ReelRadio -- What the heck is going on there?

[KeithE4]

I resubscribed this past April and sent in my $20, despite my objections to their continued use of long-obsolete technology (RealPlayer). Now when I check their website, I get the following:

We're just trying to be Fair

As of March 29, 2015, we are proud to restate our Purpose as archival and educational. We were always intended to be a museum, not a jukebox. You are welcome to play anything we have in our Repository, if you have the appropriate software and hardware. .

Please try our TEST EXHIBIT to make certain your computer has the required software to play the vast majority of our exhibits. Go here to learn more.

REELRADIO, Inc. is a non-profit organization, and your subscription or renewal may be tax-deductible. We are now into our 20th year online. We were and are the first aircheck site. Most of our supporters have been here for many years.

As of August 16, 2015, we are no longer offering annual subscriptions. If possible, we would like to continue operation to at least our 20th anniversary on February 12, 2016. Your tax-deductible contribution will allow you access until February 14, 2016.

So are they sticking around after 2/14/16 or aren't they? Fair to whom? Doesn't sound like they're being fair to their subscribers or themselves. Or were they made an offer they can't refuse, and will have to shut down?

 

[radioman148]

I resubscribed this past April and sent in my $20, despite my objections to their continued use of long-obsolete technology (RealPlayer). Now when I check their website, I get the following:



So are they sticking around after 2/14/16 or aren't they? Fair to whom? Doesn't sound like they're being fair to their subscribers or themselves. Or were they made an offer they can't refuse, and will have to shut down?

I have been a subscriber for many years and enjoy the site. Having said that, I'm quite tired of the proprietor's constant whining about how many subscribers he's lost and how rough things are.
If things are bad then don't continue the site or turn it over to someone else. He sometimes sounds like a 5 year old child that doesn't get what he or she wants.

 

[K.M. Richards]

I have been a subscriber for many years and enjoy the site. Having said that, I'm quite tired of the proprietor's constant whining about how many subscribers he's lost and how rough things are.
If things are bad then don't continue the site or turn it over to someone else. He sometimes sounds like a 5 year old child that doesn't get what he or she wants.

As someone who makes an annual contribution in an amount with three digits in front of the decimal point, but not quite four, I object very strenuously to that characterization of Richard Irwin.

The reason ReelRadio is going to become an archive is partially because Richard had intended all along to do so when he hit age 65, which he will on that date. (Or did you conveniently miss all the posts he's made saying that for the past few years?) Since you've been a subscriber "for many years" you lived through the RIAA fiasco, which had the effect of causing a lot of people to not renew their subscriptions because it seemed the site might have been shut down. You also know, because you obviously read the comments, that there are some unscrupulous people who have been stealing the airchecks from RR and selling them on eBay.

Turning the site over to someone else would just transfer the financial/legal/piracy problems to someone else. Richard has the integrity not to burden anyone else with that. Don't continue the site? Are you really that callous? You would deny the continued existence of that archive because you see Richard's expressions of concern as "whining"?

Sir, please step back and try to look at this in the light of everything Richard and ReelRadio have had to endure. If anything, your post sounds more like "whining" to me than anything Richard has posted there.

 

[davideduardo]

I have been a subscriber for many years and enjoy the site. Having said that, I'm quite tired of the proprietor's constant whining about how many subscribers he's lost and how rough things are.
If things are bad then don't continue the site or turn it over to someone else. He sometimes sounds like a 5 year old child that doesn't get what he or she wants.

While KM addressed the overall issues, it should be4 emphasized that the idiots at RIAA/SoundExchange came after the site because many airchecks were not scoped or not scoped enough. This, despite the fact that the "original" airchecks were taped off the air, as often as not on cassettes, and did not have anything approaching digital quality... which is what the DMCA is supposed to protect. No regard for the historical role of radio in making the hits and of this disk jockey in promoting them. Nor regard for the archival and historical significance of the material... just "get that stuff offline" or pay the fees.

It's shameful what SoundExchange / RIAA did to this valuable resource.

And it's equally unfortunate that folks on this board don't give Richard Irwin credit for all he has done over the years to preserve airchecks.

 

[TheBigA]

No regard for the historical role of radio in making the hits and of this disk jockey in promoting them. Nor regard for the archival and historical significance of the material... just "get that stuff offline" or pay the fees.

Only the tip of the iceberg. Actual educational institutions and libraries have been prohibited from sharing music via the internet, making research and the presentation of studies and reports more time consuming and difficult. All for the sake of collecting royalties.

 

[CTListener]

Only the tip of the iceberg. Actual educational institutions and libraries have been prohibited from sharing music via the internet, making research and the presentation of studies and reports more time consuming and difficult. All for the sake of collecting royalties.

The artists and songwriters could call off the dogs any time they want to. They don't. The royalty hounds are just doing the bidding of the real villains: the very people music fans worship. Ask SiriusXM '60s on 6 listeners what they think of the Turtles. They get it.

 

[davideduardo]

Please crawl back under your rock and take your pirated collection with you, okay?

This is a good example of the bad things that happen on the web.

Reel Radio not only curated the airchecks, they enhanced them. They added notes about the talent and the stations they had been with and set up a very useful hierarchy on the website.

The pirate has simply made a list on a download site.

I see the same mentality and lack of scruples and morals with my own site where opportunistic thieves download content and put it on CDs they sell on eBay. I wrote to one years ago and asked why they did it; I actually got an answer which was "I need the money and you can't stop me". In other words, these folks are simply armed robbers where their weapon is an Internet account.

 

[CTListener]

I notice that "Mark in PA" uses a New Zealand-based download site to store his aircheck stash. How difficult is it to get such a site to block access to the content, delete it, or ban "Mark in PA" from uploading there? Too expensive and time-consuming for Reel Radio to attempt? Just how much money must one have (or how well does one have to "lawyer up") to do anything in a case like this?

 

[davideduardo]

I notice that "Mark in PA" uses a New Zealand-based download site to store his aircheck stash. How difficult is it to get such a site to block access to the content, delete it, or ban "Mark in PA" from uploading there? Too expensive and time-consuming for Reel Radio to attempt? Just how much money must one have (or how well does one have to "lawyer up") to do anything in a case like this?

One of the first steps would be to engage an attorney familiar with copyright law and international law and who has a correspondent law firm in New Zealand. Just to drop the meter on such an arrangement would be thousands. Then there is the issue of proving ownership of the property... hard to do with most airchecks which were recordings of a public broadcast.

I even had to ask a lawyer to get to the first steps.

 

[K.M. Richards]

Oh, and I forgot to mention (but David's post reminded me) ... ReelRadio, because it expands scoped airchecks to sound more like "live" radio, pays annual music licensing fees to ASCAP and BMI.

Mr. Pirate doesn't.