from the money-for-nothing-and-the-chicks-are-free dept.
Pirate Radio Stations Explode on YouTube
A trick of YouTube's algorithms has led to the blossoming of hundreds of unlicensed, independent radio stations on the site, reminiscent of an age of underground broadcasts in the previous century.
Luke Pritchard and Jonny Laxton were 13 when they met at a boarding school in Crowthorne, England, in 2011. They bonded over a shared love of underground music and in 2014 started a YouTube channel, College Music, to promote the artists they liked.
At first, the channel grew slowly. Then, in the spring of 2016, Mr. Pritchard discovered 24/7 live-streaming, a feature that allows YouTube's users to broadcast a single video continuously. College Music had 794 subscribers in April 2015, a year before Mr. Pritchard and Mr. Laxton started streaming. A month after they began, they had more than 18,440. In April 2016, they had 98,110 subscribers and as of last month, with three active live streams, they have more than triple that amount, with 334,000. They make about $5,000 a month from the streams.
The boys stumbled upon a new strategy, one that, in the past two years, has helped a certain kind of YouTube channel achieve widespread popularity. Hundreds of independently run channels have begun to stream music nonstop, with videos that combine playlists with hundreds of songs and short, looped animations, often taken from anime films without copyright permission. Live streams come in many different genres. Two of College Music's streams are part of a family of channels that broadcast what the broadcasters call lofi (low-fidelity) hip-hop, mellow music that would sound familiar to fans of J. Dilla and Nujabes.
If you've ever clicked on a YouTube livestream entitled something like "lofi hip hop beats to relax/study/bang to", then you know what the article is talking about.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday May 08 2018, @09:28PM (12 children)
Real rebels build their own FM transmitter, amplifiers, and antennas. Then they stick this song [youtube.com] on permanent repeat. This one [youtube.com] would also be acceptable.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday May 08 2018, @09:35PM (3 children)
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 08 2018, @10:45PM (1 child)
get back on your porch, pops.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday May 09 2018, @12:21AM
Get with the times, those bars were fire 🔥🔥🔥
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday May 09 2018, @05:51PM
Oh crap, Kanye got into the internets again.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday May 08 2018, @11:13PM (1 child)
Close you fly, your age is showing, TMB.
Even this one [youtube.com] is one generation too old (grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday May 08 2018, @11:51PM
Doesn't impart quite the same message though. For oldschool trolling rather than a metaphoric middle finger, I'd go with either this one [youtube.com] or this one [youtube.com].
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Appalbarry on Tuesday May 08 2018, @11:37PM (1 child)
Upvote for that! Streaming songs on the the Internet isn't "pirate" and it isn't "radio." It wasn't when kiddlies were using Shoutcast or WinAmp in the 90s, and it isn't when they use YouTube now.
You can call yourself a "pirate" when you've had The Authorities come knocking at your door to confiscate your equipment.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday May 09 2018, @01:41AM
Raising the bar for "proper pirate" to the level of Aaron Swartz is a bit excessive.
My point: in this age the "equipment" that The Authorities will confiscate is a computer (or more) and storage media. Nothing you can actually build yourself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday May 09 2018, @01:54AM (3 children)
I hope you realize that the only audience for the would-be "real rebels" (by your definition) will likely be in a 60+yo - almost nobody that matters listen today to the "AM/FM classic" radio. For God's sake, it was like 40 years ago the Buggles were telling the story along the lines of:
If you expect a revolution to start with old scoffs (like us), it may be that the age start playing some degeneration games with your neural matter between your years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 09 2018, @02:21AM (2 children)
Last I heard, radio had more market coverage than any other media delivery method in the US. I don't see that going away until they stop putting radios in every single car either.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday May 09 2018, @03:50AM (1 child)
I bet you heard it on the radio (grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Wednesday May 09 2018, @02:51PM
You joke, but you are right.
ClearChanneliHeart runs that "radio reaches more people than anything else" meta-commercial every other break. If you listen online, about 50% of the advertisements are for themselves. It is dying and they know it.I am just glad hockey season is over so I don't have to listen to the radio until the fall.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Wednesday May 09 2018, @01:19AM (6 children)
No, it hasn't.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday May 09 2018, @01:31AM (5 children)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_radio [wikipedia.org]
You're sounding just a lil bit old
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 09 2018, @02:23AM (4 children)
Words mean things [wikipedia.org].
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday May 09 2018, @03:08AM (3 children)
If the Internet radio is transmitted via Wi-Fi, most of your anal definition is satisfied.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 09 2018, @03:19AM
Nah, too easy.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 09 2018, @03:21AM
Yes but his anal tone [nih.gov] is strong.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by requerdanos on Wednesday May 09 2018, @03:11PM
Then the wifi transceivers at each end of that are radios, but the music stream still isn't. This isn't complicated.
See, you believe that since you hear music "on the radio" that anything that plays or broadcasts music in any form is therefore a "radio".
Actually, believe it or not, that's not the case.
And yeah, I understand that my belief--sparsely shared here!--that words mean things may mark me as an "old person."
I happen to be an old person who has been hassled by the cops just for transmitting music over a homebuilt unlicensed radio transmitter (that used a window screen whose dimensions made it a not-bad emitter for an antenna). On a college campus in the early 80's.
So these ahoy-matey piratical rebels today who say "gee! you can use online streaming to pretend you have a radio station!" don't impress me all that much, but even if they did, I would be able to answer a quiz on whether they were broadcasting the music on the radio or not.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Bot on Wednesday May 09 2018, @09:00AM
...you could produce and consume legal mixes using mixcloud.com, no video track overhead, no ads that i know of, I use noscript, and sometimes the song is identified.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 09 2018, @09:29AM
A pirate radio station is an attempt at freedom of speech using a radio transmitter on a frequency you are not licensed to transmit on.
Replacing the whole transmission frequency thing with Youtube, reduces it to attempted freedom of speech.