Brett Thomas wrote:
>
> On Fri, Sep 24, 1999 at 08:18:57AM +1000, Roger Buck wrote:
> > One thing that may be a problem is the "legal issue" you mentioned. What
> > is the problem... and is it an International or US issue... (any simple
> > explanation and\or links on this one)?
>
> Roger,
>
> I'm not a lawyer, so this isn't legal advice, but...
>
> My understanding is that, under US law (which we here at
> EMusic/Obs/FreeAmp are under), an "interactive" service has to pay a
> licensing fee to all artists whose music it plays. Essentially, if we
> set up a demo server, we'd have to pay the musicians every time
> someone listened to a song.
I checked this out here in Australia a couple of weeks ago - information
provided by our Australian Performing Rights Association (APRA). The
situation is different here but there are on-going legal challenges to
all this stuff, so who knows...
> Since Obs lets you decide what comes
> next, it is, by definition, interactive.
I have no desire to split hairs or look for loopholes, and according to
the Obs Introduction at obs.feeamp.org:
" The Obsequeium server runs as a daemon and has no user interface."
---snip---
"The server has a playlist called the Play Queue which tells the server
what to play. The song on top of the list is currently playing -- once
that one is done the server moves on to the next. "
... so, if the Obs user interface can be made restricted - only
available to a system administrator (for purpose of creating playlists)
- then surely it would be no more interactive than shoutcast, icecast,
or any of the other popular unicast servers?
> And, if it became neccessary, we could, in theory, record our own
> sample MP3s (Rob and Elrod signing, maybe ;) and set up a demo
> server. But I think everyone would agree it would be best if we could
> avoid that. :)
In our case, we could fill months of playing time with the combined
output of several thousand K-12 school choirs\marching bands... I think
they'd give you guys a run for your money <grin>
R.
