A little queer Internet radio station story

My primary reason for writing this piece is to praise a gentleman named Randall Krause.

I’m sure most of you have never heard his name. Before I started a Independent Internet Radio station I hadn’t heard of him either.

When Gay Talk Radio was started the station was playing a lot of dance music. What I call ‘trash disco’ (dance music from the early 80s). Obviously I had to look into the licensing cost and restrictions. The cost was literally prohibitive. As a very small one man operation doing this at home I simply could not afford 2 or 3 grand a year!

Then I learned all this was currently in the court system. This is also when I saw the name Randall Krause pop up. How he was fighting for the small little independent Internet radio stations in the court battles.

Randall setup a small company to help us small independent Internet broadcasters. For a extremely reasonable fee he took care of all the legal/licensing issues.

Last week I was contacted by ‘counsel’ for Soundexchange. Soundexchange is the licensing agency (granted by court during the current legal battles). In the email I was advised there was a issue with the services provided by Randall Krause. Soundexchange also stated they have attempted to resolve the issue with Mr. Krause. Under the DMCA Soundexchange had Mr. Krause’s website shut down.

When this happened there was an immediate impact on Gay Talk Radio and it’s brother Queer Public Radio since some of the links for listening suddenly stopped working. I had to redirect those links as soon as I discovered the problem (several website and pages).

I contacted Mr. Krause and he assured me his lawyers were looking into it. Unfortunately Soundexchange advised me, since they could not resolve the issue with Mr. Krause, I would no longer be covered after May 6th.

Luckily the station rarely plays music these days. It’s mostly talk radio. So I replied to the message from Soundexchange and advised them I would not play any music covered under ‘statutory license’ or any other royalty/licensing requirements.

So, at this point, Queer Public Radio and Gay Talk Radio must establish a ‘direct license’ from the copyright holder of any music played. Meaning I have a statement from the artist that they are the copyright holder and they have no ‘statutory license’ agreements. I will also request they inform me if that changes.

As a side note, I read that radio stations, which broadcast over the air, are not required to pay such fees at all. Of course, in all fairness, they do have to endure the FCC licensing ordeal. Not to mention the major investment in the physical broadcasting station.

As another side note, Soundexchange has pervue over Internet streams, not podcasts.

Get ready podcasters, you’re next!



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