I am thinking about starting up an internet radio station

[Tony-d]

Hi guys, I am thinking about starting up an internet radio station just for the heck of it.

I found out I can run the S.W. needed on the new raspberry pi. I like them as the are cheap don’t use much power and put out very little heat. I want to run it on solar power with batteries for night. I have a ton of gear just sitting around. (Microphones mixers solar panels so on. )

From what I am reading I know I need a better up lode speed then what I have now (.83) DSL and I have no clue about copy write laws regarding playing music.

Any thoughts at all would be very much welcome .

Thanks

Tony

 

[Juan]

You need to pay royalties for music

 

[Tony-d]

I found this web site, it's a lot of money to do it on your own!

http://www.boutell.com/newfaq/creating/musicrights.html

 

[eurosport]

I've had this thought for years. Still can't afford to do it correctly. Google "901 Rocks" & you'll see the G+ page I made some time ago. I think I've found someone to help me now so it may actually happen, but music royalties are the biggest cost. In 3 clicks of my mouse I can be broadcasting from my studio here but I can't until it's legal. Good luck and hope you can do it.

 

[Tony-d]

I would have to do it above board and it looks like live365 is about $300.00 a month. That's a lot just for a hobby,
i guess if i wanted to be a talk show host, or get my message out there it would be a referent story. But I don't have a message.
I was thinking more stream music and let my friends host shows. I have one buddy that is a great-full dead freak, and another that is in to frank Sinatra, so on. But $300.00 a month is to much, i feel. I did put calls and emails in to live365 & two other services, just to see if i am missing something.
Thanks

 

[Kraven]

300$ a month? Damn I'd need to own a popular website to justify that expense...

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

When I shut down SatelliteGuys Radio my royalties per month were around $90. But that is because we had so many listeners. When I started off the royalties were $18 a month.

Now looking at StreamLicensing.COM you are looking at $24 to start that is for up to 3,500 hours a month listening time. It then goes up to $40 a month for 7,000 hours a month listening time...

Then you also need streaming / automation software, this software stars at free (for RadioDJ) to tens of thousands of dollars. I use StationPlaylist which can be had for around $700 when its on sale (it's on sale now) and to me can rival many of the real commercial radio packages. You can hear how good it sounds at http://audiotraxx.fm/newingtonradio

You can use the raspberry pi as an encoder and it works well. (It also works great at a receiver as well) But you will only be able to do one stream radio with your Pi box, meaning if you want to 128k MPG feed, a 64k AAC+ feed and a 96k AAC+ feed you would need three boxes.

You also need a server to send them to, but there are plenty of shoutcast and icecast servers out there which are dirt cheap.

Finally you can not just set it up and expect it to run and expect people to listen. You have to keep changing things up and keeping it fresh or you will find people looking for something else to listen to..

 

[Tony-d]

Thank you!