Licensing fees - How much

[paul9290]

Ok, I have been reading the forums and my conclusion that it would cost me about $8,000 in licensing fees for half a year?

$2K to each group...

SESAC
BMI
ASCAP
Harry Fox Agency

Is that a correct assesment? Such fees would be a flat rate that do not flutuate with amount of listners I have? If I only have my Shoutcast station set to 50 max users, I would still have to pay that flat rate to each organization? I can't imagine a station like HitZone radio a stream that currently has 3K listners would only pay $2K to each organization.

Is there a sticky on this topic and if so, Im sorry I didnt see it.

Cheers, Paul

[dotme]

There are some threads on licensing if you search...

I sent you a PM with a recommendation for you. You would need to compare costs and see if it's any better than licensing direct. It may not be. Best wishes.

[paul9290]

Thank you for your PM, though I am confused as to why you are paying $20 a month while I see others paying $2K each to the different clearing houses every six months. Is LoudCity legit and why in the world would others not be using this alternative?

I would be very willing to pay top dollar if my station broke even or help me net a small profit, but first I want to start small 50 listners for experimental purposes. Loudcity sounds like the perfect solution for beginning broadcasters (if its legit).

Anyone else have any experience with Loudcity?

Cheers, Chaser

[Nick@ss]

also keep your eye on www.webcasteru.com as they are putting someting tohether aswell in the near future :)

[dotme]

Originally posted by paul9290
I would be very willing to pay top dollar if my station broke even or help me net a small profit, but first I want to start small 50 listners for experimental purposes. Loudcity sounds like the perfect solution for beginning broadcasters (if its legit).

Oh it's definitely legit, but you raise good questions. LoudCity is best described as an "aggregator". They hired attorneys to negotiate with the BMI, ASCAP, SESAC, SoundExchange crowd and they pay the $2K-type fees. Think of it like PayPal - Instead of needing your own expensive Merchant account and ongoing monthly gateway fees, PayPal aggregates. As long as the sum of the parts is greater than the whole, they's making money.

There are restrictions - such as launching streams only from their domain. That's not their restriction, it's the Music Industry's. Same goes for SWCast (A competitor). Nick in his post above also indicates that WebcasterU is looking into providing a similar service. What's nice about all these solutions is that they are affordable, legal, and they take care of all the filing, reporting etc. That lets people like me concentrate on what I enjoy - music.

[paul9290]

So, I am still not clear as to why someone would want to pay the music clearing houses directly as that seems a lot more costly then paying a middleman like loudcity.

What are the disadvantages in comparison to paying to the clearinghouses directly? I would assume LoudCity is meant for the average joe with a small max listener capacity?

Dotme you say you pay $20 a month? How long has your station been on the air and how many listners do you average a month?

Cheers, Chaser

[NJK]

Originally posted by paul9290
So, I am still not clear as to why someone would want to pay the music clearing houses directly as that seems a lot more costly then paying a middleman like loudcity.



the restrictions you have when going with the middleman could make someone go straight to the source.

at least that's how it works overhere in my country, going straight to the gouverment parts that take care of licenses if easier than going through some middleman.

and loudcity and swcast are nice but it doesn't cover the legal things for people outside the US or UK.

[dotme]

Loudcity pricing depends on listener-hrs/month (Pricing (http://www.loudcity.net/Services/Pricing/tabid/108/Default.aspx))

Spaceplay is correct - In fact LoudCity is US-only. Althout trust me - it's much easier in the US to use such a service than it is going it alone. WebcasterU is, I believe, looking into a UK plan but that is in the early stages of development.

My station is under 5000 ATH at this time (It's only 10 weeks old), so I use their lowest level, although I pay for custom launch page. That's a nice feature because it makes the transition from my site to launching streams almost invisible.

Since this isn't really a SHOUTcast Tech Support issue, I think we should end this thread here. But if you are curious about what LC offers, I'd encourage you to visit their site, forums etc and chat with other stations there. Same with WebcasterU.