RIAA: Playing Copyrighted Music In Your Sim

I'm wondering... as a former internet broadcaster, if Linden Labs putting themselves in a position for a lawsuit from the RIAA? If there are 40 people in a sim listening, is that any different than 40 people listening via Live365? Does LL pay any ASCAP/BMI payments?? Regardless of who's streaming into the sim, IMO LL serves that content, so they're liable, right?

LL does not serve the content. It is streamed directly from the source server to the client. It never touches LLs servers. Holding LL liable for this would be similar to holding Nullsoft liable for what Winamp does. All SL does is facilitate passing the stream URI to quicktime.

IMHO, the RIAA can take a flying leap in all matters; they tried to charge us for broadcasting over-the-air radio in a restaurant I worked at. Yeah, whatever.

However, in this case, the liability, if any, lies with the audio stream broadcaster, not the listener.

Well, technically, no it's not served by LL. But the comparison to Winamp isn't really the equivalent. IMO, it's more like what Bittorrent does... and servers of bittorrent files get shut down all the time....

They are serving up the URL... so essentially they are serving up the content... just not hosting it.

LOL... i agree. The RIAA is EVvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvieeeeeeeeeeeeeeel. They've essentially stopped any live internet broadcasting. It's too expensive a venture and there isn't enough support of it to make it viable.

It is very similar. Just like how firefox can pass a stream playlist into iTunes. Second Life passes the stream URI into quicktime. Bittorrent servers host a hash that is required for peer to peer communication. Very different. There is no content relavent to the media being streamed hosted on LL servers.

Well, if its a Live365 feed like you said, isn't that legit? Live365 pays for its licenses through advertising and premium memberships, right?

Seriously, I'm not trying to be argumentative here, but when the land owner sets the url, isn't LL at least serving up a pathway to the content? Firefox is a browser that only serves up what its fed by the host server. LL is providing a way of accessing content, where as Firefox only parses what it is given by the host server....

Btw..thanks for the clarification so far. I've noticed far too many defensive posters in this forum. I'm not defending anything, I'm trying to understand... and I appreciate you for posting responses.

actually, I wasn't talking about using a L365 stream. I stopped live broadcasting and switched to podcasting. It takes WAY too much of time and effort to document every bit of content I used.

IMO, the RIAA is shooting itself in the foot... as it's hoisted up podcasting and podsafe musicians over their own.

I'm not trying to be defensive or argumentive either. In a legal context you really couln't mount a case aginst LL. Bittorrents are hash about a specific file, that facilitates a peer to peer connection. That to my knowledge is the RIAAs catch about that. I could go up to someone and say in chat "hey put [music URI] into quicktime and play it". I doubt LL could be held liable because they provided the medium that I used to distribute that URI. LL more or less automates that situation. The liability here would go to the streamers, and possibly the land owner for selecting a URI that is streaming music that is infringing on a copyright. However, I doubt they could build a case that held water aginst the landowner.

I've bought music because I heard it on a streaming station and liked it. I think they are hurting themselves as well.

I play my own music on my land. How do I get RIAA to pay me royalties?

I'm not American, nor in the US... How do I get the RIAA to go **** themselves?

As someone who intends to start as an internet broadcaster later this year, I'm interested to know what made you become "former" ?

LL merely relay the stream URL ( not the actual stream! just the URL ) to the client on your local machine, they don't do any broadcasting themselves, the SL client can be considered to be just like WinAmp or iTunes in that respect.

I can speak here with a little experience, not that that matters much ...

The whole old guard corporate music industry is based on exploitation and organisations such as the RIAA and it's equivalents are seen daily to only support the ( I'll say "criminal" ) corporate structure that exists to exploit artistic endeavour and that is why they'll never succeed. The world is waking up to this now and the old guard music industry will thankfully soon go the way of the Dodo. We do however need some way to enable artists to release their material without it being indiscriminately copied. If it becomes impossible to make a living from artistic endeavour what do you think will happen ?

The artists who create music for the love of their craft will continue to do so. Those that are in it solely for the money will not continue.

I agree though, artist compensation will be key. I'm all for making sure the artists get thier share of the pie (arguably that's not happening currently). The album sales are just a part of their profits though... concerts, merchendise, etc... as I understand it that's wher the bands really make their money (since the record companies eat most of the album profits).

Just my $0.02,

-Ghoti

You have BPI (British Phonographic Industry?), if I'm right. That's about as bad.

Yep, and they can go **** themselves too.

I guess we should all get a day job or starve in time honoured martyr to our art fashion



T-Shirts, posters and all the other merchandise are extremely important but that's mainly because they're somewhat harder to copy than a CD or an mp3. Hence they tend to bring in more money.

Gigging is just about the whole point of making music for a lot of musos and of course it's great PR too but profit ? Not often. Considering the humungous effort needed to put on a good gig I've met few groups who profit from gigging. Except those who play to 1000s and even then often the profit margin is minute. And these days just finding a small venue prepared to allow a club or live music is a huge problem. Huge!

I've no moral problem with copying music for personal use on the various hardware players a person might own. This goes back to cassettes ( or even reel 2 reel ! ) and we all used them. I'd defy anyone of a certain age to say they didn't and I'd call them a liar if they did. We played the music we taped to each other and if we liked it we often bought the album. That's the way it works. And that's the problem, now no-one wants to buy a product that's perceived to be too expensive OR often they CANNOT buy it because it's not obvious where to get it from. It's hard for most people to appreciate the effort that goes into writing music, or software or making a good texture and hence they think it should be free. That's a big issue that needs to be addressed somehow.

I think it's correct that broadcasters should pay royalty via some technology that benefits the artist. But given the medium available to us now we no longer require 3rd party exploitation. Aggressive litigation is not the way to make it happen, more often than not it's counter productive, why isn't that obvious ? When teens see their peers taken into court for copying a few tunes they'll rebel and do it even more. Which of course is what's happened.

Companies like Apple are succeeding with things like iTunes because they've just about got the price correct but they're still too corporately sucking up to the mainstream insdustry, the money still doesn't go direct to the artist and I personally don't like proprietary DRM, we need a proper standard not 10s of incompatible DRMs!


I'm not sure which point is more on topic or important in this ramble, in the end they all boil down to a need for internet broadcasting and distribution to be more artist centric rather than propping up an old and tired system of exploitation. For once I'm optimistic this will happen eventually.

It's what musicians did for thousands of years before the 20th century and recorded music came along... but regardless, I don't think artists deserve to starve, either.



I dunno, I base my comments on info such as THIS.

But I can't speak from experience here. Just seems to me there aught to be a better way than giving 80%+ of profits to the record company.

-Ghoti

No, they are not serving up the content, any more than any web page with a link to a stream is. Shoutcast.com is not responsible for the licensing of the streams listed on their site - the stream operators are. All that the SL client does is automatically start playing a stream - none of it goes through LL's servers, it is a direct connection between the user's computer and the stream, the same way as if you had put the link into Winamp or Windows Media Player.

While you are at it, you might want to find out how to get the BPI to do the same.

See my other comment, above.

You can use Loudcity's service. They monitor, file reports, and pay your fees for broadcast usage.

They'll listen to your stream and handle the details.

Or you can use one of the live internet radio streams. The Internet radio station pay their usage fees and you listen. SL is not rebroadcasting that content. It is received first hand by the listener. The SL client software is simply connecting to the URL.

Unfortunately, the Loudcity contract says that you have to connect to the stream via a Loudcity-hosted web page. That's obviously impossible for SL music, where no web page is involved at all. The Live365 services for individuals (i.e., the affordable ones) have the same problem.



Certainly there aren't any legal issues there. It doesn't help you if you want to play your OWN music, though, rather than accepting what some internet radio station offers.