Welcome to 'Transmitting to Earth'. I'm Charssun and I'll be your host. This blog and podcast is a byproduct of VoyagerRadio.com and is intended to provide the most timely information about this Internet radio station. It is also intended to be a fun and accessible electronic journal with commentary focusing on Internet radio, podcasting and webcasting issues and technologies, music, and some of my other interests. I also offer personal perspective about being an Internet radio broadcaster (and podcaster).
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VoyagerRadio.com LegalizedI discovered that my webcast was out of legal compliance with my streaming host's new policy for listening/linking to the webcast. You see, previously I had listed 2 methods for listening to Voyager, my Internet radio station. Now I can only list the first in order to remain in compliance with Live365's new policy. I have no problem with Live365's policy; it only makes sense in order for them to remain in compliance with the new copyright laws. In case you haven't heard, Internet Radio broadcasters must now pay royalties in order to webcast. I use a service called Live365, which helps reduce the costs associated with webcasting. I pay them a small fee to cover my share of the royalty fee, and they pony up the rest. I then upload the music and other sound files to their servers, and they broadcast it back to you. So, since they are providing the webstream to listeners, they are responsible for keeping track of how many times each song is listened to and must pay for each listener. The only way to do so is by providing a Playlist, which you see every time you listen to my webcast. I'm certainly in support of Live365's being in compliance. After all, they help me keep my costs down, so Voyager's success is in some part dependent on their own. That said, it's no secret that it's fairly easy to bypass the Playlist. It doesn't take a genius to figure out how to bookmark a webcast in their MP3/audio player. Don't get me wrong, I'm not condoning undermining the copyright police. I'm just wondering how they're going to keep this information out of the public's hands? It's kind of like that De-CSS thing--you know, the software that allows you to rip a DVD and make a backup of it? Whether it's legal or not to use the software, is it legal to possess it? Is it illegal, or even just wrong, to possess the knowledge to do so? This is going to get messy, as methods we've grown accustomed to using in order to make our web lives easier, such as bookmarking, become illegal. That sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? To have to change our listening practices in order to accomodize a new copyright law? We're not talking about Napster here--we're talking Internet Radio. It's like asking us to remove the presets from our car radios!
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Artists! Want to be heard on this station? Email your MP3 audio, one file at a time, to our Program Director or mail your CD promo(s) to the following address:
Harold J. JohnsonVoyagerRadio
547 Gayley Avenue #1
Los Angeles, CA 90024 Make certain to let use know whether we may use the audio in our podcast, too!
Download the Podcast
We are officially podcasters now that we have revitalized and reintroduced our downtempo show Tempo of the Down, this time around as a podcast. Now showcasing independent downtempo we've been granted permission to offer for download, Tempo of the Down is our entry into the future of Internet radio.
Head over to our new Podcast area to download the latest session!
