Do you provide shoutcast hosting?

[adamnp]

Not sure if you guys are aware, but, congress has passed the bill giving the RIAA the right to charge licensing fee's for streamed music on the internet. This bill went into effect immediately, (July 15th 2007). There are current licensing fee's, that quite frankly will make you remove the option to sell Shoutcast, pretty quickly.

 

Just a headsup! Providers of streams, and users of streams can be targeted in lawsuits by RIAA.

 

Make sure your Terms of Service state sufficent backup for your company should any legal threat be brought upon you.

 

Easiest way out, don't allow ANY commercial songs/artists to be streamed over your machines.

 

GGS my company also runs GaloreRadio.com , and we have secured royalty fee's through them for the very 'brief' amount of commercial music we play, and I can tell you some small details on the contract, and its rediculous pricing.

 

We pay for # of 30 minute consecutive user connections, and amount of songs heard within 30 minutes per user. This is monitored in good faith at the moment, but im sure much more strict policies will come. We pay up to $.30/user /day for that average.

 

Many large streams have been recieving threats of lawsuits in the mail, with an option to pay past due amounts to avoid legal action.

 

More information can be found quite easily on google..

 

Just a heads up to you fellas that might sell shoutcast..Protect yourselves!

[ECF]

Yes, the new laws are forcing small internet radio hosts out of business from what I have read.

 

There are however some groups fighting these rate hikes.

http://www.savenetradio.org/