WEB RADIO BLUEPRINT — OPERATIONAL OVERVIEW

OPERATIONAL OVERVIEW
The DMCA discussed in the Legal Overview also extends its reach into the operations of the Web Radio station, and the payment of copyright royalties is a prime consideration in the cost structure of a Web Radio station.  Chapter 4 discusses the operational restrictions mandated by law for the Webcasting operation.  The Chapter also presents the costs associated with the technology platforms discussed in Chapter 2, and the costs of the various classes of webcaster covered under the current legislation.
Although there are stringent playlist requirements imposed by the DMCA, there are also software solutions to implement the requirements.  Included within the cost tables for the technology platforms, are the software solutions and server hosting solution that offer solutions to meet the DMCA requirements.
Also included within this chapter is a discussion of the implications of bandwidth on the operations and economic structure of the Web Radio station.  Conversely, this could be stated as the implications of operational decisions on the bandwidth required, and the costs associated with bandwidth.  One of the unfortunate anomalies of the current technology is that bandwidth costs increase as the success of the stations grows.  Because each listener receives a dedicated stream, (at least in the current “Unicast” mode of transmitting) and the bandwidth requirements increase as you offer higher quality audio streams, the required bandwidth to Webcast increases in proportion to the total number of concurrent listeners.  Although this is a technological issue as well as an operational one, it bears directly onto the costs associated with the Web Radio operation, and for this reason is included within Chapter 4.
Bandwidth requirements lead directly to costs required to establish the “pipes” used to transmit the Web content to listeners.  The cost implications of some of the available options, such as the establishment of your own server, the use of a Web Hosting Service,or a Streaming Service provider such as Live 365 are also discussed within this chapter.
In addition to these important facets of Web Radio operations, there are some minor aspects, which need to be considered at start-up.  These include items such as the filing of the initial notice, and the required notifications to the collection agencies for the payment of royalties.
Once again, the intention of the chapter is to provide an overview of technology and operational costs that cover the range of large, medium and small webcasters.  The concluding chapter of this thesis will focus on one real world example, and try to examine the optimum structure for a typical start-up organization to employ.
>>  Not too much to add here, but perhaps a clarification would be helpful.  The references to Chapters (2 & 4) pertain to the original format of the thesis.  Depending on when you might be reading this blog post, the revised chapters may not be published yet on the blog.  As I go through the thesis, I will maintain the Chapter number and heading so you should be able to easily locate a specific chapter that you might want to review.  But I am posting once or twice a week, so it will take some time to re-post all the chapters. <<