MIT's New Music Sharing Network

tessaiga writes "The New York Times has an article about a new project at MIT to replace music file sharing over P2P with sharing over cable TV (reg free link). The Library Access To Music Project relies on the more relaxed copyright restrictions on analog transmission formats like cable. From the article: "M.I.T. students, faculty and staff can choose from 16 channels of music and can schedule 80-minute blocks of time to control a channel. The high-tech D.J. can select, rewind or fast-forward the songs via an Internet-based control panel. Mr. Winstein and Mr. Mandel created the collection of CD's after polling students." The article goes on to point out that this is (hopefully) legal under current laws because MIT already has a blanket license to broadcast music over analog media, and recording songs played over this system "would be no different from recording songs from conventional FM broadcasts"."

God help them!

If MIT students can't find methods to get MP3 off the 'net, nimbly sidestepping the R*AA and other assorted vultures... well; do they really deserve to be at MIT?

-

That's all nice and well

It's all nice and well till the technology takes off and soon they'll find the nice hole in the licensing that allows them to do it gets shut off.

Maybe i'm just cynical.

Re:That's all nice and well

Don't radio stations have all sorts of restrictions on how much control the users have over the playlists? IIRC, the restrictions range from: the radio station being strictly prohibited from publishing its playlist, request shows requiring at least an hour between when someone calls in a song to when they actually play it, DJs being required to talk over the beginning and end of the songs, and requring the DJ to not tell you the name of the song until after it has played.

This MIT system seems to put a lot of power in the hands of the students, which is just the sort of thing the RIAA hates.

Re:That's all nice and well

Don't radio stations have all sorts of restrictions on how much control the users have over the playlists? IIRC, the restrictions range from: the radio station being strictly prohibited from publishing its playlist, request shows requiring at least an hour between when someone calls in a song to when they actually play it, DJs being required to talk over the beginning and end of the songs, and requring the DJ to not tell you the name of the song until after it has played.

Some of these are the kinds of restrictions that are being imposed on licensed webcasters, including e.g. webcast from a college radio station .. or at least things like can't publish a song on the playlist before it's been played, can't play an entire album, or more than three songs from the same album within 2 hours (something like that).

Broadcast radio has no such restrictions except as self-imposed by bad corporate radio .. college radio certainly doesn't require any of the above.

Similar to the streaming fees?

"Streaming fees" to me always reminded me of "steaming feces." Anyway, I wonder if MIT will be caught by some of the other legal challenges to the analog hole.

Anybody remember this?

Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia has upheld Copyright Office's earlier decision that traditional radio stations have to pay royalties for streaming their traditional radio broadcasts over the Net (process is called simulcasting).

Historically, American radio stations have had weird exception from royalties -- they don't have to pay anything for artists or record labels (they pay for songwriters though) for playing their music on radio, unlike most other radio stations in the world. And to complicate this issue, American Net radio stations have to pay such royalties. Now, the court fight was about this exemption rule and about applying it to simulcasting. Radio stations argued that their material that they air through radio-waves, is exempt from royalties even if broadcasted over the Net. This obviously puts smaller, Net-only broadcasters in losing side as they need to cough up to RIAA every time they play music on their station, while benemoths such as Clear Channel (world's largest radio station owner) don't have such costs involved.

"The DMCA's silence on AM/FM webcasting gives us no affirmative grounds to believe that Congress intended to expand the protections contemplated," the Philadelphia appeals decision reads. "The exemptions the (DMCA) afforded to radio broadcasters were specifically intended to protect only traditional radio broadcasting, and did not contemplate protecting AM/FM webcasting."

Re:That's all nice and well

It's all nice and well till the technology takes off and soon they'll find the nice hole in the licensing that allows them to do it gets shut off

However, this may pose a political problem. RIAA's argument is that they are not trying to retract existing privileges, such as recording music off the radio. Rather, they argue, the ability of digital technology to make "perfect" copies is a unique threat that must be combatted with restrictions specifically directed to the digital format. So to go after MIT, they basically have to admit that this argument is basically a load of crap, and that they are trying to impose new restrictions on what people can do with broadcast music. Of course, the reality is that nobody but a minority of audiophiles cares about "perfect" copies, and they aren't interested in trading compressed formats like mp3, anyway. The MIT initiative offers what the average student really wants--the ability to select the music they want.

Scratch ?

The high-tech D.J. can select, rewind or fast-forward the songs via an Internet-based control panel.

Can he do it fast enough to reproduce the vinyl scratch effect ?

the sue cycle

A good idea in foresigh, but we all know the RIAA will demand some insane fee as they aren't traditional broad-casters or slaves to MTV...and when they don't pay, RIAA will send an army of lawyers after them...

and you rip off the mask...

of the evil-doer, and it is the RIAA [riaa.org], who shakes his bony fist and exclaims, "darn you meddling computer scientists!"

Microsoft Funded

Quote at the bottom of the page:
LAMP is funded by the iCampus Alliance (MIT/Microsoft Research)

http://lamp.mit.edu [mit.edu]

Okay, slashdot... does Microsoft get any props here?

(oh, sh!t, there goes my Karma.)

Davak

Re:Microsoft Funded

BUT...they run it on linux! Check out http://lamp.mit.edu/lamp-aup.pdf where they detail the setup and mention that it runs on linux.

Maan

Re:Microsoft Funded

Microsoft are funding a bunch of campus style software and such. iCampus [mit.edu]is one example of this, a large MIT research thingy, which covers funding for all sorts of projects (I seem to recall there being, for example, a student shuttle-bus which reports its location via gps to the web...). It's actually fairly fragmented; like most large lumps of university money it has been taken up by people as and when rather than as part of a Grand Plan.

Well, no matter how it appears, certainly if you ask MS or MIT they will tell you there is a grand plan - for sure. But relax, Microsoft have been throwing funding at universities for 'wired campus' style projects on a regular basis as far as I know, and as yet it has met with limited success from their perspective. They would love to own the education market, of course. They just haven't got a decent grip on it yet, and not for lack of trying.

You have to realise that research and industrial funding is an uneasy alliance at best. Good researchers attract funding whilst controlling the conditions under which it is given; bad researchers accept funding that comes with strings. In this case, MIT are, I suspect, in the driver's seat. This makes them relatively unusual; many researchers are rather naive and, on receipt of a few flattering comments and hints of 'long term collaborations', 'special relationships' or similar, will immediately go for it no matter what the conditions. Some even believe that they are the ones doing the 'using'. Having worked for one of these types, I can assure you that these researchers are wrong (do I sound disillusioned? Oh well).

It's worth keeping your eyes open, anyway; if you see anything using tablet PCs, MS DRM, heavy use of .NET, and 'Learning through [demonstration/play]' with [insert microsoft technologies], then you can more or less assume that the researcher is a Microsoft prostitute of some kind. But this particular project seems too 'free' to be particularly blessed by MS.

Don't know if that helps.

they'll use it

I'm a college student, and I can honestly say that if I had this I would use it.

I would use it to record all the songs I didn't already have on mp3. And for all the songs I couldn't get through this system, I would still hit the p2p. I don't supposed they have Super Eurobeat [avexnet.or.jp] or garage bands [cdbaby.com] music do they? No? The store doesn't either? Downloads for me.

Way to go. Not.

Am I the only one who thinks that, at this very moment, a RIAA lawyer will be drafting notes that use your comment as the centrepiece for a legal motion to get this MIT project shut down?

The way to combat RIAA, etc isn't by shouting from the rooftops that you'll pirate/whatever you want to call it their music from now till doomsday. The way to combat them is by supporting non-RIAA artists, by supporting innovative legitimate music-buying options such as the Apple iTunes store, by buying second-hand CDs, etc.

Giving someone the very ammunition that they need to shoot you down is suicide. Perhaps when you graduate to the real world you'll learn that lesson.

Re:Way to go. Not.

Excuse me "Mr. +4 Interesting" but the Apple iTunes store is populated with thousands of artists and songs whose record labels are part of the RIAA. The iTunes store also works with the RIAA to ensure the music is delivered in a way so as to limit widespread illegal distribution of the songs downloaded from the service. iTunes is as much an experiment for Apple as it is for the RIAA.

Re:Way to go. Not.

Exactly. But it's a legal alternative to the traditional buy-a-CD-of-twelve-songs-even-though-you-might-onl y-like-two-of-them model. I wasn't suggesting that it was independent of RIAA, only that it was one of the many legal alternatives that challenges RIAA's status quo.

If in twelve months time, 10, 15 or even 20 percent (to use arbitrary figures off the top of my head) of the music being bought by 10-25 year-olds is through online buy-just-what-you-want stores, then that'll be a very big wake-up call to RIAA and the major labels.

In that scenario (which most probably happen eventually), the big boys will have to re-evaluate how they package, present and sell music on a wider scale. Right now, they probably look at iTunes as in interesting exercise, just as IBM once looked at PC clones in the same way. But sooner or later, just like IBM and those clones, RIAA et al will have to embrace a future that's not entirely of their making.

And the less involvement that RIAA has in the music industry of the future, the better for us all, regardless of where we live and/or our musical tastes.

Re:Way to go. Not.

Am I the only one who thinks that, at this very moment, a RIAA lawyer will be drafting notes that use your comment as the centrepiece for a legal motion to get this MIT project shut down?

This is not some random student project. MIT has intellectual property lawyers.

innovative legitimate music-buying options

Music need not be purchased to be heard. MIT has paid ASCAP et al for blanket transmission licenses, like radio stations use. (BTW, the campus radio station, WMBR, used to be called the "Tech Broadcasting System" or WTBS, until some guy in Atlanta bought the call letters from them...now it stands for Walker Memorial Basement Radio, for its location.)

See their FAQ [mit.edu], particularly the questions "Is this really legal? How?" and "Did you have lawyers look at this?"

MIT likes Britney

Nice to see that the boys and girls at MIT likes Britney since "Baby One More Time" was number 4 most request song last week. Just can't get enough of Britney on the LAMP!

boston.com link: no reg req

boston.com [boston.com]

we all know how lawmaking in the US works, right?

it's not because this is legal right now, that it will remain legal until the end of times.

If this becomes popular, my bet is that the RIAA will buy themselves a law which will outlaw this. If it indeed is legal right now, that is...

Won't last long

The loophole is that the data is converted from D to A? How hard is it to capture it back to digital? (and wait for the RIAA stormtroopers to knock on the door?)

Analog file sharing.

One step forward and two steps back. All in the name of progress and innovation. Instead of using the technology we have now and improving upon that, we have to go back and use previous technologies to bypass roadblocks set up by the multimedia mafiosi. Oh well, hope this pans out.

This Time Next Week...

...there will be new laws in place outlawing this.

*sigh*

Analogue vs Digital

Would they not have a license problem as they can control the program by rewind and fast forward. In an analogue medium the flow is linear - this way, people can control the order of the music which probably means their analogue license won't cover it...

(In the uk at least, if you wish to broadcast music, there are controls on how many tracks from one album / label etc you can broadcast in a set period of time. )

great idea if it's legal though.

All we need now

Is a Kazaa client capable of handling analog files. :)

So it's a free version of this?

It's basically a free version of Launch [yahoo.com]. Which is all very well but does it really take MIT to think this up. First time I used Launch I thought "wouldn't it be cool if this was free".

MIT and Pirated Files?

Its funny that some of the most noticeable things that come out of MIT are new ways to pirate software, movies and music. Like there aren't enough sources for them to find there Britney Spears albums already. This will be outlawed very quickly as it will soon be used as just another way to pirate copyrighted files. Also I am dissapointed that they took a step back and went back to analog instead of working on newer existing technologies.

It won't stay free for long.

They will still have to pay royalties on it, much in the way radio stations and web casters do. Remember the big fight last year over this? I'm sure they will try to argue that it is actually a webcast reguardless of the fact if it is analog or digital. Once they do that then they will have to pay per song played and that will stop it dead in it's tracks. If they do manage to convince the authorities it's more like on demand cable I'm sure their is or soon will be reg's that mandate royalties as well. Private networks are the way to swap music, throw a lan party, set up a wireless, or even run cable down the hall. When all else fails get yourself a portable or a hand full of DVD-RW's/CD-RW's and walk it over to a friends house. There are plenty of ways of sharing data that RIAA can't track/stop.

stealing or a thesis?

What is stopping the students on campus from contributing their "CD's" in mp3 form to LAMP? If they could do this and bump up the channels then this would be exactly the same as p2p file sharing, the only difference is that its analog and the "offending" files arent on your computer. These students are doing the exact same thing as all the people the RIAA calls "theifs," only MIT is doing it in analog. Its stealing in digital but it's a PHD thesis in analog. How stupid are these laws?

TiVo to the iPod

Awesome! Now all I need is that ellusive TiVo -> iPod software and cable bundle.

Hell's frozen over, folks.

From the article, for those who read all the way: "Mr. Winstein said he once received an e-mail message from a fellow student complimenting him on his choice of music (Antonin Dvorak's Symphony No. 8) and telling him "I'd like to get to know you better." She signed the note, "Sex depraved freshman."" This is a freshman girl at MIT... who is looking for loving... wants to get to know a gangly CS grad student... I AM STUPIFIED. Know what this means? This clinches it. The only reason we nerds are not getting any is because we're not looking for it. We're looking up net porn and wondering why we don't have girlfriends, while this girl's crying in her room about why we're not asking her out. Get out of your rooms and face the sun, gentlemen! Take a stand! Make this the day that college dorks around the world get girlfriends! WHO'S WITH ME?!

Re:Hell's frozen over, folks.

She signed the note, "Sex depraved freshman."" This is a freshman girl at MIT... who is looking for loving... wants to get to know a gangly CS grad student...

I listened to this story on NPR this morning, and when they asked the guy what type of music he liked, he said... (drumroll please) he was a big fan of show tunes. I think I can safely say that he probably isn't interested in some sexually deprived (or depraved for that matter) freshman girl. He's probably more interested in her brother.

No need to register

Here [nytimes.com] and here [hindustantimes.com].

You /. mods should try news.google.com and save our souls from the NY Times registration database. The same goes for you submitters. It takes a couple of seconds and would save /. readers some time.

So analog is allowed?

relies on the more relaxed copyright restrictions on analog transmission formats like cable.

Just watch your ethernet cabling with an oscilloscope while pumping mp3's over the net.
Looks like analog signals to me.

Hey!

After loosing a good chunk of rights, privacy, my music collection ... common, anything But the tv!

Other side of Cambridge, MA

It would be nice if we could get this at the other end of Cambridge... Wait, Harvard doesn't even have the dorms wired for Cable TV yet! Damn you MIT, one day we'll show you! *shakes fist*

Why you people just dont get it.

Whoever came up with this idea is clever. But, he/she similarly totally misunderstands the point of copyright laws by playing "bright lining" games (as do, in my experience, many slashdot readers).

(the term "bright lining" means doing some activity with a full knowledge of where the law or regulation is and doing something right up to this regulation, this living up to the letter of the law, though, the implication is, not the spirit.)

Copyright is a socially constructed concept. Basically, copyrightholders are entitled to a monopoly of sorts for a limited time on their work. most people agree that the primary reason for this is to encourage more creation of works.

When people talk in terms of "it's legally okay to copy a song from the radio" or "it's legally okay to copy three pages, but not the whole book", then they are basically referring to PRAGMATIC copyright interpreations and rulings based on past technological and social circumstance. as technology and social circumstance change, it may become necessary to change (usually tighten) what is allowed in order to best preserve the spirit and intention of copyright, which, again, is to encourage authors.

here's a really obvious sign of when the spirit of copyright is broken--i call it the "extrapolation" argument. basically, somebody takes an existing interpretation and tries to "scale it up":

• sharing music with your kid sister is ok, so sharing music with everybody's kid sister is (Napster)
• photocopying one page is ok, so let's set up a distributed system via amazon's new full-text thing by which everybody downloads one page and somehow they are combined again (slashdot/amazon)
• MIT has a blanket license for analog music / copying music from existing analog sources of music is ok (radio - unscheduled recordings, includes ads, not complete songs), so let's play a clever trick by which people can get whatever they want in a high quality, but analog format (MIT)

All three of these will work, in the short term. And all three will generate stricter interpretations and a clamp-down, because they are so clearly against the spirit of the socially beneficial copyright law (oh, shut up already, completely-anti-copyright anarcho-libertarians - go and do a little historical research about every attempt to do away with copyrights and patents completely). The end result of this will be stricted interpretations and more bitching and whining on slashdot. What is the root cause of this? The evil RIAA and MPAA? Yes, they occasionally go overboard (the mickey mouse extension act is pretty egregious), but generally they are in the right.

The root cause is those who think that they're being clever by bright-lining copyright interpretations without realizing that they are interpretations that are subject to reasonable modification as circumstances warrant, not god-given cast-in-stone truths. or, in other words, more technological sense than social understanding.

Disagree? reply, not mod down.

Re:Why you people just dont get it.

I think you have the right idea, regarding your comments about the spirit of copyright.. but look at this particular comment from the article, I think it sheds some light:

"It's almost an act of performance art," Mr. Zittrain said. Mr. Winstein, he said, has "arrayed the gerbils under the hood so it appears to meet the statutory requirement" - and has shown how badly the system of copyright needs sensible revamping.

My interpretation of this is that the system the MIT guys have developed is supposed to demonstrate that you can build a feasible, centralized, (somewhat) random-access music distribution system within the framework of existing law. You can do this using technical slight-of-hand and the particular legal circumstances regarding analog transmissions.

When people realize that you can have this almost-Napster legally, which provides a similar service, the point is to realize that the new laws are broken. There's a huge distinction, technically, between a P2P network and this project... however to an end-user the effect is much the same - you can dial up some music, when you want, from a big selection, somewhere else. So really - what's the point in making a distinction legally between analog and digital transmission rights, if you can accomplish much the same thing with either?

Maybe I'm off-base but that's what I got out of it.

By the way, when you say:

The evil RIAA and MPAA? Yes, they occasionally go overboard (the mickey mouse extension act is pretty egregious), but generally they are in the right.

In the right legally, perhaps. Morally and logically, not so much.

Here's what their PDF says about sound quality.

"We have measured total signal-to-noise ratio, on a cheap television, at approximately 45 dB, or between 7 and 8 bits of resolution"

Hmm. I love 8 bit mods, but I doubt this system sounds too hot. It also sounded like it was mono at this point. If that was the case, I'd say the students at MIT would be better off just downloading stuff that is high quality and freely available without restrictions. There's plenty of it.
On the other hand, I check Kazaa the other day and I noticed that there's still about four million users. Maybe they rigged up the counter.

Almost there...

Soon they'll come up with a way to share music wirelessly. Some day, every living room and automobile will come with a "receiver" for this amazing new technology. Thousands of music broadcasters, calling themselves "stations" will broadcast music freely over the airwaves. "Free Music for All!"

Of course, if you want digital quality, that will still cost you $10 per month.

I'm still at a loss

I'm still at a loss - how is lossy analog via FM radio or television still any different than lossy digital music, such as MP3s? Is it simply an issue of availability that makes MP3s so detestable by the MPAA?

Different from FM

The high-tech D.J. can select, rewind or fast-forward the songs via an Internet-based control panel.

This is precisely how it is different from an FM broadcast. This is the provision that the copyright lawyers will go after.

LAMP!

So Microsoft sponsored LAMP?!
But LAMP is Linux Apache Mysql {Perl, Python, Php}
eg http://www.onlamp.com/

They call that music sharing?

I call it simply 16 college radio stations! I guess they wouldn't have made the NYT unless they came up with some imaginery barely-legal hook for their very "innovative" idea...

Of course it is legal, there is no law stopping radio/TV stations allowing anyone they choose to pick what to play and this is no different.

Joint project with law school?

If they aren't collaborating with a law school to make this a more multi-dimensional project then this doesn't really strike me as a great idea.

An implication that this brings up...

The FCC has mandated that all commercial and non-commercial stations are to be "digital" under a system known as "In Band On Channel (IBOC)" (which has undergone several name changes since first mandated).

Since all radio stations are now licensed for analog broadcast of MPAA materials under ASCAP/BMI/SESAC (the major artist licensing groups that make up MPAA, along with the recording industry itself), does this not mean that all stations will now have to apply for and pay to get license/permission to play materials in digital formats?

This could wipe out a lot of small stations, both commercial and non-commercial, and allow the megacorps like Clear Channel to control all such media, and essentially censor by exclusion any music that they deem to be "unfriendly".

---

A whole lot of work for the same thing

It's like saying "You're not allowed to walk into this high security area, but if you LIMBO in we can't do anything about it."

a similar internet-based application

I've written a functionally similar application I use to listen to my CDs at work. The system provides a web interface to my 3 Sony CD changers using the Sony "S-Link" interface included on all Sony CD changers.

http://carter.to/discs/ [carter.to]

Drop me a line if you want a temporary login to try the system out...

DaC

Misleading Headline

As someone who has used LAMP several times, I can assure you that it's not a filesharing network (Though MIT is in the process of creating a carefully monitored Legal network). Yes, one could, theoretically, convert the stuff coming down the cable line back into digital, but the quality really wouldn't be worth it. It really has FAR more in common with a request based radio station than any kind of sharing network.

Obligatory link

Here's the registration-required link [nytimes.com], shamefully omitted from the original post. (For all you anti-privacy zealots)

Hurray for fair use

At least with this sort of system it stands a chance against courts and the RIAA. They can prove that they have all the music legally purchased, and potentially argue that the streaming they're doing is nothing more than playing music at a party.

If I've got a party with 150 people at it, I'm not required to pay royalties.

am I missing something???

I don't really see what the big idea is with the MIT LAMP system. The N Y Times is touting it as a new creative music 'on demand' system that has the potential to curb the rampant p2p campus file-sharing that has cause numerous legal and bandwidth issues. The central problem with this characterization is that it is largely hype. The system is only marginally more 'on demand' than regular radio. It broadcasts 16 universally accessible channels much in the way that satellite radio works today. The only advantage is that you get to see the playlist ahead of time and perchance reserve time in the near/far future to become a DJ on one of the stations. The so called 'on demand' feature entails being thrown in a queue of students/faculty so as to be able to listen to a specific album at an unspecified time. Other than price it would seem that this system has no advantage over internet 'streamers' (such as rhapsody, e-music, and music-match) which allow you to choose from either 100s of thousands of albums or artists for instantaneous listening all for a small monthly/yearly fee. IMHO, what made file-sharing so popular was not only the free access to a huge selection of music but the near instant gratification one enjoyed as a result of high speed networks. The internet streamers allow all this with the caveat of a nominal fee. The MIT LAMP system, however, denies the desire of music consumers to access what they want when they want it. As a result this system will do little if anything to ultimately curb either the number and volume of files being shared or the concomitant lawsuits generated by the RIAA

How is this a good thing?

Let me get this straight: we already have numerous P2P networks through which people can freely share digital media. These guys have created a system that distributes ANALOG versions of digital songs; only distributes data deigned appropriate by a central authority; only distributes locally, not worldwide; only allows users to hear the music from their TV, and not move it elsewhere.

And this is supposed to be a good thing?

No wonder Microsoft is funding the research... creating "innovations" that make people's lives worse instead of better seems to be their specialty.

The only "benefit" I can see from the MIT system over P2P file sharing is that the MIT system allows the RIAA executives to continue to harvest extreme wealth from the creativity of underpaid artists and the greed of contribution-hungry politician.

Instead of creating technical kludges that make our lives worse instead of better, would it not be better to junk the DMCA and other obsolete copyright laws bought and paid for by the RIAA and friends?

Great!

Now the RIAA will go after cable providers. This is another huge move in the right direction! NOT.

Moving things around is not going to hinder the massively funded music and movie industries. If anything this will close the noose that much tighter around our technology creativity and what is viewed as fair use.

I would expect more and REAL projects from MIT.

Grammar Nazi to the Rescue!

Mr. Winstein said that the equipment cost about $10,000, and the music, which was bought through a company that provides music on hard drives for the radio industry, for about $25,000.

Nice job, NY Times.

Good idea, but solves nothing

Basically this is the same thing that exists on almost every single digital cable system today, the only difference is that it's owned and run by the school, they chose albums they thought the students wanted, and you can briefly control it at times. Essentially all they're doing is mixing a campus radio station with digital cable music systems.

Of course, this won't do a damn thing about piracy. I have very little choice in what to listen to, I must rely entirely on what they chose, I need a tv and cable (not certain if that's standard for students or not) when more students are likely to have a computer than a tv, and I sure as hell can't put it on my iPod and listen to on my way to class.

All they've really done is make a newer, more user-controlled campus radio station. Sure, 10 points for improving slightly on an old idea (at least, for some) but absolutely zero for doing anything about kids who can't be bothered to respect people's intellectual property rights.

Re:Good Luck.. Risky venture

What the hell are you rambling about?

Part of the legal power that is being exerted is the very fact that its NOT analog signals..

LAMP broadcasts analog signals over cable, as permitted by MIT's licenses with ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC.

Since they are moving the audio do digital format, they potentially are asking for trouble.

That's backwards. Audio from CD's, which are digital, is being broadcast as analog, just like any radio station does.

Plus AFAIK a license to broadcast analog doesn't automatically give you a license to broadcast digital ( it makes sense that you should be able too, but when does law have to make sense? )

The audio is not being broadcast digitally.

Re:A rose by any other name...

You need a life and a reality check. With out capitalism, people would be a hell of allot more lazy. With out patents the computer in front of you would have never been invented. Stealing is never right, you can justify anything out of envy or jelosy.