Nexeus Fatale

With the deadline for the increased royalty rates looming, I wanted to focus on alternative ways to keep Internet Broadcasters alive. This series I will run throughout this week and will focus on Internet Broadcasting Alternatives. While this article may seem damning in the fight over Royalty Rates and fees that were imposed by the Copyright Review Board earlier this year. I feel that it is better to be prepared rather than caught off guard. Even if a resolution to the excessive royalty fees are made, the alternatives that I will highlight can only enhance current Internet Broadcaster options. If you want a full recap of the CRA decision and it’s fall out, the Broadcast Law Blog, the Radio and Internet Newsletter, and the SaveNetRadio.org group have done a great job in covering the issues. In this post I want to focus on IODA Promonet.

I was first introduced to IODA Promonet by Eric Rice earlier this year. Upon further review, I realized that this was a great alternative to dealing with the licensing issues of the RIAA although there are some catches. IODA Promonet is an independent distribution network that allows bloggers, podcasters (both terms are defined very loosely by Promonet, so to answer the question, yes Online DJ’s fall in these categories) to use designated “Promotracks” for use, for free! While this sounds almost to good to be true… there are some rules you have to follow (namely announcing the track name or placing code on your website.)

The downfall of strictly using IODA Promonet is that you are limited to their artist selection (which does include tracks from artists such as Master P, Young Buck, Cygnus X, DJ Rap) and song selection. In many cases this is not a problem, but it does hurt when a person wants specific tracks or if you are a Top 40 DJ. Don’t let those pitfalls stop you though, IODA Promonet is a great service for gathering new and unknown music and it is one way you can stay in business as a DJ without having to deal with the RIAA and Royalty Fees.