is it OK to make commercial online radio station which can play music on demand ?

I am going to make a online radio station (for testing purpose, nothing commercial, atleast now)

I have few hundred song which I am playing using shoutcast(winamp plugin). Now I can easily make an Online radio station using this where user can select songs of there own choice and it will play. Ofcourse they won't be able to download anything. Now I just want to to know what are the issues with this ?

Are there any real copyright problems with it as I am NOT distributing anything. I am just playing songs. Since there are already tons of music stations, so I am assuming this is legal. Any insight ?

 

I think you have to pay royalties. I would consult lawyer about this because they would sue you if your wrong.

 

This destroys my next project, I was looking for a radio script. I don't want to get into all this legal stuff, I would just like to play music on a website! lol

 

i am also really confused about it few months ago and i dropped the of openig an online radio station

 

I would recommend staying away from Internet Radio for the time being. I generally listen to http://www.beethoven.com/ when relaxing/studying and from there found about the possible closure of most internet radio because of the increase in royalties being put forward - check out http://www.savenetradio.org/index.html for more information on this. Feel free to protest against this if you believe it is wrong.

 

i got an internet radio pm me ill help you.

 

To have music on your host and then allow others to stream it over the internet, would technically speaking be considered (by most copyright laws) as distributing it...

However, if you were linking directly to another site where the music was contain then you might upset people over bandwidth usage of their account, and I think, but I'm not so sure, that you would still be violating copyright, by distributing it.

If you distribute music on the internet you are commiting copyright infringment and thus you are liable to be sued by anyone who owns the copyright to the music... unless of cause you pay royalties to the owners of the copyright, which can be any amount they like.

Diarmuid

 

Royalty payments may still apply for online radio stations so its best to consult someone about this i.e lawyer etc.

 

All songs are copyrighted so u will be in deep trouble drop the idea

 

It's not really that difficult. Yes, for you to be a LEGAL Internet radio station compliant with ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, SoundExchange and SOCAN regulations, you have to purchase licensing. (And no - you don't have to shell out hundreds of bucks a month though Live365. I currently pay $22.50 a month with a compliant stream licensing company - just google "StreamLicensing LLC".) It doesn't matter if the artist is mainstream (e.g. Madonna) or independent (e.g. Vanattica), it is more than likely their music is published through an agency affiliated with ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, SoundExchange, SOCAN or any combination.

Every station also has to be compliant with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (otherwise known as DMCA), whether you run an Internet radio station or an AM/FM radio station. Playing the same song more than once in a given hour is a direct violation of DMCA and can result in fines.

If you broadcast illegally, you run the risk of heavy fines, probable jail time and ongoing lawsuits, causing lost time from work if Internet radio isn't your primary job. Why run the risk of broadcasting illegally when it's a small price to pay to be a legal station?