For small webcasters and internet radio stations providing a 24/7 stream over the internet and/or in mobile phone apps, the international situation has in recent years become more challenging since the internet radio service providers no longer provide a full licencing arrangement. If they do offer agreements, it is uncertain if they cover all countries around the world.
Our previous internet radio service providers paid various performing rights organisations fees, However, they closed down their service on the 30 December, 2019, so we took the decision to take a different approach.
We have transferred over to playing Completely Royalty Free Music which is Non-P.R.O. (ie creators, composers, and musicians who are not registered with any Performing Rights Organisations or Collective Management Organisation [CMO] or Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society). Our agreements are directly with the composer/creator/musician/publisher who creates, plays and records their own music and/or more usually, a music library which holds the licence with non-PRO musicians. However, this means that the music tracks we play on our stations are generally by new composers, creators and musicians although sometimes they are established composer/musicians who have chosen not to sign up to a PRO. See our Credits webpage for the musicians whose tracks we play on our stations.
It is worth noting that the ‘free’ aspect of Royalty Free Music is a misnomer. Although no royalties should be payable by the user, often a fee is paid to the composer, creator, musician and/or publisher upfront. The 24/7 Online Radio Group may purchase a one-off licence for a non-PRO collection or library of a creator’s music tracks.
Also you may see on the internet offers of copyright free music. Ownership of copyright is quite complex. If you are interested in learning more about this topic then visit the British Library for more information. AKM Music has an article on What Exactly Is Royalty Free Music? and go on to explain the benefits of using Royalty or Copyright Free Music. Shockwave-Sound has an excellent article contrasting General vs Completely Royalty Free Music. Premium Beat also has a useful article on What is Royalty Free Music? PikWizard’s article, What Does Royalty Free Mean? A Complete Guide To Royalty-Free Content, discusses the use of royalty free images/photos in addition to music. It is important to note that our stations only play Completely Royalty Free music.
Please note that our stations are not available in the USA, France and Spain.
MIXCLOUD CLOUDCASTS
On our Mixcloud cloudcasts and podcasts we are able to play mainstream musicians and singers. Mixcloud has arranged international royalty agreements with PROs which collects license fees on behalf of songwriters, composers, and music publishers and distributes them as royalties to their members when their works have been performed. The agreements extend to using the Mixcloud embedded players on websites (see below). Anyone can embed Mixcloud players into their websites. However, do note that if you upload popular music files to your website without using the Mixcloud player, then that will still require a license from your country’s PRO. Visit the Mixcloud website if you are interested in learning more about Mixcloud and copyright.