Here are some facts about licensing, royalities and other legal stuff.
In September 2000 five copyright societies met in Santiago, Chile, and signed a number of separate biateral agreements in an attempt to simplify the licensing issues surrounding the public performance of music used online. The group assembled at the CISAC (International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers) World Congress and set forth to ease some of the issues that have plagued music distribution over the Internet. The U.S. organization BMI (Broadcast Music Inc.), Holland's BUMA, Germany's GEMA, the U.K.'s PRS (Performing Right Society) and France's SACEM entered into an agreement that permits each group to grant licenses for online music use on a global scale..
Because of the Santiago Agreement and the worldwide royality laws, we are not allowed to take care about your licensing fees. This would only be possible if your stream is exclusively available (can be activated) on our website as a sort of additional channel of our own radio station. This is a trick some radio directories/ providers use. But as soon as you directly link to your own stream on your own website (which almost all webcasters do), you will have to pay licensing fees in your country as well. Directly linking either means that a player will be activated or a player popup opens. So a 3rd party popup player is no workaround. All this is based on the international santiago agreement.
Generally radio directories with direct links to radio streams have to pay licensing fees. They pay for their own website. They do not pay for your website! Not the stream is significant. The location where the stream is presented is! Some radio directories/providers do not tell you this at all and some have small parts in their legal agreements which handle this issue.
Anyway, we at Love Your Domain have decided to provide a professional streaming service. This means we do not have thousands of banners in popup players and we do not interrupt your streams to bring any commercials.
Therefore we do not have any direct links to the streams of our clients on our websites.
You as the client can broadcast anything you want to, because you are responsible for your own content. You are not seen as a radio channel of our website or own radio.
Beside that we do not monitor the stream contents and we are not responsible for the behavior of our clients or users, or for the shows they webcast. The content and any copyright/royalty fees and any other possible issues are the sole responsibility of the individual hosts and their production entities. Love Your Domain and/or its staff will be held blameless and be recognized as nothing more than a service provider. Please also read our legal disclaimer.
With this information we want to help you to be legal and professional. Not more and not less. How you finally handle this is up to you.
Limited online exploitation licence (LOEL)
Does your service or organisation offer music online to the UK public via music downloads, music on demand, Webcasts (Internet radio), Podcasts or music in general entertainment content?
If yes and you earn less than £12,500 per year from these activities, you will need to take out the LOEL (Limited Online Exploitation Licence).
Who generally buys this licence?
Generally, smaller services or individuals eg internet only radio stations, small download services, educational establishments, live music venues, charities and other not for profit organisations.
What are the rights covered under this licence?
This licence allows you to reproduce and store music and deliver music to members of the public whether by means of streaming, downloading or podcasting.
How much does the licence cost?
See table below for full details. Annual licence fees start at £107 + VAT. If you only need to use music for a few months we can also offer pro rata prices covering these months only.
What is NOT covered by the LOEL Licence?
Use of music in advertising or sponsorship.
Use of music as mobile ringtones.
Simulcasting (broadcasting via more than one medium at the same time).
Reproduction of lyrics and musical notation.
Complete recordings of dramatico-musical works (musicals, operas).
Music used in a context that is derogatory to the writer or the performer of the music.
Moral rights.
The licence does not cover the rights in commercial sound recordings.
Please contact the Phonographic Performance Limited on 020 7534 1000 or the relevant record company.
How does the reporting process work?
Under this scheme you are required to report details of the total levels of music usage, including the different types of use (e.g streaming, downloading), to us at the end of the clearance term.
Visit the PRS website Here
