大晦日に、突如 Live365 から次のようなメールが入った。
Dear Live365 Listener,
For 17 years, Live365 has offered small webcasters the opportunity to stream music and talk programming, providing an alternative distribution channel for diverse, quality content on the Internet in a legally responsible way.
Recently, the Copyright Royalty Board, the governing entity for establishing the sound recording royalty rates that are paid to copyright holders, has published the new rates for 2016-20. The previous provisions for small webcasters to opt for a percentage of revenue model were not renewed.
The current provisions end at the end of 2015. The absence of this license will make legally streaming copyrighted musical content prohibitively expensive for many small to mid-sized Internet broadcasters. Live365 relies on this license for many of their broadcast partners and, as such, has hard decisions to make regarding their future in the streaming industry.
Two weeks ago, Live365 faced an additional blow, losing the support of its investors who have helped the company with its mission for over a decade.
The company was forced to significantly reduce staff and is now actively looking for partners to help continue the service into 2016. At this time, Live365 is planning to keep their stations active while getting the word out about this investment opportunity. With nearly two decades of Internet streaming experience and thousands of paying customers, this could be an ideal situation for a company looking to diversify into streaming audio.
CEO N. Mark Lam has begun initial discussions with possible business partners as the company looks to new options in the new year.
Dean Kattari, Director of Broadcasting for Live365:
"The true value of Live365 lies in it's diversity of content - it's a sanctuary where you can hear music and other content that it so unlike the template broadcasting that is heard on most terrestrial radio. These stations are the hard work of real human beings who use Live365 to share their vision with the world. It's a home for musical discovery because many of these stations play emerging artists that terrestrial stations are reluctant to take a chance on. It would be a great loss for this to all go away."
While Live365 is going through this process, we understand that our listeners will have questions about how all of this will affect their service so we have provided a simple FAQ section to help answer some of them.
We thank you for being part of the Live365 family and hope for the best in 2016.
Rock on,
The Last of the Live365ers
FAQ
So what happened?
Please refer to the full PR bulletin here. Basically, Live365 may not be able to continue service for our broadcasters after January 31, 2016; so streaming audio may stop at that point.
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英語にはあまり自信のない私には、少々難しい表現もあるが、要するに著作権協会は、Live365 に期限付きで与えていた条項を２０１５年限りで更新しないことにしたらしい。
この条項がはずれれば、個人的 broadcaster は、とても支払いできるほどでない金額を負担することになる。それに、Live365 のスポンサー(investor) の支援が受けられなくなったので、small broadcaster へのサービスは打ち切ることにしたというのだ。
そして、１月１６日になって正式に、１月末をもって good bye したいと言ってきた。
ほぼ９年間続けてきた Radio Senboku は閉局せざるを得なくなった。昨年１２月に、Europian Piano Trio と日本人女子の Trio の曲を取り入れたためだとおもうが、ヨーロッパの国々からのアクセスが増えてきていたので、放送局の継続に意欲が燃えてきた矢先だった。残念である。
最近の、そして最終のアクセス状況を記録しておきたい。
全ジャンルでのアクセスランク
順位が上がっているのは、どうやら撤退している broadcaster が増えているせいらしい。
ジャンルJazzでのアクセスランク
地域別のアクセス時間（過去３０日間）
今までは、Spain, Germany, UK, Italy などからのアクセスはほぼゼロであった。
