Welcome to the new AWRAC website and portal, a place that advocates the rights of all webcasters across the world, to broadcast legally, without having to pay the exorbitant rates that are being proposed and legislated by various governments and record companies across the world.

First, what is internet radio?

Internet radio is the ability for either a person or a group of people to conduct a live audio feed of either continuous live content, or prerecorded material.  Instead of a conventional transmitter, the internet radio station transmits it's program material via the internet.

This is made possible via the producer playing program material on a source computer, which then carries encoding software.  It is then this software's job to turn the audio signals into data packets, such as lots of 1s and 0s.  These are then fed through the computers modem, down the line to an ISP, who would then host a link.

On the other side, listeners would then click on this link that would appear on a webpage.  This would initiate a player on their computer (in this case called the destination computer).  The media players job is to then convert the 1s and 0s back into a stream of information, which then is the audio stream containing the program material.

In this chain, it is the ISP's job to replicate the stream, to the amount of listeners who tune in.  For example if one person comes along, and clicks the link on the web page, the stream is replicated once, however, at the same time, another three people come along, and also click on the stream, then it is replicated four times. 

This stream replication is then multiplied by the amount of concurrent listeners an internet radio station has.  Concurrent listeners is a term used by the amount of listeners tuned into a station at a given moment.   

So what is copyright in music, and why do stations pay for this?

Most radio stations across the world, either terrestrial, satellite or internet play music, most of which is copyrighted. 

The copyright in a song, is noting the person who wrote the music.   When an artist participates in a song, they are either the performer or the composer.  This is noted in two ways, first the composer of the written work, which is the melody and the lyrics.  Secondly it is the performer, the people who play the instruments and sing.

When a song is either played and copied, it is called the reproduction of the work, thus in the copyright, both the composer and the performer are remunerated for the reproduction of their work (reproduction of their material).