Broadcasting Music Online

This comes in two flavors: the traditional "live broadcast" or "radio station" format, which features a fixed, sequential program of music selected by a DJ; and "music on demand," in which the listener browses the selections on offer and listens to them as he or she pleases. In either case, the money comes from advertising, either audio ads included in the program itself (in the case of a live broadcast), banner ads on a Web site, or little ad buttons tucked into the media player.

For broadcasting, streaming media are used, which may be any of the three main contenders, or even one of their several lesser-known relatives. To the listener, the difference between listening to a streaming file, and listening to a non-streaming audio file (a .wav or an .mp3 for example) may be small or non-existent, especially if said listener has a high-bandwidth connection. For the purveyor however, there's an important distinction: broadcast programming is intended for one-time listening, not for keeping. You don't want visitors downloading this music to listen to whenever they please. You want them to listen to it only on your site, while looking at your ads.

What do you need to set up as an Internet broadcaster? You need a streaming server. Take your pick of the big three. The Apple QuickTime Streaming Server runs on Mac OS X Server, while the Darwin Streaming Server, based on the same code, comes in Solaris, FreeBSD and Linux versions. All are open source. RealNetworks sells their RealServer in various versions starting at around 2 grand, but the most basic version, RealServer Basic, is free. The RealServer runs on Windows NT, Solaris and Linux. On the Microsoft side, you have Windows Media Services, which is built into Windows 2000 Server. Any of these software servers can serve audio or video in various formats, to lots of simultaneous users (anywhere from 25 to thousands).

Of course, if your site isn't hosted in-house, then you don't need to have your own streaming server anyway, as most major hosting services offer one or more of the big three streaming solutions. Just add media to your site, and a little extra to your monthly bill. For more information on including audio in Web sites and other Internet entities, see my old (but still covers the basics) article Audio on the Worldwide Web, and my more recent attempt, Web Audio 2000. All three major streaming platforms have associated content-creation tools that you can use to create streaming programs.

Once you get the technical side of things sorted out, there's another angle to consider. Unless you are going to be broadcasting only material to which your organization owns the copyrights, you'll need to pay for a performing rights license. You can broadcast any existing music or other performances you like, as long as you pay for it. Payments for performance of copyrighted music are handled by the three performing rights organizations, ASCAP, BMI and SESAC. Basically, what these outfits do is collect fees from all radio stations, live performance venues and other entities that use music, and split up the money among all the deserving composers, musicians, etc. Fortunately, you don't have to keep track of exactly what songs are played or anything like that - you just pay a yearly fee. The license fees are based on your site revenue. ASCAP's start at $250 per year, and SESAC's start at $100 per year. Since each organization controls the rights to a specific library of works, most radio stations will sign up (and pay) for all three.

For details of how to sign up as an Internet broadcaster, see:
http://bmi.com/iama/webcaster/faq.asp
http://sesac.com/
http://ascap.com/weblicense/webintro.html

Note that a performing rights license only allows you to broadcast the music in question. You are not allowed to distribute copies of a recording unless you have specific permission from the record company or whoever holds the copyright. Thus the importance of the distinction between playable files and downloadable files. If users play files from your site, that's hunky dory as long as you've paid your performing rights fees. If users actually download and save audio files however, that's not cricket. Unless of course you have permission from the copyright owner to distribute the recordings (as would be the case in any of the "free samples" scenarios discussed in the next section).

This of course is what all the MP3 brouhaha is about. Human beings, (especially young ones) being what they are, they will post copyrighted material for others to download. The Internet being what it is, this sort of thing is very hard to stop. It's not only a question of money, but of quality control. Record companies want you to hear their artists only the way they have packaged them. Low-quality bootlegs and such supposedly hurt the brand.

So is it all just a battle of formats? Streaming media good, MP3 bad? Until recently it was, but as noted above, audio formats are becoming less and less relevant. All of the big 3 media players can play almost any audio format, streaming or non-streaming. The key is to set things up so that the user can only play the file, not download it. This is easy to do by using a metafile. The actual link points to a file that calls the audio file, instead of directly to the audio file itself. Although this is an important matter of good form, of course it won't prevent users making unauthorized copies if they really want to. A user could simply record the audio as it streams, though I'm sure there are more sophisticated methods, too.

So, with all this world-shatterin' potential, is anybody actually making a go of this yet? Broadcast.com, part of the Yahoo empire, is surely trying hard. This ad-supported site has an enormous library of audio and video, both live and on-demand, including many smaller distribution outlets that they've swallowed up. And there are thousands of online radio stations. Existing stations that have added online broadcasting have certainly earned some priceless publicity - I know that my favorite, WMNF in Tampa, has broadened their listener (and contributor) base to an international audience, with happy results. As for Web-only ad-supported broadcasters, they come and go like tabloid magazines, which is probably the natural way of things. To get an idea of the huge variety of listening experiences available these days, see the Internet Radio List.

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Digital Distribution of Music
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