DCUFM and Redbrick

Winters

So, let me get this straight...

• DCUfm's licence was about to expire and they were notified a couple of times.
• They failed to provide redbrick with any new licence or any imro corrispondance to allow them to continue internet broadcasting past the cutoff date
• Redbrick cut them off when they cutup date expires and used an [old?] recording of someone who was involved in DCUfm so people would at least know it will be back or whatever
• DCUfm go batshít and blame redbrick for all the problems?

gg DCUfm, you appear (to an outsider) to act in a very reasonable and adult manner. How about you cut all this bullshít arguing and get our licence and apoligise and get broadcasting again so all the DJ's who put their extra time into making up shows back on the air. Maybe with this extra publicity you'll get some extra listeners.

The ball appears to always be in DCUfm's court and their apathy[?] to renewing the licence resulted in what was expected. The only problem I see here is the immatureity of people to the situation and trying to lay the blame on your free provider and not accecpting the blame yourselves and fixing the issue.

tl;dr: DCUfm; stop being immature and try and be professional in running your station. Accecpt your blame and apoligise for trying to lay blame on a provider who's giving you a decent free service.

Maybe I'll listen in if you apologise and get back on air to see if you lads will be the new Joe Duffy. Go on, go on...

monument

Again: no law seems to be have broken.

Interm permission is just as good as permission in the eyes of copyright law.

StiLL-TrAiNinG

monument wrote: »

Again: no law seems to be have broken.

Interm permission is just as good as permission in the eyes of copyright law.

[citation needed]

spockety

What most people here probably don't know, because they're not old enough, is that some time a few years ago (possibly 10 years ago now), Redbrick got written correpondence from IMRO to say that they could stream on the Internet without needing to pay any royalties. I don't recall any end date being put on the correspondence.

I suggest that someone post on the Redbrick boards asking about this, as there are still members there who may have a more exact memory of it than I, and may even still have the original correspondence from IMRO. Wouldn't that be peachy?

af666x

monument wrote: »

For example people drive cars without a full licence.

Which has always been against the law, but just never enforced. It is being enforced now, so bad example.

monument

af666x wrote: »

Which has always been against the law, but just never enforced. It is being enforced now, so bad example.

No it has not. Driving without a licence AND without another drive who has a full licence is.

monument

StiLL-TrAiNinG wrote: »

[citation needed]

It's basic copyright law if you have permission from the copyright holder (in this case the agent of the copyright holder, the IMRO) then you can use their stuff.

The law would not see any diffrence in interm or longer permission (as long as the interterm permission was within the time agreed).

Winters

If this is the case monument, then it is an even worse showing upon DCUfm. If DCUfm just needed to prove to RedBrick that they could continue to operate why did they not? Why did they ignore the received IRMO emails which would imply they could not continue to operate past the Dec. date?

This whole problem could have been avoided if DCUfm were upfront and explained the licencing issues to Redbrick when they were notified about ther termination/imro emails.

af666x

monument wrote: »

No it has not. Driving without a licence AND without another drive who has a full licence is.

You have always have to had to have a licensed driver with you when on a provisional license - now it just means you have to have a driver who has their full license for 2 years with you.

The only thing that changed was the level of enforcement it was receiving - oh and the fines.

Anyways, that's off-topic.

irlande

monument wrote: »

It's basic copyright law if you have permission from the copyright holder (in this case the agent of the copyright holder, the IMRO) then you can use their stuff.

Ok, even accepting that, there is still one very important factor.

They didnt have the copyright holders permission. There was no permission. You seem to really be ignoring the complete lack of permission.

So, even your argument that 'if IMRO say its ok, its cool' fails because IMRO didn't say it was ok. In fact, they said the exact opposite.

lil_cain

monument wrote: »

Nope. You seem to be confusing a legal licence with a deal which is called a licence.

In any case, there are examples where licences are needed but letters or notes of some sort are alowed as a stop gap mesure. For example people drive cars without a full licence.

Redbrick would be quite happy with a letter, or a note, from IMRO. DCU FM haven't deigned to give them *any* evidence of a license.

(also, it is in breach of a law. As hunger commented earlier, it's in breach of the copyright and related acts, 2000, sections 38-40. For which they can fine us large amounts of money, or put us in jail)

Innisfallen

spockety wrote: »

What most people here probably don't know, because they're not old enough, is that some time a few years ago (possibly 10 years ago now), Redbrick got written correpondence from IMRO to say that they could stream on the Internet without needing to pay any royalties. I don't recall any end date being put on the correspondence.

I had dealing with IMRO as part of my FYP, and that doesnt sound at all like something they would do... Further more, you would also need permission of the PPI to stream music aswel (as not everyone is covered by IMRO). Music lecencing is far more complex than people here think, the safest thing to do would have been pull the stream without proof that the fees were paid, how it was handled after that is another thing...

Hungerford

spockety wrote: »

What most people here probably don't know, because they're not old enough, is that some time a few years ago (possibly 10 years ago now), Redbrick got written correpondence from IMRO to say that they could stream on the Internet without needing to pay any royalties.

The end date for that arrangement came when the Copyright Act was passed in 2000. Before that, streaming wasn't covered under the legislation because it predated the internet.

Hungerford

monument wrote: »

Interm permission is just as good as permission in the eyes of copyright law.

But IMRO don't offer interim permissions and it would be highly uncharacteristic of them to cut DCUfm any slack. I refer you all to:

IMRO wrote:

My Radio Is In A Private Room And I Can't Help My Customers Hearing It
Whatever your intention, you are permitting a public performance if it is audible to all your customers, no matter where the source of music is located. In a case that was decided as long ago as 1936, it was decided that music heard by customers of a restaurant was a public performance even though the source of the music, a radio set, was in the proprietor's living room.

john.needham

Hungerford wrote: »

The point is Redbrick had no choice but to remove the stream - otherwise the society's servers could have been seized, its committee could have been imprisoned or fined up to €127,000 each.

Read back more... :rolleyes:

Hungerford

john.needham wrote: »

Read back more... :rolleyes:

I read back more - the facepalm still applies though, just not for that specific user.

monument

Just to clarify I was orignally replying to this post (should have posed it all at the time):

af666x wrote: »

Now people can harp on back and forth about the grey areas of motivation for using that specific message, or whether IRMO said DCUfm could broadcast without a license - it's all irrelevant.

No license means no right to broadcast. End of the argument. I'm still amazed how people are trying to play an etiquette blame game against redbrick.

If there's no such permission or that was not passed on, then fine, that's a different story.

thusspakeblixa

I don't blame Redbrick actually, not at all.

Presenters, producers and "foot soldiers" of DCUfm (majority of pro-DCUfm posters in this thread) have feck all to do with licencing, so taking crap out on us is silly.

Redbrick may have been right, but the manner in which this affair has been conducted was extremely childish (already mentioned by irlande).

robby^5

I'm seeing this word childish thrown around a lot here, can someone clarify what exactly was childish about how Redbrick handled the situation? I'm pretty clear on the DCUFM childishness side of things...the blog, facebook and the mail.

In regards the replacement stream, keep in mind that Redbrick probably had no idea about any animousity between previous and current management of DCUFM (similarly I'd expect nobody in DCUFM would have much idea of any animosity between members in Redbrick) and were following a procedure that was put in place last year that in the event of licensing issues this replacement stream would be aired.

Think about the reasoning behind Redbrick even bothering to replace the stream, they wanted people to know why the stream was down which indicates to me a certain level of responsibility being shown. In the end this was all additional work for Redbrick, on top of what they already had on their plates...and at a time of the year when a lot of their committee (mostly CA students) would have been swamped with college work. So maybe it wasnt exactly high on their priorities to be sorting out DCUFMs mess?

So really all I'd blame Redbrick of is bad communication with DCUFM or at most apathy, but I'd hardly describe anything that Redbrick did as childish.

Daysha

robby^5 wrote: »

I'm seeing this word childish thrown around a lot here, can someone clarify what exactly was childish about how Redbrick handled the situation? I'm pretty clear on the DCUFM childishness side of things...the blog, facebook and the mail.

In regards the replacement stream, keep in mind that Redbrick probably had no idea about any animousity between previous and current management of DCUFM (similarly I'd expect nobody in DCUFM would have much idea of any animosity between members in Redbrick) and were following a procedure that was put in place last year that in the event of licensing issues this replacement stream would be aired.

Think about the reasoning behind Redbrick even bothering to replace the stream, they wanted people to know why the stream was down which indicates to me a certain level of responsibility being shown. In the end this was all additional work for Redbrick, on top of what they already had on their plates...and at a time of the year when a lot of their committee (mostly CA students) would have been swamped with college work. So maybe it wasnt exactly high on their priorities to be sorting out DCUFMs mess?

So really all I'd blame Redbrick of is bad communication with DCUFM or at most apathy, but I'd hardly describe anything that Redbrick did as childish.

Whatever about the facebook group, there's no way you can call someone blogging about the incident as childish. There is no difference between someone expressing their opinion here and someone talking about it in their own blog, regardless of whether you agree with it or not.

As for the replacement steam, you simply cannot put it down to a lack of communication. Redbrick broadcasted an audio file on the DCUfm stream, which can be accessed via dcufm.com, without the consent of the station management. Redbrick are there to host a stream, but ALL content is provided by the presenters of the station and nobody else unless prior permission is given via the proper channels.

If Redbrick had gone about things the right way with the replacement stream we wouldn't have been left with the pretty farcical situation of a station being available only as an online stream...but with no stream link to click on! The management took it down because there was not a chance in hell they would've allowed people to listen to content they never authorised.

Of course I would imagine had Redbrick asked the station management about broadcasting the announcement, they would not have allowed it to go out unless a statement could be agreed upon by both societies. But instead all it's accomplished was increase the continuing animosity between the two.

robby^5

Daysha wrote: »

Whatever about the facebook group, there's no way you can call someone blogging about the incident as childish. There is no difference between someone expressing their opinion here and someone talking about it in their own blog, regardless of whether you agree with it or not..

Sure I can, I just did.

Yes there is a difference actually because boards is a neutral playing field and this is a discussion which emerged from a genuine inquiry into the matter... not just someone having a go at Redbrick because they felt hard done by. If the same thing was posted to boards instead of a blog I'd feel the same way about it.

I dont have the link atm so I cant check, but was that blog established before this incident?

Daysha wrote: »

As for the replacement steam, you simply cannot put it down to a lack of communication. Redbrick broadcasted an audio file on the DCUfm stream, which can be accessed via dcufm.com, without the consent of the station management. Redbrick are there to host a stream, but ALL content is provided by the presenters of the station and nobody else unless prior permission is given via the proper channels.

Why would Redbrick even have this audio file then? Could this not simply be a case of Redbrick not being updated on new procedures to be followed this year? Because from the outside it looks like they were given this audio file to do exactly what they did with it, why else would they have it at all?

So until that's clarified by someone from Redbrick I'm going to hazard a guess that Redbrick did that with the best of intentions and possibly under the pretence that there were allowed to do so. But thats just a guess as I've no idea what agreements were made between DCUFM and Redbrick last year.

If it turns out they were never ever given permission to replace the stream by this or last years DCUFM management, then yes they should apologise as they made an error in judgement. Otherwise its a case of bad communication on both sides

gizmo

Right, I've cleaned up the thread, removing some images and pointless posts.

As for the topic at hand, it's all rather amusing to be honest. Not what actually happened of course, but more the reactions from people over some sort of perceived slight against them.

For the record, this is what happened I take it?

Winters wrote: »

So, let me get this straight...

• DCUfm's licence was about to expire and they were notified a couple of times.
• They failed to provide redbrick with any new licence or any imro corrispondance to allow them to continue internet broadcasting past the cutoff date
• Redbrick cut them off when they cutup date expires and used an [old?] recording of someone who was involved in DCUfm so people would at least know it will be back or whatever
• DCUfm go batshít and blame redbrick for all the problems?

So, I think we can all agree Redbrick were right to cut off the stream, correct? (If you answer no to that then you'd better stop reading as there are some four syllable words coming up which may confuse you...)

Therefore, that leaves the only issue here being whether Redbrick were right in replacing the stream with the pre-recorded message. If that is the case then what did you want? An email telling you it was going down so you could do something about it? Well given the level of action of DCUFM to previous correspondence, I'm pretty sure the RB admins weren't going to risk the well-being of both their own society and every other society website which RB hosts, on a speedy response. As such, they chose to take it down and, at the same time, do you a favour by putting up the stream informing your listeners it was going down.

This rubbish about previous committees not getting on with current ones has nothing to do with the issue. Seriously, do you think any of your listeners actually care about such petty squabbling?

Regarding your last point Daysha, this type of content replacement is exactly what happens with hosts such as photobucket when content is removed - You get a simple message from the host saying what has happened. As per my last point, I'm sure Redbrick were neither aware nor care of any problems with committees and, to be quite honest, a stream down message from one disembodied voice is the same as the next.

As for all of these "childish" comments, seriously have a bit of cop on. Redbrick did what was needed to be done to protect themselves and their services which was a result of blatant inaction by DCUFM. Therefore they only have themselves to blame. While I'm aware that the presenters etc... have no part in the licensing process, you are still in college so I'd have expected you to use some common sense and find out the facts before starting that petty tirade against Redbrick.

Now, how about the two groups sit down and set out a charter for the continued broadcast of the stream so events like this don't happen again? With this and the licence issue sorted hopefully you'll be back on the air asap and we can all forget about this idiocy.

lithiumoxide

!gg gizmo

I should also add that if Redbrick continued streaming the feed if they knew that the licence was not renewed, Redbrick would be liable for legal action against them. By knowingly allowing music to be broadcast illegally when they were in a position to do something about it would have caused havoc.

As was mentioned before, not only would IMRO have a case, but ISS/CSD, SPC, HEANet would then be able to pull the plug on Redbrick without notice, leaving no free web hosting for any club or soc in DCU.

People should be aware that stopping the stream was not an act of meanness, it was a legal requirement.

As gizmo mentioned, an agreement should be arranged to ensure the continued success of DCUFM and its stream via Redbrick. It's simple: renew the licence on time and give Redbrick due notice of this. Otherwise, the stream could - and should - be cut again.

DCU Fm Manager

Now that the judge and jury have decided on the outcome of the trial, I'll say one thing before you take on the role of executioner as well. And let me assure you that I will not reply to any further posts here. If I have any inclination that they are in any way defamatory there will be a solicitor's letter to greet the author of said statement on Tuesday morning.

The message that was put on what is known to the public as the DCUfm stream was defamatory. If a statement is published in any form and tends to injure the reputation of a person/s it is defamatory unless it can be proven to be true. The message that replaced the DCUfm stream ticks all the boxes. Imro had explicitly told DCUfm that the stream was covered during the process of applying to renew the licence.

This means that any statement from Redbrick saying that DCUfm was, at any stage, broadcasting illegally is defamatory. Unless this statement can be proven true in a court of law then it is defamatory and has caused injury to the reputation of the management of DCUfm. I would advise all posting on this thread to be incredibly careful as to what is said. Further slurs will not be tolerated. Reproduction of a libel is still a libel.

If you can't prove it, don't write it! This is a matter for the management of DCUfm and Redbrick. Everyone has had ample time to vent their anger and the arguments have been well-aired.

boredofwork

DCU Fm Manager wrote: »

Now that the judge and jury have decided on the outcome of the trial, I'll say one thing before you take on the role of executioner as well. And let me assure you that I will not reply to any further posts here. If I have any inclination that they are in any way defamatory there will be a solicitor's letter to greet the author of said statement on Tuesday morning.

The message that was put on what is known to the public as the DCUfm stream was defamatory. If a statement is published in any form and tends to injure the reputation of a person/s it is defamatory unless it can be proven to be true. The message that replaced the DCUfm stream ticks all the boxes. Imro had explicitly told DCUfm that the stream was covered during the process of applying to renew the licence.

This means that any statement from Redbrick saying that DCUfm was, at any stage, broadcasting illegally is defamatory. Unless this statement can be proven true in a court of law then it is defamatory and has caused injury to the reputation of the management of DCUfm. I would advise all posting on this thread to be incredibly careful as to what is said. Further slurs will not be tolerated. Reproduction of a liable is still a liable.

If you can't prove it, don't write it! This is a matter for the management of DCUfm and Redbrick. Everyone has had ample time to vent their anger and the arguments have been well-aired.

Someones on the defensive, and MPS are going to start suing students are they? That I'd like to see. And I think your missing the point, its not that DCUfm did or did not have a license (or something "resembling" one), but that they failed to inform Redbrick of this, hence stream is taken down.

DCU Fm Manager

boredofwork wrote: »

Someones on the defensive, and MPS are going to start suing students are they? That I'd like to see. And I think your missing the point, its not that DCUfm did or did not have a license (or something "resembling" one), but that they failed to inform Redbrick of this, hence stream is taken down.

You've raised an interesting point there, MPS will not sue a student, I will take action against someone who defames me.

Pygmalion

DCU Fm Manager wrote: »

Now that the judge and jury have decided on the outcome of the trial, I'll say one thing before you take on the role of executioner as well. And let me assure you that I will not reply to any further posts here. If I have any inclination that they are in any way defamatory there will be a solicitor's letter to greet the author of said statement on Tuesday morning.

The message that was put on what is known to the public as the DCUfm stream was defamatory. If a statement is published in any form and tends to injure the reputation of a person/s it is defamatory unless it can be proven to be true. The message that replaced the DCUfm stream ticks all the boxes. Imro had explicitly told DCUfm that the stream was covered during the process of applying to renew the licence.

This means that any statement from Redbrick saying that DCUfm was, at any stage, broadcasting illegally is defamatory. Unless this statement can be proven true in a court of law then it is defamatory and has caused injury to the reputation of the management of DCUfm. I would advise all posting on this thread to be incredibly careful as to what is said. Further slurs will not be tolerated. Reproduction of a libel is still a libel.

If you can't prove it, don't write it! This is a matter for the management of DCUfm and Redbrick. Everyone has had ample time to vent their anger and the arguments have been well-aired.

AFAIK it doesn't count as defamation if the person saying it has good reason for it to be true, which these people did have, based on the message that was broadcast and statements by people involved. No evidence to the contrary has been given.

If IMRO told you that you were allowed to broadcast then why didn't you give Redbrick proof of this and save yourself the trouble, instead of just using them as a scapegoat when they did the sensible thing?
It's not redbrick's responsibility to find proof of your statements, and they had good reason to remove the stream. Are you denying this?

Of course as you say you won't be responding to this, it's much easier to threaten lawsuits than gain support when the facts don't appear to be on your side.

P.S. Could you have your solicitor print the letter on both sides? I don't wish to have the guilt of excess littering added to my worries.

Nanaki

DCU Fm Manager:
I have a question.
Did DCU Fm provide Redbrick [near, or after 4th of december] of permission from IMRO, of any kind, stating explicitly that DCU Fm could broadcast?

lithiumoxide

Did you post something on an internet message board??

Pygmalion

lithiumoxide wrote: »

Did you post something on an internet message board??

If so, they better watch out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjWFZPJZTxU