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Rise.FM is closing 13-02-2005
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| elletek |
I have just received news that rise is shutting down on Sunday.
They will not be broadcasting any more shows after Sunday, Feb. 13, 2005.
quote:
Because of legal reasons we have to shut down Rise FM very soon. We have just been notified by the organisation who handles the musical rights here in denmark that we since the 1st of january 2005 have been more or less breaking the law because of some minor changes in some paragraphs that we didn't know sh*t about. In short, they changed the law a tiny bit and now we're breaking it!
We have less than a week to come up with $3500 (which will secure us for 3 months ahead) if we want to continue streaming and to be honest.... that's an impossible task for us because we don't have any investors or big commercial income.
We're not big fans of commercials but this may be the only way to survive in these tough days unless someone with alot of money can see the potential in Rise FM and would like to "sponsor" the station. But most investors would like to get something back in the long run and the only way to generate income would be by selling commercial spots (which is very hard especially on internet radio stations!) and banner ads.
Until now, all expenses on Rise FM (bandwidth, equipment, music, workhours) have been paid right out of our pockets with the help of a few donations and 2 very helpfull bandwidth sponsors. But an extra $3500 is just too much for us to handle.
To our luck we have a few small "tricks" we could use. These includes
playing only unsigned royalty-free tracks. All we need is a document signed by the composer/artist stating that he owns ALL the rights to the track and that Rise FM can freely play that track as a oyalty-free track. But this is not a very good long-term solution since it would be to more or less screw the artist... they deserve to get paid, but when the authorities play such ugly games, so can we. We would seriously consider having a 5-track royalty-free playlist on rotation 24/7 if that's all we had.... just to "tease" the authorities.
Right now we're planning our response to their demands and trust us when we say we will do all we can to keep Rise FM alive. But those $3500 is simply too much. Unless something more unexpected should happen, we will shut down the stream this sunday and get things settled with the danish authorities before we damage ourselves anymore. The website will continue to run and will probably be begging visitors to make a donation so that we might be able to reach the $3500... then Rise FM can be streaming for the next 3 months, but then we still would need to have people donate more than $1000 each month to continue streaming which is not very realistic.
As you might have guessed, we're still in a state of chock and our brains are working on all the pumps to figure out how to keep the station running. Right now we have a big hurdle to jump, but with alot of hard work and a great bit of luck we're sure that Rise FM will not be gone forever. But we need help!!!!
If you should know anyone who might be able to help us in any way, please don't hesitate. We need all the help we can get right now!
We will continue to provide you with updated information regarding the state of Rise FM. The stream will stop sunday night but be sure it will return again... but we can't say when yet. It depends on the next weeks "fight" with the authorities.
We're very sorry that the shutdown comes with such a short notice but to be honest, we didn't know anything about it until 3 hours ago when we opened todays mail. Feel free to drop us a line if you have ay questions or comments and we'll try to provide you with any information you might need.
Thanks goes out to all dj's, producers, labels, sponsors, listeners,
donators and everybody else who have helped us make Rise FM what it is
today... we didn't get this big without the help from you guys.
Take care and hope to be emailing you with some better news soon.
Kind Regards,
Rolf Arnesen
Station Manager/DJ
Rise FM
www.risefm.com |
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| clubbersking2001 |
That is a major bummer :(
Hope they can come up with a good solution, if not the cash :( |
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| Ian^ |
| the problem here is similar to TAW's where they needed huge amounts of money to be legal. Shame some of the 'popular' ones which most people here listen to aren't legal & get away with not paying all of the fees they should while the hardworking ones end up having to close because they do it by the book. pathetic |
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| Tim_G |
| You'd be suprised how many online radios do not pay royalty fees. I won't name any, but it will bite them in ass in the long run. |
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| arabella |
| This is very sad news. :sadgreen: |
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| futuredepth |
| Your governments at work. |
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| Andy C |
| could they just not send the show out from a server in a other country? wouldnt whatever country that server is in then govern it with its own public performance rules? |
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| Genesis Evolved |
| Yeah, that's the Danish authorities for you :clown: |
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| JohnWright |
| quote: | Originally posted by Andy C
could they just not send the show out from a server in a other country? wouldnt whatever country that server is in then govern it with its own public performance rules? |
That's a real shame, but I believe such an idea may be the solution. |
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| Andy C |
| always thinking ;) |
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| DaveT |
| quote: | Originally posted by Andy C
could they just not send the show out from a server in a other country? wouldnt whatever country that server is in then govern it with its own public performance rules? |
Not necessarily, because most laws simply state where you operate out of, not the base of the content.
That is, if you put your servers in Malaysia and operate out of the US, there are surely some US laws which will bite you in the ass about it. There are usually laws that regulate operating things from across state lines or international lines. In the end, if you control things (or have ANYTHING to do with it) from within the US, the US laws apply to you, no matter where your servers are.
If they want to avoid everything (supposing their laws are like this...), they would have to not only have the servers be operating out of a country where laws don't apply, but also have to hand over the operations to someone in a country where those laws don't apply.
For example, say one web station ran its server out of a country where copyright laws didn't exist. If the person or people who run it live in the US or even if people who support the site (administration, financially *donations*) in some way live in the US, they can completely be held accountable by US law. So if you live in the US, you simply can't hide from having to pay licensing fees by having your servers in a country where copyright didn't matter.
But I'm not sure how Denmark laws work...so what I said could be completely irrelevant. |
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