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Anyone using LoudCity?

Loud City is a Joke and it is full of Hidden Costs. Its also difficult to use, and wont work through a router. Go to Cloud Broadcaster.com and set up a totally free account, your first 25 slots are free, and a new station wont need more than that for a while, you can also run the station however you want, no worries of DMCA Rules.. You have the option to pay roylaltys if you want to, but why, when you can do it for free with no restrictions, I just read that 70 percent of stations streaming online are doing it without paying royalties, and most the ones that are paying royalties are the giants that have hundreds and thousands of listeners. If you really want to pay royalties, you can for about 80 a month, but the hosting is free, no hidden costs, and no restrictions. Live 365 seems like a joke too,,,full of restrictions and hidden costs. http://www.cloudbroadcaster.com
 
If you run an internet station from the USA you are absolutely required by law to abide by the DMCA rules and all the other licensing rules no matter how or where you host the stream. Whether you choose to do so is another matter entirely.

I've been using LoudCity for several years and have no problems with them. LoudCity offers both hosting and licensing. They have a package aimed at beginners where they can host the stream and provide licensing. They also have a "bring your own bandwidth" option where you can host the stream anywhere and they just provide licensing. In either case there are some restrictions. The big one being you must launch the stream from a page under the LoudCity domain. They do allow for "custom content" so you can make a page that matches your website that is launched from a LoudCity domain. Why do they do this? Because they are actually the license holder and the stations are just providing content to them. However, stations are allowed to be listed in the Shoutcast and iTunes directories. It can be a bit difficult to comprehend initially but I wouldn't say there are any "hidden" costs. It is what it is. And unlike Live365 they do NOT interrupt your stream with their own advertisements.

If you have any questions you might try posting on the LoudCity forum (http://forum.loudcity.net/). Sometimes thats quicker than email. A moderator can usually answer some of the questions that users can't.
 
Mid West Clubber said:
Loud City is a Joke and it is full of Hidden Costs. Its also difficult to use, and wont work through a router. Go to Cloud Broadcaster.com and set up a totally free account, your first 25 slots are free, and a new station wont need more than that for a while, you can also run the station however you want, no worries of DMCA Rules.. You have the option to pay roylaltys if you want to, but why, when you can do it for free with no restrictions, I just read that 70 percent of stations streaming online are doing it without paying royalties, and most the ones that are paying royalties are the giants that have hundreds and thousands of listeners. If you really want to pay royalties, you can for about 80 a month, but the hosting is free, no hidden costs, and no restrictions. Live 365 seems like a joke too,,,full of restrictions and hidden costs. http://www.cloudbroadcaster.com
Click to expand...

Dude, pay the royalties... 1 listener or 10,000, the law is pay em. I use Loud City for royalty coverage.

Launch a stream from my page... you'll see the domain change in the address bar, but the look remains consistent.

eX1065.com
 
Captain,

Be and stay legal. Loud City is great. Do it right. I hear tons of excuses from people
as to why they are not. If you can afford the PC, bandwidth, music, get legal.

It will save you a ton of money and legal expense.


Cheers!

Chris
www.radiookc.com
 
I used Live365 for the 7 years I ran my oldies webstream. When it worked it was ok, but when they screwed up it was big time! One summer their servers screwed up losing content for streamers who ran off the Live365 server. While half the population was trying to re-upload their audio they tanked most every live stream running on the remaining servers. Then they interrupt the streams with their insipid "are you there?" messages. I had it and pulled the plug.

I may look into LoudCity for a group I know who wants to stream. This thread reminded me just how bad Live365 could be.

Oh, and as far as royalties are concerned, are you sure you want to take your chances with the RIAA? Better to pay them and not have to keep looking over your shoulder.
 
For real,, I didnt know it was actually illegal, as in punishable... Im silenced for now, till I can find a legal Alternative,,, Can a small station really get busted? and How can they find you... But then again,, I dont want to find out... I was paying royalties, but had a problem with the DMCA rules, because I use Winamp and not PRO Broadcast Software like Zara or Sam. So I had no way of artist and album scheduling.
 
MWC, look into IMS - Intelligent Music Scheduler at http://playitmyway.me.uk/ask/index.php

This is a great, free music scheduler. You can program the heck out of your station with this nifty tool! Great forum with the programmer responding quickly to bugs and feature requests.

Thanks.!
 
LoudCity holds licensing agreements with SoundExchange, BMI, SESAC and ASCAP. When you broadcast on LoudCity, your royalties (and your legal derriere) are covered. The "restrictions" about play limits on artists and albums within a certain timeframe are part of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), a law passed by Congress.

TWO sets of royalties are due when your webcast music work protected by copyright. Artists/Labels via SoundExchange, and Songwriters/Lyricists/Composers via either BMI, SESAC or ASCAP.

All those agencies do, from time to time, set out to find illegal webcasters. SoundExchange - for example - is currently in the middle of a campaign to track down internet radio stations operating without licensing.

LoudCity has no hidden costs. Everything is laid out up front. It's actually pretty simple - get your music organized, get software (like Winamp, SAM Broadcaster, Station Playlist etc), get a host (Shoutcast hosting), and then sign up (be sure to read the requirements so you know how to abide by the laws)

Loudcaster just oficially launched this week so if things are a little backed up on that side of things, I'm not surprised.
 
Mid West Clubber said:
Loud City is a Joke and it is full of Hidden Costs.
Click to expand...

Only a joke if you don't know what you're doing, don't understand the law and wish to be, basically a pirate.

I've been with LC 5 years and never had an ounce of a problem. Works well, covers what I need and at a good price. I certainly never had any hidden costs.

It's a small company, doesn't have 24*7 help available within minutes when you've got stuck. I know and understand that and that trickles down into lower costs for me.

I just recently costed going alone with SX, ASCAP, BMI and SESAC for a friend who wanted to "swamp" the internet. For my current monthly TLH the fee's went up 10x (thanks SESAC).

You have your choice.

I voted for Loudcity, been with them, love 'em and happy with 'em.
 
Ouch you think somebody at BMI or ASCAP pissed in his cheerios? He seems to be holding a tad bit of a grudge with those organizations.

Personally I think he has a point I have known more than a few Singer/Songwriters who didn't get a proper payment for the work they did.
 
I really have no problem just running an automated stream where I can just walk away without having the PC constantly on. Best of all, it's way cheaper and royalties are covered. I do realize that some guys really want to take it up there to reach a level like hitzradio.com, or an ipartyradio.com, but I've been getting some attention just running music only and paying a monthly fee for using their servers while they set up a log for each song that plays.
 
Captainfirst said:
What is the policy regarding setting up Paypal donation buttons on your website (not the one at LC but an external one)?
Click to expand...
You can take donations. But you do have to report that as revenue to LoudCity.

And if that's okay, can you mention the site's address in your programming?
Click to expand...
Yes.
 
Captainfirst said:
One other question, if I may, for those of you already with LoudCity. What is the policy regarding setting up Paypal donation buttons on your website (not the one at LC but an external one)? And if that's okay, can you mention the site's address in your programming?
Click to expand...

Cap, Just wanted to point out Loudcaster as another option. It was designed to fill a gap between the hardcore die-hard DIY broadcasters that LoudCity serves, and those that don't want to, or feel overwhelmed by juggling many separate services and technologies.
 
The thing that I think is unfair about internet radio is that no one believes in the model enough to advertise. I had to shut down my station two days ago because the costs just caught up with us. We had hundreds of listeners per week with our server cap of 200 being hit almost every weekday. The royalties, sever and Auto DJ costs were just too much for us from the beginning but we expected that we would get a little advertising help. We asked local businesses, tried to get in contact with TargetSpot, considered affilate ads and preroll player ads and tried to expand our online content to get Google Adsense to be able to cover some of those costs. After 2 months, we only got one ad for a driving school on our website at $15 a month. Other than that, TargetSpot never contacted us back and my friend at StreamTheWorld had said that TargetSpot required the Ando Media system that costs $200 a month and guaranteed us that it wouldn't make us more than $200 a month, affiliate ads weren't going to make money because their products just didn't target our audience and would have encouraged more tuneouts, most people listen on their favorite media players so prerolls didn't work, local businesses didn't feel like internet radio advertising was effective like local radio advertising was, the minimum to cash out on Google AdSense was $100 and it would take us a month just to get to $30. I wanted to start my station just for the fun of it, but our audience expanded to large and it was just too much of a cost to keep running and let me assure you something the government or record labels don't know, all the pirate radio stations being run on Shoutcast are the little people. These are the people who want to have their voice heard but would never have a chance on terrestrial radio. It seems that the government and record labels always want to shut down the little people especially that the major radio companies come into play, just watch the larger radio companies try to oust out the competition.
 
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