I no longer live in the United States. Why can I listen to some commercial radio stations over the Internet, but not others? I can’t listen to a Clear Channel station from my old city, yet I can listen to a CBS station. Is there some type of broadcasting rule in the U.S. that prohibits streaming over the Internet?
22KE
From Wikipedia on internet radio:
It’s the same with many other services. There’s a webpage which distributes comics in pdf format for free but only in the US, for example. In the case of iBBC I understand it: after all, BBC is paid for by British taxes, so you only get to watch their programs over the 'net if you paid for them. Makes sense.
In other cases I’m left sort of scratching my head, but well, it’s all about fear of breaking a copyright law. Some companies either don’t think about it or figure it won’t be a problem, others decide to play it safe and restrict their 'net services to people whose computers are in the right geographic location.
Note that someone from, say, Andorra, who happens to be spending a night in the US, will be able to use those services, while an American soldier stationed overseas may not. It’s restricted by computer location only.
I believe that music broadcasting is licensed geographically. Most radio stations have purchased licenses only to broadcast in their local markets. Stations that set up Internet radio accessible worldwide have to pay for a much more expensive license.
It’s like that in Canada, too. I used to listen to Pandora until the RIAA raised a stink about amending radio licensing fees to include internet radio broadcasts as well as increase terrestrial broadcast fees, and now Pandora is unavailable in Canada. Fortunately others that I like are (di.fm and last.fm can still be received here, for example.) so it’s not a total wash. Still, it’s just another case of the RIAA ruining it for everyone.
You might not feel that way if you were the songwriter.
I’m a musician, and I do feel that way. But then I take a very pragmatic view of the industry. I write music because I love writing music. If I can make a living at it, so much the better. If people are going to steal it, they’re going to steal it whatever I try to do about it – but one thing I would not do – ever – is punish the listeners who pay for the sins of those who don’t. Nor am I interested in squeezing every last drop of revenue from every possible broadcast source in existence. Pay to pay, certainly, but region locking? Charging the kind of licensing and airplay fees that put the little guys out of business? Screw the everlivin’ hell out of that. I wouldn’t want to be associated with any organisation whose sole purpose is to squeeze blood from every stone it can find, muscle out the little guys, and engage in specious legal tactics to put the screws to every citizen who ever downloaded one of my songs.
I could rant about the RIAA for ages, but I’ll just leave it at that.
It’s greed. Once the Internet became ubiquitous, everyone with a financial interest in music decided that they wanted their fair share of the “big profits”. The problem was that there were no big profits to be divided up among the interested parties. It just raised costs to the point that Internet broadcasting is nearly dead.