If you have an interest in online radio and TV streaming, you will no doubt be aware that content licensing across national borders is a real headache. The problem is such that services including turntable.fm and BBC iPlayer are available in their host countries only, using IP address geolocation blocking.
So why not place an Airtime server in each country you want to stream to, complying with national licensing regulations, but pulling content and schedule data from a network of other Airtime instances? We already have the beginning of an API for schedule export, and data can be shared over rsync. We can then have decentralised syndication, but with a shared schedule that can be altered locally, for example to insert your local news bulletins.
This would also help solve one of the other problems for media start-ups, which is that producing 24/7 original content is really expensive (the reason why so many radio stations now rely on music automation to fill time).
Airtime would then be not just another broadcast automation application that happens to run on the web, but a platform for solving your pressing business problems of licensing and production costs. All you then have to do is find other radio stations that you want to share your original content with.
You no longer care that you can't afford US streaming royalties, because your content can appear on dozens of US stations. Or if you have more commercial ambitions, you can rent secondary servers in the US and do your licensing paperwork there.
Thoughts? Flames? :-)
So why not place an Airtime server in each country you want to stream to, complying with national licensing regulations, but pulling content and schedule data from a network of other Airtime instances? We already have the beginning of an API for schedule export, and data can be shared over rsync. We can then have decentralised syndication, but with a shared schedule that can be altered locally, for example to insert your local news bulletins.
This would also help solve one of the other problems for media start-ups, which is that producing 24/7 original content is really expensive (the reason why so many radio stations now rely on music automation to fill time).
Airtime would then be not just another broadcast automation application that happens to run on the web, but a platform for solving your pressing business problems of licensing and production costs. All you then have to do is find other radio stations that you want to share your original content with.
You no longer care that you can't afford US streaming royalties, because your content can appear on dozens of US stations. Or if you have more commercial ambitions, you can rent secondary servers in the US and do your licensing paperwork there.
Thoughts? Flames? :-)