Verifying RIAA Compliance
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Verifying RIAA Compliance
Webcasting refers to streaming audio content on the Internet. Internet radio stations are common examples. Usually, a license must be obtained for each of the two copyrighted items that a musical recording embodies, that is, for the underlying musical composition and for the actual recording. Licenses are issued either by the owners of the copyrights individually or through the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Licenses issued through the latter are called "statutory licenses." These permit a webcaster to play any number of recordings without obtaining a license from each copyright owner.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has identified conditions that a webcaster must meet to qualify for a statutory license. For more information, see the RIAA Web site.
- Note Web addresses can change, so you might be unable to connect to the Web site mentioned here.
Some of the conditions that you can satisfy programmatically are listed below:
- In a three-hour period, a webcaster cannot play more than three songs from a particular album, including no more than two consecutively, or four songs by a particular artist or from a boxed set, including no more than three consecutively.
- Archived programs posted to a Web site for listeners to hear repeatedly, on demand, must be at least five hours in duration, and they can reside on the Web site for only two weeks.
- Looped or continuous programming must be at least three hours long.
- Programs that last less than one hour and are performed at scheduled times can be performed only three times in a two-week period. If they last longer than one hour, they can be performed four times in a two-week period.
- When playing a sound recording, you must identify the name of the recording, the album name, the copyright owner, the featured artist, and other related information, if any, for clients that can render this metadata. Windows Media Player can display metadata about the content.
- You must not allow a client to copy a webcast if you have the technology to prevent it. The Windows Media Rights Manager 7.1 SDK enables you to encrypt content and require licenses to decrypt it. The licenses can specify rights for copying content. For more information, see the Microsoft Web site.
The implementation of algorithms that can handle the preceding requirements is left to you. One possible solution is to populate a database with a list of songs and programs, and with the metadata describing each. Then create an application that dynamically assembles playlists according to the preceding rules or verifies that existing playlists don't break them. Logging plug-ins can be used to track the content that you actually play.
See Also
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