Radio Streams Now Let You Skip Songs

[DToTheJ]

The Pandora-like technology is currently being tested by one radio company... Will it be the norm?
http://www.insideradio.com/Article.asp?id=2614242

 

[Casey]

I doubt it will be the norm. A lot of services that already offer skips are limiting them to help save on royalties.

 

[CKNF]

Will it be the norm?

Naturally, yes. However I wouldn't be surprised if the NAB and RIAA will do everything in their power to try to stop it...like everything else.

 

[Casey]

That's pretty interesting. But that could get messy with royalties. Skips are supposed to be counted as if the entire song played, making royalties more costly for people who abuse the skip button.

 

[landtuna]

The online equivalent of the pre-set button has just been introduced. If a particular song is skipped X amount of times it goes into the crapper and is never played again. No need for research.

Likewise, the streamer can also grade his listener. Push the skip button too many times and that listener gets his IP address blacklisted.

 

[xmusicmatt]

The Pandora-like technology is currently being tested by one radio company... Will it be the norm?
http://www.insideradio.com/Article.asp?id=2614242

You will likely see more then this but it will create unique licensing issues for broadcasters that do such.. That type of technology will fall under the interactive type licensing with Sound Exchange etc.. and those rates are considerably higher than just simulcasting your FM.

 

[Kent]

You will likely see more then this but it will create unique licensing issues for broadcasters that do such.. That type of technology will fall under the interactive type licensing with Sound Exchange etc.. and those rates are considerably higher than just simulcasting your FM.

The courts have already somewhat ruled on that. A ruling from a few years ago stated skipping didn't constitute an interactive service when the listener didn't have control of at least 60% of the of the stream content. The court didn't specifically define "interactive" or what you'd have to do to become an interactive service, but it did say 60% wasn't interactive.

That's where Pandora and some of the other webcasters get their "6 skips and hour" rule, and others will cut your stream off if you skip too many songs, even if it's fewer than 6. If you limit skips to that point, you should never qualify as interactive. From what I've heard, Federated Media will be limiting its skips to 6 or fewer per hour. Plus the songs going into or out of a break (and any other songs the programmers decide) can't be skipped.