KFCF will stop our web stream on July 15. It was a very difficult
decision to make, but we felt it was important to keep us from exposure
to possible legal action. Most of the attention to this issue is
focused on the new and higher fees imposed by the recording
industry. The higher fees are probably not the biggest problem
for us, but the reporting requirements present a major challenge.
There are a lot of questions and few answers at this point. But
here are some things we do know:
This has nothing to do with the costs of streaming. This has to do with
reporting and displaying meta information about the recordings on our
web site in real time (as it is being streamed). We also have to
file a report documenting a range of information about every piece of
music (copyrighted music that is) on our web stream for a two week
period every quarter.
Since KFCF does not have the technology or a process in place to meet
the requirements and KFCF is likely on the radar of SoundExchange, it
would be in the best interests in stopping the stream and archives
until KFCF can work out the processes to meet the requirements.
The process that needs to be developed is not an easy one and we will
need to spend time in developing software to support the requirements.
At this point we have an average of 1 to 4 concurrent listeners. Since
the service is very lightly used, it was seen as the impact to our
listeners is light compared to the impact KFCF could encounter with a
law suit.
We are looking at ways to resolve this this problem, and will let you
know how things are going. In the meantime please feel free to
let us know your ideas and views about this situation by sending a
message to "vic at kfcf dot org". While many stations are
going to continue streaming until there is some decision, but we just
don't want to take a chance on getting caught doing something
that could cause problems for us down the road.
Click here to hear the audio version of this anouncment