RIAA Looks At Live365 DMCA Compliance (November 29, 2005)

Just a few days ago, SDN broke the news the DFSXRadio.com has cancelled four specialty radio shows due to possible issues with DMCA non-compliance in a latter SDN and DFSX editor David Tanny received last week. (who the f$#k knew I would be making news?)

Is the RIAA getting to be a pain in the ass of personal broadcasters who may or may not unknowningly not be in line with digital rights rules over content?

The Recording Artist Association of America (RIAA) has just been in touch with Internet streaming service live365.com recently about getting tough on policing the playlists of an unknown number of personal broadcasters to be sure that the personal broadcasters' playlists are in compliance with the rules of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in effect since 1998.

In their recent communication, the RIAA notified live365 that they have observed stations that are out of compliance with one or more of these rules.

In a letter from Betty Ray sent to all personal broadcasters, "The RIAA has been in touch with us recently to let us know that they have found a number of stations that are not compliant on the service. This is something we take very seriously, so we're going to ask for your help here. If stations continue to operate out of compliance, we will reserve the right to shut them down or otherwise restrict access."

Some of the possible violations include limits on how many times an artist or album may be intentionally played in any three-hour period as well as properly identifying each MP3 used by live365 with the accurate name of artist, album, and song title.

Live365 did not specify to broadcasters if they were in violation, just that another reminder would be sent out in the near future.

In 1998, Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). This piece of legislation established parameters around which one could build a business in instances where copyrighted digital material is concerned (e.g. music, software). It also built in some protections for the content companies who produce said digital material, (e.g. the RIAA) as they wanted to ensure that internet distribution wouldn’t cannibalize sales.

For the purposes of internet radio, the resulting restrictions included:

1) Broadcasters must display complete ID3 tag information.
2) Broadcasters must comply with “The Rules” outlined in http://www.live365.com/info/rules.html
3) No illegally recorded, unauthorized or “bootleg” recordings (another part of the Rules states that unreleased material can't be used but the website doesn't accurately define the meaning of unreleased.)
4) For LIVE broadcasters, broadcasters must make sure the track metadata is streaming to the Player Window.

In the case of dfsxradio.com, the radio series Four Play was cancelled due to DMCA violations of playing too few artists in a hour's time (limit is one per hour). Also put on hold due to reasons of the issues of unreleased material as well as possible live365 rule or DMCA violations are are "D.T.'s CD Dump," "DFSXmas Sundays", "The Demented Resurrection Zone," and "The Best of Dave"s Gone By."

Mr. Tanny is feverently trying to work out the DMCA compliance issues with an employee representing the Legal department regarding getting approval to return "Dave's Gone By" back to DFSX.

Live 365's broadcaster page has been enhanced with a new field on the broadcast page to help the personal broadcasters identify whether their station's playlists are compliant, and - if not - what the problem is. Within the next week, Live 365 will be releasing an improvement to the Playlist Analyzer to help broadcasters identify compliance problems within each playlist.

Live 365 also warns the personal broadcasters that after two weeks that if "stations continue to operate OUT of compliance, we will reserve the right to shut them down or otherwise restrict access."

Sudden Death Update (November 29, 2005)

--== SUDDEN DEATH JOINS PODSAFE MUSIC NETWORK ==--

Sudden Death has joined the Podsafe Music Network - a web site where podcasters can go to get music to play on their shows without fear of reprisal from the RIAA.

Podcasting has become a huge phenomenon in the past year or two, but podcasts that play music have taken a back seat to spoken word casts. This is due to the unknown legalities regarding royalty payments. Radio stations that play music must pay fees to ASCAP, BMI, and the other royalty collecting organizations. But podcasting is so new, and because podcasts usually involve a digital copy of the music being transfered to the listener nobody really knows what to do legally.

For this reason the Podsafe Music Network was created. It's a place where musicians can go if they want their music to air on podcasts. And it's a place where podcasters can go to find music to play.

Sudden Death has submitted 5 songs from Die Laughing and will be submitting more music from our other albums in the future. The music can be found on the Podsafe Music Network's web site - >http://music.podshow.com

--== LAUGHTER IS A POWERFUL WEAPON VOLUME 2 ==--

The Hurricane Katrina benefit CD Laughter Is A Power Weapon Volume 2 is now ready and will be released on December 13th. The CD contains the Sudden Death song "CGI" plus lots of other great songs including rare and unreleased songs by "Weird Al" Yankovic, Barnes and Barnes, Carla Ulbrich, Barry and the Bookbinders, The Nick Atoms, an exclusive episode of The Radio Adventures Of Dr. Floyd, and lots more great stuff.

For more information and a complete track list visit http://www.funnymusicians.com. All the money raised will go to benefit the Red Cross.

That's all for now.

->Later.....Spice

Survey Sez... (November 28, 2005)

AM or FM Radio                  9 (75%)
Satellite Radio (XM or Sirius)  1  (8%)
MP3, WMP, or AAC music          1  (8%)
Nothing                         1 (8%)
CD Audio                        0  (0%)
Watch or Listen to DVDs         0  (0%)

To The Citizens of the United States of America (November 28, 2005)

A Message from John Cleese To the citizens of the United States of America:

In light of your failure to elect a competent President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately.

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (excepting Kansas, which she does not fancy).

Your new prime minister, Tony Blair, will appoint a governor for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.

To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary.

Then look up aluminum, and check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'favour' and 'neighbour.' Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters, and the suffix "ize" will be replaced by the suffix "ise". Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. (look up vocabulary).

Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. There is no such thing as US English. We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of -ize. You will relearn your original national anthem, God Save The Queen.

July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers, or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not adult enough to be independent. Guns should only be handled by adults. If you're not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you're not grown up enough to handle a gun. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. A permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and this is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.

All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables.

Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

The Former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling gasoline) - roughly $6/US gallon. Get used to it.

You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French Fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with catsup but with vinegar.

The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer, and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager. American brands will be referred to as Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine, so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion.

Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters. Watching Andie MacDowell attempt English dialogue in 'Four Weddings and a Funeral' was an experience akin to having one's ears removed with a cheese grater.

You will cease playing American football. There is only one kind of proper football; you call it soccer. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies).

Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the World Series for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.1% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable.

You must tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us mad.

An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776).

Thank you for your co-operation.