[Icecast-dev] Icecast stats.xml

[Daniel James]

Hi Roger,

> And in the long run a proper low load stats API/login for royalty 
> collector purposes could be implemented (Icecast 2.5? 2.6? 2.7? 3.0 ?) 
> for the long run

It's also useful for public service and non-profit broadcasters to have
detailed analytics about their audience.

> I'm sure even SoundExchange and the acronyms out there would not mind 
> standardizing some of the info presented (to allow accurate geographical 
> stats that still respect privacy) if it means they'll get even more 
> accurate data than currently.

Right, there is no standard world-wide API for submitting this kind of
data at the moment, so there's a lot of manual reporting going on.
Live365 does automated reporting but only to SoundExchange as far as I
know, which is not useful for anyone with listeners outside the USA.

Online music retailers do have an XML reporting standard, called DDEX:

http://ddex.net/node/44

but the last time I asked it had not been extended to cover broadcast
reporting.

I think this is because in online music sales there are a few dominant
players which all have to be tech-savvy, whereas both radio and royalty
collection have been analogue businesses for a long time. Plus there are
multiple collection agencies in most countries, covering different
aspects of copyright licensing. A handful of the bigger societies are
DDEX members.

Cheers!

Daniel