusicForHackers!

Other Favs of mine include Radio Wazee and SomaFM.

SomaFM, an entirely listener-supported Internet radio site, has a few streams in aacPlus. I recommend them, they play stuff that you normally don't run across.

I remember a time when there was an internet radio station called "Soma FM" available for free on the internet. (Slashdot even had some stories when they were forced to close down)

Ummm....looks like they are still broadcasting.

If the industry would make it easier for me to hear the music I like, I would be able to buy more of it.

Case in point: my favorite streams over at SomaFM have clued me in to dozens of artists I would have never found on the radio or television.

The RIAA has tried to quash streaming radio for some time now. Make it easier for everyone to find appealing music, and they will sell more of it. Simple logic.

I mean, laptops have already had this technology for years (battery versus wall power), although it is often is fairly proprietary, if it works at all.

For the 9 out of 10 times when I just want web surfing & audio streaming at home, I'd like to run at 20% of my 2 GHz and turn down the fans. After all, when you're trying to set a mood with Soma FM, who needs blaring screaming fans going?

Is that because ASCAP had already gotten paid by the radio station? Does it follow, then, that one could play a legit streaming station like the ones at SomaFM without paying up yourself?

As a sysadmin I love to listen to groove salad from Soma FM. It's downtempo electronica and acid jazz. As the site says A tasty plate of ambient beats and grooves. Takes the edge off work. It really helps to get rid of that nervous tick that tends to develop after working with lusers and PHB's all day =)

As a sysadmin I love to listen to groove salad from Soma FM. It's downtempo electronica and acid jazz. As the site says A tasty plate of ambient beats and grooves. Takes the edge off work. It really helps to get rid of that nervous tick that tends to develop after working with lusers and PHB's all day =)

hehehe too true. however, it is only unfoggy when I'm not in it, so I don't usually see it. that is, i can't see its absence ... errr ... i can't fully appreciate the clarity of the glass ... except the only point of clarity is the lettering, because everything else is foggy.....

oh-oh. i've gone and hurt my brane. again.
(must stop listening to drone zone)

The RIAA wants to keep you from recording digital radio broadcasts!

I think downloading games is great. I'd like to save a tree and lower oil dependence (plastic is made of oil and shipping the physical game package uses up oil, etc).

BUT many services are competing for my limited bandwidth, VoIP (Vonage), online music (Apple Music Store), streaming radio (somafm), BitTorrent. It makes me wonder if this promise is nothing more than a wishful thinking?

Until something is done about increasing bandwidth all these predictions read like a bad Popular Science article on flying cars.

Does anyone know any car radio capable of playing Internet radio streams? It would be great to have SomaFM in my car. :)

Limiting access to a shitty little scratched up disc that only cost the companies $0.05 to make for $17 a pop is rape, plain and simple, especially when you consider there's one good song on an album and 12 other terrible songs

You mean that one song that is played to death on the radio for weeks, if not months on end? And you still want to buy it? Why the hell are you buying that boy bandH^H^H^H^H^H^ groups cd in the first place?

I suggest you start listening elsewhere and start buying (more imortantly, enjoying) albums that are actually listenable from start to finish.

Spear Brittany!

--

Of course this is being fueled by the RIAA/MPAA! Look at this quote from the article:

Eder said there was no specific line crossed by these subscribers, but she added that some of those people were downloading the equivalent of 90 movies in a given month.

Why is it that when the Comcast representative described someone's bandwidth usage they instantly described it in terms of "movies downloaded per month"! Comcast has the raw data to give a number like 2Gig per day, but they chose to use a metric that made the user instantly look like a criminal.

What frightens me is that I love to listen to Internet radio. This is a legitimate use of my bandwidth, but how long is it before my ISP labels be a criminal because I use enough bandwidth as "someone downloading 90 movies a month"?

Just a thought.

They must already have solved the bandwidth problem.

They must already have solved the bandwidth problem.

For others unable to listen to eigenradio because of the slashdot effect. I recommend groove salad until things calm down:

www.somafm.com
128k
56k
24k

The DJ, Rusty Hodge, had an interview with slashdot a while back.
enjoy

-metric

For others unable to listen to eigenradio because of the slashdot effect. I recommend groove salad until things calm down:

www.somafm.com
128k
56k
24k

The DJ, Rusty Hodge, had an interview with slashdot a while back.
enjoy

-metric

For others unable to listen to eigenradio because of the slashdot effect. I recommend groove salad until things calm down:

www.somafm.com
128k
56k
24k

The DJ, Rusty Hodge, had an interview with slashdot a while back.
enjoy

-metric

For others unable to listen to eigenradio because of the slashdot effect. I recommend groove salad until things calm down:

www.somafm.com
128k
56k
24k

The DJ, Rusty Hodge, had an interview with slashdot a while back.
enjoy

-metric