Streaming into Second Life

Inventor · Last edited by Inventor on Fri Jun 25, 2010 8:16 pm; edited 1 time in total

Hi folks, I'm currently streaming Strobe's music into the game Second Life and having a blast doing it. There are even tiny amounts of money involved, but that's just part of the fun. The real thing is how much the SL players appreciate the music and the DJing. So I want to get up to speed on more artists, more venues, etc. but some issues came up in chat.

Questions like: Shouldn't the artists get paid? What about a cut for electro-music? How about permissions to use the artists' material? And other stuff like that. This thread is intended to be a place for open discussion of the topic of broadcasting em music on em ports into sl. Please feel free to voice your concerns, offer advice and information, or just comment. Your thoughts are welcome.

Les

D.Miñoza · Posted: Fri Jun 25, 2010 6:31 pm Post subject:

I DO NOT want any of the music I have posted here on electro-music.com to be rebroadcast (for money or free) with out my permission.

Thank you.

Inventor · Posted: Fri Jun 25, 2010 7:29 pm Post subject:

OK Dan, no problem!

Les

D.Miñoza · Posted: Fri Jun 25, 2010 7:53 pm Post subject:

EdisonRex · Posted: Sat Jun 26, 2010 2:44 am Post subject:

My stuff is all distributed via electro-music.com under the creative commons license - share alike, by attribution, no commercial use, no derivatives, listen freely. Under the conditions of that license, no money can be collected by a third party (i.e. no economic gain) for my music. Not that I expect my music to be played in SL but anybody else using that license to distribute would also naturally have a problem about the money thing. I don't know if there is any way to also publish those license conditions in SL. I suppose it is a pedantic point, but the radio station has fairly explicit approval from everyone who gets played on it, to be played on it with specific conditions. Now most people, when asked, tend to agree to both airplay and archive, I have a number of artists who did not agree to archival; it's a reason a lot of EER shows aren't loaded up. From that point of view I'm a bit concerned that retransmission via SL isn't in our terms.

Technically, I don't know how this works, "streaming into SL". Do the SL people connect to this server? I don't think that's a bad thing, more listeners is always good. Do you just publish links to ports here? What is the mechanism by which this works? Who exactly is making material benefit from this activity?

I'm always protective of the radio station when it comes to us not violating someone's copyrights, or especially not being put into a position where that could occur. Certainly for 8050 because that one especially is the published iTunes reference. But the public channels, and to an extent the individual ports need to be held to that standard.

Expectations should be managed too. As far as I can tell, the only stream op doing this is Les. I don't see any other stream ops doing this, correct me if I'm wrong. Should there be technical issues, missed engagements, etc, I'd hate to see electro-music.com suffer reputational damage over it. This isn't to say it will happen, but this is not beyond the range of possibilities; without clear expectations from all parties, you never really know how wierd stuff ends up happening.

Anyway, technically, it's demonstrated to work. I'm just worried about third party issues. This differs from our collaborations with Stillstream, in that case we had a lot of up-front negotiation and expectation setting.

Inventor · Posted: Sat Jun 26, 2010 7:10 am Post subject:

Well how it works is kind of like this... Each club or property is "owned" by an SL account, meaning that that account has paid a purchase price for the land and pays tier, or basically rent, monthly. The concept of rent is explained by Linden Labs (who runs SL) as being a charge for hardware and bandwidth and salaries, etc. costs to keep the land working.

Anyway there is a place in the land owner's options menu for putting a URL into a streaming music box and then the people on the land can hear the music. Each listener gets a separate stream, so club events - if popular - drive up the listenership.

The money is trivial at this point. I've received about $1.35 approx in their in-game currency in tips for working about 10 or 12 hours so far. That's a dime an hour and if anyone wants a piece of that they are welcome to it, lol. But yeah it is non-zero and there are some who get successful enough at it to actually draw money out of the game and make a small profit. But I guess the point is that the tips are non-zero so it ruffles everyone's feathers.

Les

EdisonRex · Posted: Sat Jun 26, 2010 12:14 pm Post subject:

ok, so basically you're saying we get more listeners if we link in. You collect tips which basically aren't really money, they go towards the upkeep of the sites which are referring to us.

So all this really is, is it's a referral into the simulation's environment. I don't have a personal problem with that. What content goes in should still be clarified but you have been streaming Strobe and he's fine with that (according to the chat), it's an interesting situation, not unlike being listed in iTunes I guess.

blue hell · Posted: Sat Jun 26, 2010 2:11 pm Post subject:

Except that Les is making special programs for second life, which makes it a bit different from being listed somewhere ... if it would just be extra listeners for the regular program it would be ok to me ... I'm not so sure about using the main port for special programs aimed at second life tho.

For now I've upped Les' port to 32 listeners and I'm fine with Les using that to make second life programs, but I think the musicians being played on that should know about it and agree with being played for SL.

Inventor · Posted: Sat Jun 26, 2010 3:15 pm Post subject:

Yes, Agreed on all points.

The notion of the tip collection being to pay for the service is a valid one. I'm renting an island which is my home in SL and it's cost is $35 US a month. Plus there are cost for buying furniture, clothing, etc. and I have put about $170 into the game in total so far. It is unlikely that my meager tips will cover that, so yes it makes sense to consider it paying for the service of broadcasting.

However, if the music is popular enough, it is theoretically possible to show a profit at this game, in which event I would share with the artists on some royalty basis for sure.

Thanks for setting up my port and letting me use it for SL Jan, I appreciate it - and yes I will get artist's permissions.

Les

shivasongster · Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2011 5:46 pm Post subject: Streaming and Second Life

This thread seems to be dead, but if not, I'd like to offer up the info I presented at EM 2010

http://www.shivasongster.com/2010/09/em-conference-handout/

I also discussed in more detail some of the challenges I've had over the years. You can also learn more at:

http://www.shivasongster.com/category/second-life