Shout Cheap

[djsoft]

Gadfly, one thing you need to make sure of, the stream host must be able to do Geographical Blocking. According to the latest rant by the US based royalty agencies - if your music stream can be accessed within the United States - you are subject to the new Streaming Royalty Rates. The legal premise is - regardless of where your station is Licensed - the content is available in the USA. Therefore, with the content available in the USA - royalty rates are due as outlined by US Copyright rules.

There are about 300 countries in the world, and each one of them has its own laws. Do you say that a broadcaster needs to study all those laws before launching a station? This is impossible.

[Matt Skills]

this thread is ridiculous , there is absolutely no way that you must pay royalties to every company that represent's rights holders in every country in the world. if you target your station at a US audience then you pay royalties to US companies, if it's targeted at the UK then you pay those. I doubt that anyone in the united states is paying PPL because technically someone from the UK or 40 other countries might tune in.

you pay royalties to which ever company represents rights holders of the content you are using in the country you operate and target your audience at.

also it is impossible to abide by all laws in all countries as at least 1 country's laws are going to contradict another's. follow your own country's laws and target your station at your own country's audience and you can't go wrong. if you use a geographical domain name then that will help to cover your back as well (e.g .co.uk shows that you are targeting the uk , where as .com might imply that you are targeting the us) .

i also just want to point out that royalties agencies are not government agencies, they are just companies that represent rights holders and of course they are going to try to scare anyone running and online station into paying them.