Nexeus Fatale

For DJ’s who play music in Second Life and have been worried about the Roaylty CRB decision, congratulations, we are saved! A lot of political pressure and support to campaigns such as SaveNetRadio have really helped the recent decision of SoundExchange to not enforce the new royalty rates on Sunday (reported by RAIN and by Wired!). While things are safe for now, SoundExchange, congress and radio broadcasters are currently working on settlements to resolve this situation for everyone. Second Life DJ’s are saved, along with Internet style radio, for now.

With the deadline till the royalty rates for Internet broadcasters nears, I’ve been covering the different options that are available say a deal does not get done. Some bad news was announced earlier today as the courts denied the ‘motion to stay’ the CRB decision. The good news is that the activity on Capitol Hill, a round table settlement between broadcasters and SoundExchange. With two days left till the rates increase, there is still a question about what alternatives do DJ’s, and broadcasters have to continue to stream music. More importantly, in the economy that is Second Life, what options do new DJ’s have to continue to broadcast music, let alone their favorite songs? While there are many options for playing interesting and independent music, there aren’t many for playing most popular, “FM” music.

The first and the most obvious would be to pay the increased fees, to build a business model around it. While the model can be supported in Second Life, the market for DJ’s would not sustain the higher prices that a DJ would have to charge. The second choice is to go private, to make a stream a private stream and not pay the fees. While this option is VERY illegal (and when the RIAA finds you they will sue you to the next millennium), it is also disrespectful to the musicians whose music you do play. I do believe that musicians should get compensated for use of their works but not at the risk of putting me out of business. The third option is to approach one of the big four recording labels and strike a deal with them, the the same way that Sony and last.fm struck a deal, but this also hurts the musician as well.

The real last option is to hope that royalty licensing services such as Live365, Loudcity and SWCast remain open and are able to work our deals or keep prices affordable for web casters to utilize their services. These services are geared towards small broadcasters and charge a low fee, file the paperwork and pay all of the necessary licenses for broadcasting. I’ve been using Loudcity for some time (http://community.loudcity.com/people/nexeus) and it has really made my ability to broadcast shows in Second Life and online, easy, legal, and affordable. Services like Loudcity and SWCast work well with Second Life, as Live365 does not seem to be as SL friendly.

While the situation does look bleak, I would recommend that if things do not work out, the true alternative for radio webcasters is to rely less on “FM” music and begin to seek more alternative, independent sources for the type of music they wish to play… you really may be surprised by them.

For the past year I’ve been working on a wiki that describes how to DJ Online. As each month passes small steps small steps are made with the Wiki, something gets edited, a screen shot is updated, things are investigated for accuracy. Now, with the meat of the Wiki in place, I would like to think of it in beta format. There has been a few more updates to the Winamp and Sam Broadcaster sections, a few edits here and there, but it almost feels like a complete base.

I decided to take on this project (with the help of the other apex-high studio. members) to provide an easy guide on how to DJ, something that someone could follow to gather the basic information about online DJing. At first I was indecisive of whether to make it a Wiki or a Blog or something else, but I decided a Wiki platform is appropriate mainly because of it’s ease to update and interlink articles of information. Platform after platform failed as the Online DJ Wiki is being hosted on Zoho Wiki, a simple and easy to use WYSIWYG Wiki system. At the rate I’m going, I am planning for an official release in mid-July. Lets hope all goes well. Feel free to check on the project at onlinedj.zohowiki.com!

On Friday, I was informed of some disturbing news concerning Internet radio streaming and webcasting. The United States Copyright Board has made the decision to increase the royalty rates for streamed audio to the point where webcasters are not just paying royalties for each song the play, but each song that is listened to by a listener (read more about from RAIN). This is very disturbing news, as the new rates could mean one of two things, first the burden of popular radio stations having to pay royalty rates higher than their revenue, second being a lack of access (financially) to hobbyist who have used Internet radio for some time, and third the increase of fees from services that cover the royalty fees (such as Live365 and Loudcity) or possibly their shutdowns (which is an extreme case, I hope!). This could have a very dramatic impact to those radio stations who cater to specific niches such as MMOG’s or are independent broadcasters.

For DJ’s and broadcasters like myself, I’m unsure what this spells out, and the issue becomes very, very confusing (for more insight into the decision read here from the Broadcast Law Blog), but just as deadly. DJ’s may have to increase their fees for playing in Second Life, but also it could mean that those interested in DJing may never get the proper opportunity to. It looks like a very bleak at the moment for webcasters and fellow DJ’s. Although there are movements to help change this decision (see: Save our Internet Radio). Hopefully congress will intervene (as they did with the Small Webcaster Settlement Act of 2002), but it still remains to be seen what the fate of Internet based radio and webcasting would be with the result of these decisions.

This is disturbing news indeed!

Every so often, there is an experience that humbles you, brings you back down to reality and changes your course of action. No amount of power, fame, money or security you may have never really prepares you for this experience, but when it hits you know it has hit you. It is then when you realize a change has to happen and it has to happen quickly.
While I was in Vegas, I outlined what goals and accomplishments I would like out of 2007. My goals fit into two cateogories: securing my role as a DJ and to influence and build on the tools and experience that I have as a DJ. The new website design, the weekly show on RadioRadio is all apart of these goals.
It took a horrible weekend of DJing to make me re-evaluate the way I am achieving these goals – mainly that I’m not. It also reinforced how much I miss the experience of being at the bar/club – something that is unable to be replicated online. I feel that I am going about being an online DJ the wrong way, and I need to change my course of action. It does not matter how good of a DJ I think I am, I know I have failed as a member of the online DJ community. Today we online DJ’s have a lack of concrete tools than we had some few years ago. While technology has progressed, online DJ’s have been left far behind. It was from my horrible experience this weekend that made me realize much more still needs to be done to foster the online DJ community and how much needs to be done to make it a more creditable segment amongst the entire DJ community.

Here is a perfect example: online DJ’s have two major options to DJ with, Winamp and SAM Broadcaster. Both of these programs both lack features that the other has. SAM lacks the support of playing ACC+ files (as of this posting) and Winamp lacks the professional tools and plugins for streaming content such as audio overlays). Both lack the real DJ feel and features that Traktor 3 have – which lacks a LOT of the features both Winamp and SAM Broadcaster have. It becomes a major clusterfuck of what software to use, what techniques do you have to employ to get the desired effects and how to manage it all.
Even hardware wise, online DJ’s only have a few options to make their shows as roboust as it should be. I’ve found the best way to DJ is to have two computer systems – one strictly dedicated to streaming, the other strictly dedicated to taking IM’s, downloading, or being in Second Life/Anarchy Online/WoW/what ever virtual world I’m currently in. I am also finding out (through a lot of humiliating experiences) that a networked attached storage drive (or a NAS – essentially a hard drive attached to your network) is the best way to handle your music files.
While software and hardware are major issues, there’s still no one reliable source to get legal digital music. Granted it is easy to go to your local music store, get the CD and rip it, but then you may have to rename all of your files, make sure the ID3 tags are properly set, etc. Then again the price you would have paid for 1 CD you could have gotten 2 from iTunes, or most online services. Lets also be honest online DJ’s are not making a lot of money, and after they have purchased their content legally, they have to comply with licensing issues, which are a pain in the ass.
It took me one really horrible weekend to realize the set of circumstances that we online DJ’s are in (among other things.) A part of me feels responsible with projects such as the Online DJ Wiki and the Desktop DJ turned into ghost towns due to improper planning. It really makes me wonder why I continue to strap myself up for a gig every week, why I force myself to do this, as I have, for the past three plus years. Sometimes it is a listener, or fellow DJ’s or some sort of achievement I’ve made that reminds me why I started to do this. This time it’s the lack of tools that online DJ’s have, it clearly has to get better and quickly.