A Question About Royalty Payments For Music

[oldgamerz]

As some you might have know I run a live radio station and yes I have obtained an ASCAP mobile  broadcast license in which is a one time fee for royalty payment for using copyrighted material, as far as my research goes I am doing everything correct, the internet says I don't need a license for a stream but I did the legal thing and paid the minimum anyway,

Youtubers constantly talk about copyright issues with music and I am woundering if you think I am doing the legal thing as far as broadcasting worldwide live copyrighted music. I mean I paid the one time ASCAP yearly payment for the licnese in all, but I don't want to get sued still for using copyrighted music,

The problem is I can't just call the artist by phone one by one and ask them if it is ok for me to use their music for my no commercial, no talk 24/7 broadcast.

I have picked up over 500 listeners in the last 3 days by the way through an ap called VLC, it turns out by checking the mark to let my frequency go hog wild, I have a passion for music and I am currently one of the ONLY stations listed on VLC a popular mobile app that is used by apparently 1000's of people world wide, I am getting to be like Pandora now, no joke. I paid for the once a year royalty license what is your opinion on what I am doing.

First off I am NOT A BUSINESS only a man who dreams of playing songs that don't get ANY airtime on  most ANY RADIO station, I play the b Sides as well as the hits so, yea I am getting really popular on VLC being the only dedicated rock station on their frequency list.

VLC is an app, you can download for your mobile devices, I am The Angel Classic Rock Mix, and yes I am on a secured line.

(edit) I play more then just rock but rock is my staple

[tripredacus]

OK here is how music licensing works. The ASCAP license is good and it only applies to you. In general a singular person should not hold a broadcast liscense but it depends on the situation. The entity that needs to hold the license is the broadcaster itself.

An ASCAP or similar broadcast license has no effect if you are broadcasting or streaming through a service, because the service does not have the license. For example, it does not do anything if you are streaming through Youtube, Twitch or any other service. It would protect you from liability, but the service provider can still be liable, and they are fully within their right to suspend of ban your account if you are playing music. The difference here is that you would be protected as long as you are playing the music you are allowed to.

Another example is live performance at a venue. In this instance, the venue needs to hold the broadcast license and not the operators who are playing the music. This is probably a better explanation as to why the Youtube/Twitch thing doesn't work like people think. In that type of situation, Youtube is the venue and the streamer is the operator.

I do not know exactly what type of service you are using. If you are running the broadcast hardware yourself, including the streaming server and not running it on top of another service, then you need to hold the license. For example, if you are running a physical server at an owned/rented/leased location that is connected to the internet that your content originates from.

I have dealt with ASCAP in the past and have been present during a licensing audit. This was at a phyiscal location and not an internet related activity. I recommend you keep a playlist of each song you play per day as this would be needed if you were to be audited.

You may also need to show proof of ownership regarding the content. This might have changed since I had experienced it. We were allowed to use MP3 or CD-R or music from another source, but we did need the ability to prove ownership of the content. You'd have to ask the ASCAP people if this is still a thing or not.

[oldgamerz]

FYI I use Centova Cast as my streaming service provider, they do not pay for the royalties they only provide me with the steaming ability, such as my own private URL. paying Cantova $17 per month is  is to get my URL online since I don't know how to host manually I use a hosting provider instead, it is more secure this way I believe.

ASCAP is a one time artist royalty payment a year based on how many listeners you've gotten in the past 12 month before payment, According to my research you don't need to pay ASCAP for a license but if you didn't then you would be running an illegal operation. IF you were broadcasting copyrighted content aka, ANY CONTENT ON ANY COMMERCIAL CD ALBUM. Like what I do

However you can broadcast royalty free music for nothing $0 legally but only certain music is royalty free from my research


Terrestrial radio stations NEED to pay royalties in full as far as I know but streamers don't. For streamers to use copyrighted content like I'll use "Black Sabbath" as one artist example it's a one time payment per year the minimum is $261USD for 500 or more listeners.
 how many songs do not matter.

However there is a big stink on the internet now saying that Streamers are ripping off the artist. And it's can be true since many many people broadcast and never pay ASCAP to my knowledge, in fact during me research, ASCAP wrote

"ASCAP INTERNET QUOTE SIMILAR"

paying royalties for your live stream it is the right thing to do

ASCAP are not greedy and are really nice people to work with, I've talked to some of their agents over in New York and they even sent me a thank you letter in the mail for registering my radio station with them back in September 2021.

Centova Cast automatically tracks connects and disconnects on the daily songs that were playing and lets you download the log I think.

[tripredacus]

Terrestrial radio stations NEED to pay royalties in full as far as I know but streamers don't.

Well US laws are not updated for the modern age. The broadcaster (be it terrestrial radio or streaming service) needs to hold the license and is the one that the legally liable. So if Centova Cast doesn't hold the license, they can still be fined for broadcasting your program. Doesn't matter if you have a license or not. There are ways around this, to grant liability to yourself but you'd need to handle this in a contract.

[oldgamerz]

But like I said, it's impossible to contact the record companies for each and every song played, do you think I'm safe

I don't advertise and I don't run a business

I can always snap photos of my CD collection as proof

Last time I knew it was 5 cents for ever second a song plays and 5 more cents for every single listener you have with that song, that would go to the artist,

But if that is still the legal royalty limit than I guess I won't be able to run my radio station for vary long if the law does crack down. I can't afford over $500 USD a day

[tripredacus]

As I said, you're safe from legal liability but the broadcasting service is not. If you were to happen to be noticed by a label, they will send notice to the broadcasting company. And if that happens, then your account could be suspended or banned.

This entire music licensing issue is the sole reason why I never streamed anything.

[oldgamerz]

I can't afford to pay over $500USD a day in royalty fees

I mean 5 cents a second plus 5 more cents per person listening. If the law ever does crack down it will take a LOT of enjoyment out of a whole lot of people, I hate money.

I just pray I can continue with my stream before it's too late

[oldgamerz]

UPDATE: I called ASCAP again today and it turns out this whole licensing thing is easy to deal with, I will not owe them any more money until next year comes around, they said everything is good with my mobile license, I can and will broadcast whatever and whenever I want to, I am aware that not all artist use ASCAP but most of them do. I believe


 I play American music anyway, in my opinion if these artist care about collecting their full amount of dough to aught sign up to ASCAP along with other agencies like BMI

ASCAP is said to hold a large Catalog but Google says BMI is better, but I use ASCAP since it is what Centanova Cast automatically tracks copyright sessions for the count

over 600,000 songwriters and 11 million musical compositions. currently use ASCAP.

What happens is if you want to get paid for your music you pay a one time fee of $50 to ASCAP and they will pay you a sum of cash based on a time frame, not sure how it works but, they can a check I guess monthly from ASCAP for royalty payments, it's a FREE money investment and if you are in a band you should take advantage of ASCAP checks

[oldgamerz]

I need listeners my 500 was reduced to 3 daily in 4 days time frame since VLC decided to broadcast other streams instead of my own