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! Today I've been recording sound for my new webcast project. I haven't outlined this project yet, so don't worry if this is the first time you are hearing about it. It's still a work in progress. Did anyone out there catch the Leonid meteor shower last night? I saw a few from my home in Los Angeles. Surprisingly, too--you usually can't see a thing from L.A. Too many city lights, of course.
When you get the chance, check out Yoli's blog. In case you're wondering what that has to do with Voyager, well here it is: Yoli's an old friend of mine, and is a writer, also. Since I haven't added anything interesting here today, I thought you might enjoy reading her writings. I've already read Yoli's blog, so I'm going to get back to The Queen of Puerto Rico, Joe Frank's book of short stories. Couldn't believe I located it at my local library. I'm also finally getting some work done on producting my own radio program again. Stay tuned...until then, don't forget to subscribe to my free newsletter so you'll get a fair warning when my program is available! I was just moved by an old article written about the departure of Joe Frank from radio. Oh, Joe, where did you go? Are you somewhere out there, running a cable experimentation? Or perhaps you're more likely to be testing out the possibilities of Internet technologies? Worse yet, perhaps you're resting in Santa Monica, drinking a Vodka while reading all the books you missed over the years (I say "worse" because I'd rather hear/see/experience your performance--any performance--but something recent, to find out what direction you're going). Either read my dull quasi-news story about technology below or check out something that happened. Friday. Did you hear that XBox has gone live? I thought that happened months ago. It's about time; I mean, it's only been, what, two years since Dreamcast was kicking out online games?
Unfortunately, I don't have an XBox, or a Playstation 2, or any of the fancy new consoles. I'm still holding onto my Dreamcast, but that hasn't been plugged in for awhile. I spend too much time on that darn Internet Radio station. Maybe I should start searching eBay for one of those Broadband adapters for the Dreamcast. Then again, maybe I should start searching for a job, so I can afford such toys. It's Thursday--tune in tonight at 7 p.m. Pacific Time (10 p.m. Eastern, 03 Universal) by clicking the following link:
http://www.live365.com/cgi-bin/play.pls?stationid=34212&session=baraka%3A0&pid=&filename.pls or go to VoyagerRadio.com. Hope you hear me, Harold Back from Mexico. More later. You may find it more fun to join my new Voyager Radio community where you can talk about anything. Click the following link to join:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VoyagerRadio/ This group is exclusive, so you don't have to worry about be spammed by outsiders. I'll be approving memberships upon returning from vacation. So head over there now and place your subsription request! If anyone knows a way to set up a community group like this using Blogger with Blogspot--perhaps a more public forum--please let me know. Did you know that you can engage in a dialogue with me and other Internet Radio broadcasters and listeners? Join my community dedicated to folks interested in Internet Radio and you can add your own commentary to the discussion on Internet Radio issues.
Perhaps I should start a discussion group corresponding directly to this here blog. What do you think? Besides this blog, a narrative blog called something that happened, and various other projects, I also moderate a discussion forum: Please consider subscribing to engage in a dialogue about all things having to do with Internet radio! |
Send Us Your Music
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!
