Saw something about this on the NFCB site, and if there was a chance that this will actually happen, I’d certainly wait to see what you guys had on offer before committing to a replacement for radiofreeamerica.
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Yep, my question too.
We have a prototype in test at the moment that can provide “archive” replay of your webcast up to 2 weeks in the past. We will be looking for test stations to try this with next week. As this prototype stands today, Spinitron puts an audio player on each playlist web page. Click on the player and it starts replaying that radio program.
There’s a lot that we still need to work out, in particular how stations will pay according to usage. And there are technical and usability questions I don’t know how to answer yet. These are in my opinion best approached by trying something, then finding what stations, DJs and listeners think before we commit to any significant next steps.
If you want to be involved early in this process, let us know. I’d like to host a video conf next week with the trial stations to canvas opinion on some open questions we have and on the user interface requirements.
This is not a podcasting service
There are big and important differences between a replaying a webcast and a podcast.
The statutory license that most Spinitron clients use for their webcast allows non-interactive transmissions as part of an “archived program” no less than 5 hours in duration and not available for a period exceeding 2 weeks.
A podcast client (like the Pocket Casts app on my phone) downloads entire programs and gives interactive playback including seek. Either of these would make your webcast service ineligible for the statutory license. Podcasts are typically available for more than 2 weeks.
So if you want to make your programs into podcasts, you need to get a license from each rights holder or their licensing agent for any copyright material (e.g. music) used in the program. For a talk or news program produced from your own original material there’s no problem. For music, a podcast is basically distributing digital copies of sound recordings, like a record label selling CDs or downloads. Since this is not typically the business the radio stations that use Spinitron are in, we’re focusing on replay of a non-interactive webcast archives up to 2 weeks old.
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Hi Tom,
Let us know if you want help testing.
Rene Renard KCSM
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