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Online Music Licensing Struggles in Australia
Post by trog @ 06:08pm 21/01/10 | Comments
Since 2003, we've been trying to find out what license we need to mirror online radio. We still don't know which one we need. Here's why.  The recent milestone we hit of a decade of news here on AusGamers reminded me about a few other projects and ideas we've had in the works for a long time. One such project was our plan to look at streaming radio - both our own station and also just mirroring various existing streams, both local and international.
We were really mostly wanting to mirror existing online radio stations. We were looking at it for a couple of reasons - mostly simply that we wanted to do it on AusGamers as we thought it would be a neat trick, but we were also interested in offering this commercially to ISP clients as a way for them to save money on bandwidth and provide a cool service for their users as more unmetered content. Soon after we thought of it, other ISPs started doing it, so we figured we'd kick it into high gear and try and make it a reality before we were too late (or even later!). We were familiar with the software and knew that it was technically trivial to do. It would have taken - literally - minutes to set up, and we could have had a bunch of radio streams ready to, aha, rock. Users would in most cases be able to instantly stream music directly from us. However, we have this bad habit of wanting to Do Things Properly. In this case it meant:
I also made the mistake of thinking that APRA/AMCOS would be up on the lingo and have a firm grasp of technology - and thus that their available licensing schemes would reflect this. This thought was largely based on research into online streaming licenses - at the time a lot of the information online related only to streaming in the United States. However - perhaps unsuprisingly - APRA/AMCOS did not have the same level of organisation when it came to this here Internet thing. To be clear, what we were trying to find out from APRA/AMCOS was what sort of license we needed in order to replicate or mirror an existing stream from an online source - either Australian or international. For example, what license would we need to mirror ABC's Triple J stream? As of the 21st of January 2010, we still don't have an answer to this question. It should be noted that APRA/AMCOS have since revamped their website and it now includes much more comprehensive information about licensing options, including this page which has some options for licensing for online streaming. However, you will note that the licenses offered don't really account for a mirror purporse, and it seems clear from their online information page that a license would be required. I thought it might be interesting to post a history of my emails to and from APRA/AMCOS. Due to copyright and privacy issues I'm not going to paste the whole emails, just the dates. Timeline to TragedyDate Event My Mood 9/8/2003 My first inquiry asking for details of Internet streaming. No reply received. :) 9/9/2003 Sent a followup to ensure receipt of the first email. :) ??/??/2003 (Date unknown) Received a phone call with some information, but didn't exactly meet our specific licensing requirements. :) 5/1/2004 Sent a request asking for more information, focusing on the fact that we want to mirror, not create our own station. :) 5/1/2004 Received reply with some details. :) ... At this point we swapped a few emails about specifics of licensing; I got very helpful replies very quickly, but they weren't related to my inital inquiry. Still didn't get an answer about what license I needed. ... 23/2/2005 Sent another inquiry about what license we needed for mirroring - basically asking for information about what licenses other Australian companies and ISPs had to do exactly what we wanted to do. :) ... four months pass ... 17/6/2005 Received an email from APRA saying they couldn't contact me by phone and asked for my phone number. :\ 17/6/2005 Replied within 10 minutes and gave them my phone number. Presumably they called me afterwards to ask for more information; a few hours later I re-forwarded (to a new contact) the email I sent them on the 23/02/2005. :| ... no reply received ... 1/8/2005 Sent a follow-up email about licensing for mirroring. :| 2/8/2005 APRA replies saying my email has been escalated to management, apologising for the delay. :) ... No more information received. Several years go by. ... 07/4/2008 I send a follow-up email, after calling a few days earlier and leaving a phone message - and not getting called back. :( 21/4/2008 I get a reply asking for more clarification about what we want to do. I am mildly vexed by this point. :( 21/4/2008 I reply less than 30 minutes later with more details. :( ... Time goes by ... 22/5/2008 I send a follow-up email. :'( ... Time goes by ... 3/6/2008 I send a follow-up email. :'( ... Time goes by ... 2/6/2009 One year later, I remember it again, and send a follow-up email. :'( 2/7/2009 One month after my above email, I get an email from APRA saying my question has been escalated and someone will be in touch shortly. :| ... Time goes by ... 22/1/2010 No reply received. I write this article. X( The End.... ? I'm going to email them again now and find out. Stay tuned. 
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Posted 05:27pm 25/1/10
At least you will know you have their attention.
Posted 05:34pm 25/1/10
Posted 05:36pm 25/1/10
Weird tho since now days nearly every isp is mirroring music streams.
Shame important organisations such as these can be so naive yet it seems to be rampant in todays world.
Posted 05:38pm 25/1/10
They may not want you to mirror their stream... but they might?
Posted 05:42pm 25/1/10
Also, have you tried contacting the ISP companies that are doing the exact same thing you want to do? I thought this would be a logical step.
Posted 05:45pm 25/1/10
Posted 05:58pm 25/1/10
Really???!?!
A cease and desist is a best case* scenario... the other scenario is getting a big fuck you in the ass your sued mother fucker letter in the mail....
*note... best case scenario is them realizing what a mad dawg you are for mirroring the feed and giving you a billion dollars and a bunch of nakid chicks to suck your dick...
Posted 06:02pm 25/1/10
Posted 07:03pm 25/1/10
Posted 07:05pm 25/1/10
Posted 07:07pm 25/1/10
Posted 07:17pm 25/1/10
Posted 07:48pm 25/1/10
Probably because its not worth the risk. Copyright companys dont care about people coming to them and trying to do stuff legit thats a bit hard/different to there current model of doing things, its all just too hard as you can see by trogs post, there are numerous other stories of the same thing happening on the internet.
But goddam will they come after you if you do something they dont like, guarantee it wouldnt just sit around for 7-8 years, you'd have lawyers sueing you for millions of dollars worth of lost revenue witinh weeks/days, even though when you ask them before hand how much it costs to licence it legitimatly, they dont know/care.
Posted 08:28pm 25/1/10
Posted 09:09pm 25/1/10
Posted 11:04am 26/1/10
Posted 11:08am 26/1/10
OBVIOUSLY, they have. The real question here is are they going to double-dip by making mirrors pay as well.
I need to ask JJJ as well; I suspect they wouldn't give permission though, but I could be wrong.
Posted 11:19am 26/1/10
Posted 11:45am 26/1/10
It's similar to how McDonalds aren't legally allowed to play FM radio stations through their own PA system, it's not the FM station that cracks the shits it's the copyright holder wanting more monies because its a public rebroadcast.
Posted 12:07pm 26/1/10
Posted 02:41pm 26/1/10
That was the email adventures from YOUR sent box. Imagine the adventures your emails have had on their network.
5000 x forwards
100 x "What's this? too hard, I'll leave it unread so I can deal with it later"
5 x "I can't be bothered finding the requested information but I reply to all my emails"
1 x "Special email folder created in the managers inbox to compile all Trogs emails where they all arrive eventually but are never followed up"
Posted 03:45pm 26/1/10
Posted 04:12pm 26/1/10
Posted 04:13pm 26/1/10
Posted 04:27pm 26/1/10
Posted 05:28pm 26/1/10
Posted 05:44pm 26/1/10
Posted 05:45pm 26/1/10
Somebody tell Hungry Jack's because every store I've been in for the past few years has been playing a FM Radio station, be it Nova, B105 or another station.
Posted 05:54pm 26/1/10
LOL I didn't even think of that! We'll call the team 'Crizane's Angels', they'll take their orders from my but the missions get handed down from Trog. And yes, thermite can be Bosley.
I guess the first mission is to wipe out APRA. I really hope taking out Atkinson can be the second mission, then taking down Conroy for the 3rd.
last edited by Crizane Tribal at 17:54:59 26/Jan/10
Posted 06:00pm 26/1/10
Yeah I though u just needed an apra licence to allow you to play instore radio etc.
Posted 09:07am 27/1/10
Now from what you've written it seems that you may not know that PPCA exist.
From what I remember of my training about these companies:
APRA/AMCOS seem to take care of musicians by collecting fees from people that want to play their music. I think these guys try to 'protect' the artists compositions and intellectual property therein.
PPCA/ARIA take care of collecting fees for physical recordings. So they deal more with public performance fees (like playing on radio).
I am not in any way an expert with these matters, but just work for a company now that deals with both of these companies and some record companies directly so we can pay fees for public performance rights.
Posted 11:10am 27/1/10
In February, 2005, they told me they were "about a month" away from having a blanket license that would meet our requirements.
I emailed them again in May, 2005 to chase it up and never got a response.
FWIW, PPCA email from the aria.com.au domain. I am intrigued as to exactly how separate they are as entities. if you RTFA you'll see one of the reasons we wanted to do this was to address that problem by offering it as a service to ISPs.
OH YEH, I FORGOT SOMETHING. I did actually ask TripleJ for permission, and it was refused. I've just dug up the email and don't want to quote it directly, but suffice to say it was refused because JJJ don't have a license that allows that. I've emailed the person back to ask for permission to repost her email.
Posted 11:22am 27/1/10
Clearly to me from a legal perspective this is flakey its just no one cares right now..
Posted 01:54pm 27/1/10
Yeh; this seems to be the same quality of service that we receive from PPCA/ARIA (I keep using slash for these companies because a lot of the same people seem to work under/for them...) and they never give you a reasonable straight answer.
PPCA/ARIA are going through their fee schemes right now from what I've heard and have a feeling that this kind of license should be available from them already at this point in time.
I'll see if I can get some details on the person we deal with...
Posted 12:46pm 28/1/10
Basically the status at the moment is that they do not have a license that meets these requirements.
Posted 06:31pm 15/4/10