I’ve noticed more and more blogs are hosting their own Radio.Blogs and I’ve been debating jumping on the bandwagon if for no other reason than to allow people some insight into the twisted music that I listen to while working on SEB. If you’ve not heard of this before it’s basically a free script that you can put on your website to allow you to stream music to your visitors. I wouldn’t set it up to play by default, but if you wanted something to listen to while visiting SEB it would be an interesting option to play with.

The one concern I have with it is also the one concern that’s not addressed on the Radio.Blog website: Is it legal? Technically, the answer is yes as you’re not downloading MP3s from my site, just listening to streaming music. The issue is really with regards to commercial music and royalties. There’s already been a few court cases here and there over whether webcasters of music should be forced to pay royalities or even double royalities in the case of radio stations that broadcast content on the web in addition to on the air. So far I don’t recall hearing that any consensus has been reached on what’s allowed and what isn’t. At least for commercial stuff as there’s lots of free music out there than you can stream all you want if you like it.

You’d think that the folks in the music industry wouldn’t have a big problem with Radio.Blogs simply because it doesn’t allow anyone to download the material and it increases the exposure of bands that get listed on people’s blogs. The files are converted from MP3s to a format that can be played by the Flash based client and the quality is low-enough that even if you could capture the stream you’d have to wonder why you’d want to. Certainly as a means for new bands to get more exposure this can only be a good thing. Still, I’d hate to put something up only to get bitch-slapped by a sue happy RIAA because they’re so hell-bent on controlling how, when, where, and why you listen to a particular song. It’s hard to say if anyone would bothed to listen to the same crap I would anyway seeing as most of what I listen to anymore is either old 80’s tunes or obscure artists and anime soundtracks.

Still, at one point in my youth I fancied myself as a Radio DJ. Just the same, I’ll spare you the Roger Whittaker if I do put one up.