While the replies are correct here, there's something *major* that's been overlooked in the article they linked. The DiMA agreement actually makes a *huge* breakthrough for non-interactive streams and *excludes them* from having to pay license fees for the recordings. This allows stations that broadcast without interaction directly (ie - a shoutcast style station) to operate exactly like AM/FM stations and only pay royalties to the songwriters and not the the RIAA (Soundexchange).
It's *great* news that I had trouble believing, but I went to the source: http://www.digmedia.org/content/release.cfm?id=7243&content=pr
I read about this yesterday on Betanews actually and headed to the source (DiMA to take a closer look). There's actually *even better* news in the agreement for non-interactive services:
"Outside the scope of the draft regulations, the parties confirmed that non-interactive, audio-only streaming services do not require reproduction or distribution licenses from copyright owners."
Hard to believe, I know, but take a look: http://www.digmedia.org/content/release.cfm?id=7243&content=pr
Just as a note, for all those that want to complain about the movie being different from the books: The *books* aren't even the original work in this case, so get over it. Adams was doing the radio series long before the books ever came out.
Slashdot Mirror
While the replies are correct here, there's something *major* that's been overlooked in the article they linked. The DiMA agreement actually makes a *huge* breakthrough for non-interactive streams and *excludes them* from having to pay license fees for the recordings. This allows stations that broadcast without interaction directly (ie - a shoutcast style station) to operate exactly like AM/FM stations and only pay royalties to the songwriters and not the the RIAA (Soundexchange). It's *great* news that I had trouble believing, but I went to the source: http://www.digmedia.org/content/release.cfm?id=7243&content=pr
I read about this yesterday on Betanews actually and headed to the source (DiMA to take a closer look). There's actually *even better* news in the agreement for non-interactive services: "Outside the scope of the draft regulations, the parties confirmed that non-interactive, audio-only streaming services do not require reproduction or distribution licenses from copyright owners." Hard to believe, I know, but take a look: http://www.digmedia.org/content/release.cfm?id=7243&content=pr
Just as a note, for all those that want to complain about the movie being different from the books: The *books* aren't even the original work in this case, so get over it. Adams was doing the radio series long before the books ever came out.