Earlier this month, our broadcasting host, TorontoCast received a message from Sound Exchange in the USA exercising their collective rights regarding TorontoCast broadcasters broadcasting content to U.S. listeners.
In a December 21st email to their broadcasters, TorontoCast had this to say, “We have some bad news concerning American listeners. We received a message from Sound Exchange. Sound Exchange is a non-profit collective rights management organization [in the United States]. It is the sole organization designated by the U.S. Congress to collect and distribute digital performance royalties for sound recordings. The message made it clear to us that we can’t broadcast to people in the U.S.A. unless we have a license from them. They gave us two options: 1) getting a license, or 2) Geoblock the United States. We have chosen to Geoblock the United States for now starting on January 12, 2019. This wasn’t an easy decision and we know some of you will take a listeners hit. We are exploring several options to see what can be done to get those listeners back.”
What this essentially means that any stations currently broadcasting to listeners to the United States will be blocked so that U.S. listeners can not listen to their streams.
How does this affect Discoteria? We’ll still be broadcasting 24/7 but as of January 12, 2019, if you happen to reside in the U.S., you will not be able to listen to the station for the time being.
We’re saddened to learn this has happened, but this decision was out of our, and TorontoCast’s control. If you’d like to blame anyone, please direct your complaints to Sound Exchange in the USA.
DISCOTERIA 