SoundExchange Reporting Blog

Big conference week for us!

I’ll be speaking at AMPPR’s Public Radio Music Conference in New York City on Thursday, March 10 about – what else? – SoundExchange reporting. In addition to answering whatever questions you guys have, I’ll be sharing some interesting stats, charts and graphs on some of things we’ve gleaned from all the data that we’ve been collecting.

Meanwhile, down in Austin we’ll be well represented at the iMA conference, where we’re hosting the opening reception, on Thursday from 7:30-9:30pm where our new leader, Bob Kempf, will speak (click here to RSVP).

A number of of our folks will also be taking part in the session Take Advantage of NPR and PBS! Tactics You Can Implement Now (Friday at 9:45am), where they’ll be discussing topics like Project Argo and NPR’s Core Publisher Pilot.

If you’ll be attending one of these conference, be sure to say hello to me or my co-workers! We don’t bite.

Finally, if you haven’t done the following two things already, please do so ASAP:

1. Register for coverage under the new CPB-SoundAgreement

2. Submit your Q1 2011 SoundExchange reporting data (deadline, Friday, April 8, 2011)

We hope to see you in New York or Austin!

Some very promising news came out of our nation’s capital yesterday: a bill has been introduced in the House of Representatives that would eliminate the Performance Complement of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) for public radio stations.

The Performance Complement, you may recall, is that particularly annoying bit of law that says things like you can’t stream more than four songs by the same artist in a three hour period, etc. and so forth. Needless to say, eliminating these silly restrictions would be a great boon to all.

Below is the official press release from NPR with more details.

Before you get too excited, though, there are a couple of things to bear in mind:

1. This bill is not law yet – it’s just a bill, yes it’s only a bill. Until and unless it becomes a law, the Performance Complement is still in effect.

2. If this bill does become a law, this won’t affect SoundExchange reporting. That is to say, all of the music you stream would still have to be reported as it is currently, including the onerous “report each track individually” requirement. Changing that is a whole other kettle of fish.

But still – exciting and hopeful! Thanks to all who helped get things this far. Keep all your digits crossed.

NPR Applauds the Introduction of the Public Radio Music Enhancement Act of 2010

September 30, 2010; Washington, D.C. – NPR expresses its support of the Public Radio Music Enhancement Act of 2010, H.R. 6307, introduced yesterday by Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) in the U.S. House of Representatives.  The bill will improve the audience experience provided by public radio music stations in communities across America by easing restrictions on public radio stations’ music streams imposed by the performance complement.

“My legislation offers a narrow fix that has broad implications for the music-loving public in my home state of Wisconsin and across the country,” said Congresswoman Baldwin. “I look forward to working with NPR to further enhance its programming and better serve its listeners,” Baldwin said.

“We are enormously grateful for Congresswoman Baldwin’s leadership on this issue. Music is a critical element of public radio’s community service, connecting audiences with the performers, songwriters, musicians, lyricists and composers who enhance their lives. Congresswoman Baldwin’s common-sense legislation would allow public radio to improve that service and enhance audience enjoyment in the digital age,” said Vivian Schiller, NPR’s president and CEO.

Included as part of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in 1998, the performance complement arbitrarily limits the number of times stations can stream songs online from the same artist, album or compilation within a 3-hour period. In effect, this prevents public radio stations—some of the last free sources of music in quintessential genres like classical, jazz and folk—from streaming symphonies in their entirety, promoting local and emerging artists, or properly educating their listeners about the lives and careers of American musical masters.

“We look forward to working with Congresswoman Baldwin on this important legislation as the process moves forward,” Schiller concluded.

-NPR-

Media relations contact: Danielle Deabler, ddeabler [at] npr [dor] org / 202.513.2303

After several weeks of drowning in data files, crunching untold numbers and consuming enough coffee to raise the GNP of Colombia a few points, we have officially generated and delivered reports to SoundExchange for Q4 2009! Thanks to all who got us data – or at least tried to. Thanks to your efforts we were able to report on 227 stations covering 300 streams, a roughly 30% percent increase in both over the Q3 SX reports!

If you didn’t deliver your Q4 data to us, but do have it – hold on to it! We currently don’t have a procedure for submitting reports after the delivery date. We may at some point be able to accept it and generate reports after the fact, but for now just keep it in a safe place in case PI – or SoundExchange – asks for it.

As good as the response was for Q4, there are still lots of you stations that haven’t reported. Please please please plan to start doing so for Q1 2010. If you don’t start complying, bad things will happen. I’m not sure what those things are or when they will commence but yes, indeed, they will, sooner or later.

On our end, we’re already planning on starting work for the next round of reports by making the SoundExchange Dashboard component of Composer Basic/Pro more user friendly, and by finally starting to collect data from syndicated shows, starting with the biggies (NPR, PRI, APM music shows). Be sure to keep checking back here for information on that end of things.

On a different note, next week I will be attending the PRIMA conference in New Orleans (Who Dat?), and will be leading a session on – what else? – SoundExchange reporting. That session will be at 9:00am on Friday, and will include Mike Riksen, NPR’s VP of Policy and Representation. If you’re attending, be sure to load up on coffee and beignets beforehand and bring your SX reporting questions!

Finally, for those wondering, the deadline to get us your reporting data for Q1 2010 (covering January 1 – March 31) will be Friday, April 9, 2010. Of course, you don’t need to wait until the last minute to give us your data. I encourage everyone to get us your data as soon as your reporting weeks are over!!! The sooner you get it to us, the sooner we can validate that you gave us what we need, fix any problems and generally get it out of the way.

As a reminder, data should now be submitted to us using either Composer Pro or Composer Basic (well, vendors can still submit data to us on your behalf via FTP). If you are not a Public Interactive Composer Pro client and have not received a login to Composer Basic for data submission, please contact me and I will give your station’s login.

It may only be December 16 but for you stations that have to do SoundExchange reporting through Public Interactive Christmas has come early (or, for some, Hanukkah has come right on time)! The long awaited, much ruminated, never to be duplicated (where’s Muhammad Ali when you need him?) Composer Basic has finally and officially been launched! Big thanks to all of you stations who helped us with beta testing.

It has been launched just in time, too, for stations to use for getting us their Q4 reporting data (from within October 1 – December 31, 2009) which you may already know is due to us by Friday, January 15, 2010.

Composer Basic is the tool you will now use to manage your station’s contact and stream information with us for SoundExchange reporting, upload playlist and/or streaming log files, specify your chosen quarterly reporting weeks and access completed reports that we have generated and submitted to SoundExchange on your behalf. Composer Basic will also allow you to specify your weekly schedules, for the purpose of letting us know what syndicated programming you stream, so that we can collect playlists from the producers of those shows and integrate them into your station’s SoundExchange reports.

Composer Basic is for stations that are not already PI Composer clients. As mentioned in an earlier post, those stations have been upgraded to Composer Pro, which offers all of the functionality of Composer Basic, plus playlist entry and public facing pages and widgets to display your guides and playlists.

If your station has registered with Public Interactive for SoundExchange reporting (and you’re not already a Composer Pro client) then your designated contacts should have already received an email from us with login information and basic instructions for getting started with Composer Basic. Please take a few minutes to login, review the data that we have on hand for you and get familiar with the tool.

If your station did not receive your Composer Basic login, please contact me and I’ll get that to you.

Full documentation on Composer Basic can be found here. Also, a Composer Basic Quick Start Guide is available here. Feel free to print these out and take them home; they both make for excellent bedtime reading – not to mention last minute stocking stuffers!

Here are some important points to know about using Composer Basic:

1. In order to use Composer Basic your station will first need to review and agree to the Terms of Service that Public Interactive and NPR have developed, which grants Public Interactive permission to collect your data and submit reports to SoundExchange on your behalf,  and also gives you access to Composer Basic. You will not be able to access Composer Basic (and Public Interactive will not be able to collect your data and submit reports to SoundExchange on your behalf) until you do so.

2. Stations (and their vendors such as Spinitron and StreamGuys) that were previously given FTP accounts with Public Interactive to transfer data files to us, can continue to upload data files that way if they like. However, stations will still be required to login to Composer Basic to review whether data files have been uploaded and accepted and to specify their chosen reporting weeks each quarter and to update their guide data for reporting weeks.

3. Stations should take time to review what, if any, guide data we already have for your streams and make any necessary corrections. However, be aware that for Q4 2009 reports the only syndicated show for which we will be integrating playlist data is Classical 24. If you streamed this show during your Q4 reporting weeks, please make sure that the guide data in Composer Basic  properly reflects when you streamed the show.

That’s it! Thanks for everyone’s patience – both in the past and in the future – as we work to make this tool as useful as possible for everyone.

Happy… whatever it is you celebrate at this time of year!

I gave another webinar on SoundExchange reporting under the CPB-SX agreement this past Monday to the Public Radio Program Directors Association (PRPD). It was the best attended webinar yet (80+ people) and lots of questions were asked and (hopefully) answered. Thanks to Arthur Cohen for setting it up, MCing it and also recording the event.

Here are my slides from the presentation.

You can downloaded the video of the recording right here (Windows Media file).

I also did another webinar for NPR stations yesterday, the third of three. Here are the slides from that webinar, which are almost identical to those used for PRPD. That webinar, unfortunately, was not recorded.

I’ll be doing one more of these introductory webinars (whew!) for IMA member stations next Tuesday, 7/28, at 3:00pm ET – then that’s it!

Last Friday an excellent webinar was hosted by our friends at the National Federation of Community Broadcasters (NFCB), for whom I gave a webinar on SoundExchange reporting at the end of June. Last Friday’s webinar was organized to answer to lingering legal questions about what can and can’t be streamed under the SoundExchange license, and also on what needs to be reported to SoundExchange via Public Interactive. The panelists were John Crigler and Melodie Virtue, two lawyers who were involved in crafting the agreement between the CPB and SoundExchange.

John and Melodie provided some excellent information on some of the legal issues around streaming music, and more details on the agreement between the CPB and SX. They were able to provide a lot of information that I can’t, not being a lawyer. It is recommended viewing for all stations. Pass the word.

You can download the entire video of the webinar here (Windows Media format).

It’s worth time to check it out.

I gave a webinar about SoundExchange reporting to NPR stations this past Tuesday, which was well attended. Many questions were asked and answered. Thanks to all who participated and my apologies to those whose questions I didn’t have time to get to.

The slides from my presentation can be viewed here.

Also, an important clarification has been made to an FAQ about how long a song recording can be played before it has to be reported. After further consultation with the legal eagles here is our official answer from the revised FAQs:

Q: Is there a threshold length for how long we can play a sound recording before we have to report it?

A: There is no simple threshold length to determine whether a song/recording needs to be reported. In short, all recordings play should be reported. However, there is an exception for performances that are brief AND incidental to the other program content. “Brief” means playing any one recording for less than 30 seconds (as long as it isn’t played in its entirety). “Incidental” is much more vague, but generally refers to musical transitions, performances during news, talk and sports programming and background performances. Again, both conditions must be met to meet the exception; simply playing less than 30 seconds of a recording is not enough; it has to also be incidental or secondary to the main program content. This leaves lots of room for grey areas. When in doubt, report it. For further clarification or questions, refer to your own legal counsel.

Last Friday I gave a webinar about SoundExchange reporting through Public Interactive to stations that belong to the National Federation of Community Broadcasters (NFCB). I did a presentation and then we opened things up for Q&A. I was helped out in answering questions by Jeff Luchsinger, Director of Radio Systems Investment at the CPB, who helped craft the agreement between the CPB and SoundExchange.

You can see the slides from that presentation here.

It was a well attended event that sparked lots of good questions. One, in particular, that came up was the following:

Do we need to report live performances, i.e. the artist is playing live in the station’s studio?

The answer here is that since the performance is going out live from your studio and IF you get a valid release from the performers there would be no performance or recording royalty to pay in that case. Again, that is assuming you get a valid release signed by the artist!

There were also questions related to reporting on songs that are in the public domain. There is a quite a bit of fuzziness here, because while a song may be in the public domain in terms of publishing royalties, the recording of it may not be (i.e. a recent recording of an old standard). The recommended approach is to report all music you play and let SoundExchange sort out who (er, whom?), if anybody, is due a royalty.

Finally, there were multiple questions about On Demand archives and whether they are covered by the CPB-SX agreement. The answer depends on the format of the offerings. Podcasts and downloadable archives are not covered. Neither are archives which, while not downloadable, are interactive, meaning the user can restart/rewind/pause/fast forward the archive. Truly streamed archives (played on a loop, non-interactive, non-downloadable) are covered.

This is just the first of a series of such webinars for various station groupings so we can begin to share information on what the agreement between the CPB and SoundExchange means for stations, what Public Interactive’s role in SoundExchange reporting will be and what the next steps are for stations. In July I’ll be doing a series of similar webinars for NPR stations. Keep you eyes peeled for invitations to these webinars or email me and I can forward them along to you.