2-6-2013
Federated Media will test the service, now in beta, from Abacast that allows listeners to skip songs while listening to their favorite radio station online. Abacast CEO Rob Green says this new feature satisfies 80 years of consumer demand. "We?ve all reached for ?the button? before to change stations when a song comes on we don?t want to hear. We don?t think listeners want to change the station most of the time, just a particular song."
Commercials cannot be skipped and, in fact, Green says, PD's can designate any song as skip-able or not skip-able. Live stream song skipping works on top of Abacast?s patent pending Cloud Insertion and Personalized Live Radio technologies. When a listener chooses to skip a song that is currently being played, another song from the station?s playlist will be played immediately and in its entirety for that listener. Hammer?s individualized buffering and insertion functionality ensures that the rest of the stream, including songs, DJ?s, and commercials, is played seamlessly and in its entirety as well.
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Unique advertising opportunities will be available due to the listener being engaged with the player when choosing to skip songs, according to Green. "In order for the listener to skip they must by physically engaged with the player i.e. looking at it. Because we know this, we?re able to provide additional targeted ad types for that engaged listener as well as different ad types like video."
Green adds, "Virtually all broadcast services today are enabling some level of consumer control. In our research, we found that almost 100% of consumers we?ve talked to have said they would tend to use a service that offered this vs. one that didn?t. Consumers nowadays want and expect some level of control over their listening experience. Song skipping, with some controls around it, gives consumers that feeling of control while maintaining a broadcast experience. We believe broadcaster usage will follow consumer demand and we are thrilled that Federated Media will be bringing this to market with us."
?We are excited to participate in the beta release of live stream song skipping,? said James Derby, Chief Strategy Officer at Federated Media. ?With consumers having more choices than ever today, we feel that song skipping will differentiate us from our competitors and more importantly provide our customers and clients a better listening experience. ?
(2/7/2013 5:48:31 PM)
The listener is not selecting a specific song and has no knowledge of the playlist, the order of the playlist, or any other rules around the song selection, nor do they have any way to suggest/request an artist.
Thanks again for your input!
Rob Green
Following the logic of that excerpt, your service would be interactive, and in fact allow the user to "get a specific song when they want it." Love the concept of this new feature ... just want to make sure there isn't a license loophole.
(2/7/2013 5:36:07 PM)
Rob -
Source: http://www.broadcastlawblog.com/2011/07/articles/music-rights/beware-music-use-in-podcasts-downloads-and-ondemand-streams-are-not-covered-by-your-soundexchange-royalties/
Excerpt: …"The royalties paid to SoundExchange are for the right to publicly perform sound recordings in a non-interactive manner. In other words, they only cover streams where the user cannot get a specific song when they want it, and where listeners do not know the order in which songs will be played."
Great question Bruce. The service we are providing doesn't enable a listener to pick a song or know what the next song is, it merely provides them with the ability to skip the song they are listening to at that moment. The playlist is, as it is now, entirely constructed and managed by the PD.
This is not an on demand service and thus the rule you bring doesn't apply.
I hope that helps and thanks for your question.
Rob Green
Considering the following rule regarding stream skipping (www.dwt.com) - does this service protect broadcasters by obtaining the proper copyright licenses?
"...allowing on-demand streams where users know what music is coming up, or where they can select the artist or song that is to be played—the service provider must obtain public performance licenses in the sound recordings directly from the copyright holders."
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