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KPIG is Back - By Subscription Only
We've noted before that KPIG, one of the oldest internet broadcasters, was one of many to shut down their netcasts after the recent CARP ruling on copyright royalties. Well, they're back, but 128kbit mp3 streams have been replaced with with lower-quality Real streams, and free has been replaced with subscription-only. Gotta do what you gotta do, I guess.
If the RIAA charges broadcasters more per listener than the advertisers will pay per listener (this is their end goal, afterall) then this is the only choice left for Internet radio. We can pay for a subscription that allows the small broadcasters to survive, or listen to free stations that play mostly terrible music nobody has ever heard of before. That's just how the world works now - write your senators and representative to change it, otherwise be prepared to pay up.
== Paul Rickard, Editor of The Microsoft Boycott Campaign ====
But not via RealAudio. Real sucks for so many reasons, allow me to list a few:
It likes to spy on users' listening habits
To prevent the spying, one has to tour through several configuration screen, and sub-screens, and buttons that open sub-sub-screens, making sure to select the right options, options which are described so ambiguously as to make me believe that all of this foofarah is designed to make it too onerous to prevent spying, while still claiming the option(s) are there.
Even after all this, even with all privacy options set correctly, you can't stop it from phoning hone once a month anyway.
It loads slowly.
Its interface is obstrusive, clunky and counter-intuitive, the better to provide ad space. (Compare this to winamp's ability to add skins and maximize or minimize different parts of the app.)
Its codecs appear to be inferior to free codecs, like Lame; its sound quality certainly is.
In short, RealAudio is just too slow, ugly, and nosey for me to run it. No mater how compelling the content.
The only thing in Real's favor is that it hired Andrei Alexandrescu, the C++ template guru.
Offer me KPIG at $5/mo via winamp, and I'm in.
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
Anyway, the issue is not that they're back so much as THIS IS WHAT THEY HAD TO DO to be back. Be suitably offended.
Lastly WE are not against anything. Remember that. You do not speak for me.
Lack of creativity is no excuse for not having a
Damn! Looks like I gotta move to the Santa Cruz area if I want to listen to the Pig. Oh well, at least rent is cheap. I can just live in my van down by the river with all the other hippies.
Compared to the fees required by the CARP, the cost of bandwith for the 128kbit/s MP3 stream is quite small. If they are going to use a subscription modell, they should try to make everything that else as pleasant as possible. Why not give the user the choice which format he wants to use ? 128kbit MP3, 128kbit OGG and 192kbit MP3 would be a selection of possible formats.
Changing to a subscription modell and changing to RealAudio is a step in the wrong direction. Nobody is going to pay for something that is much worser than the free version that existed before. DRM isn't required by CARP, they just seem to be silly.
Jan
I've just started messing around with Shoutcast streaming at home (into my Rio Receiver -- very nice!), and am amazed at the quality of independent stations out there. Like the bumper sticker on RadioParadise's monitor says, "Corporate Radio Sucks." I'd forgotten what it *could* be like.
That said, I'm honestly a little reluctant to make donations to any of these, for fear they'll just have to close up in October, anyway. But I've been wondering about two possible ways out, beyond requiring a subscription.
1) Can internet broadcasters join up with the Public Broadcasting System? They're already complying with the no-commercial ideals of PBS, and many are already accepting listener support via PayPal and such. What would it take to get some kind of formal support from PBS, in the form of grant dollars, legal support, technical advice, etc.? PBS has TV and Radio stations, maybe it's time they had an Internet arm, as well.
2) From what I understand, the most exorbitant fees are levied against internet-only broadcasters. Established radio stations (broadcasting via electromagnetic waves, insted of ethernet pulses) are exempt, or at least get to pay much lower fees. With the FCC trying to establish low-power radio stations (at one point, I'm not sure whether it's been quashed by ClearChannel or not), could stations like RadioParadise or KPIG simply apply for a low-power license, somewhere (not necessarily where their studio is), and use that as justification for lower rates?
Maybe they could combine the two?
Other ideas:
* Subsidies from big internet companies. Maybe AOL, Cox, AT&T, COVAD, etc. could pony up some money to help pay the fees, since, after all, the existence of quality streams will only get more people interested in broadband services.
* Tiered subscription models. Maybe lower rates for free streams, subsidized by people subscribing for higher bitrates? I figure if you're listening 4 hours a day, 15 songs per hour, it comes out to only $12 a month, or so.
Maybe we need plugins for WinAmp (or JReceiver or whatever) to give users a monthly report of how much they've listened, and to suggest a donation amount consistent with that usage. I know that if I can be shown that I've listened to $30 worth of internet radio in the last, say, 3 months, that I'd have no problem making a donation in that amount.
Are there any actual Internet streamers out there who can comment, on these questions or the overall story?