[Icecast] Victory

[ml]

Randolph Davis Hill wrote:
> I got icecast up and running over the weekend. Now i have a couple of
> questions:
> 
> 1. What can I do so that the record companies do not come after me ?
>    IS it ok to stream mp3 music ?

First off, I have no legal training; this is not legal advice it is only 
my opinion.

Any commercial music you buy on a CD (or from the Internet that is from 
a CD) will be covered by copyright.  To use the music you need to get 
the right to use it, usually by paying.  You need permission from the 
Songwriter, the Performer and the company that owns the recording of the 
performance.  The Santiago Agreement was supposed to mean the music 
industry provides a single licence to cover all three, but I don't know 
anyone that's managed to get one so you will likely need a licence from 
each body. (this is different from country to country)

As for mp3 streaming, if you have a turnover of under $100,000 US 
dollars you can stream in mp3 without charge, however you will still 
need to pay for an encoder licence.  Just because you can download LAME 
for free and compile it doesn't make it legal.

I would recommend using ogg vorbis for streaming instead, there are, and 
never will be, any charges and it's better quality.

> 2. I did some test. Some of my friends players would only play a few
> seconds and they had to select play to get more data. They were on a
> slow link.

Try lowering the stream bitrate.  If your stream is 128kbps and they are 
on a modem (50-40kbps) it's not going to work...

> 3. Any other advice you may have.
> 
> The play is to stream some music of some friends of mind who are
> musicians.

As long as the work of the musicians isn't a cover of someone else's 
song, or contains samples from another copyrighted work then you should 
have no problem.

Stephen
LiveIce Project http://liveice.sf.net/