Building a Legal Broadcast

Your broadcast is required to comply with the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) and the Live365 Broadcaster Agreement. If your broadcast does not comply, we may remove your station's listing in the Live365 directory and you may see a message indicating that your station is NOT LISTED on your Broadcasting home page.

In order to be listed in our directory, you need to make sure that:

Your station does not violate the Rules: http://www.live365.com/info/rules.html

Your station does have complete ID3 tag information

If your station is broadcasting LIVE or RELAY, you are providing track metadata with your stream

If your station is in violation of the above, we've displayed the reason for the violation on your Broadcast home page. Please check your playlist, correct any violations and cue your playlist. Once all violations have been corrected, your station should re-appear in our station directory within a one- to six-hour period. Additionally, we reserve the right to take other steps to limit the listenership of stations in violation.

Violation Messages

These are the reasons that could appear on your broadcast home page in the event that your playlist is in violation:

1a) Too many tracks from a single artist

1b) Too many consecutive tracks by the same artist

For each three hours of length, your playlist should include no more than four songs (and not more than three songs in a row) from the same recording artist. Please either (a) check your playlist and replace or remove some of the tracks from the artist(s) named in the message, or (b) add more tracks to your playlist to make it longer. If you need additional material to lengthen your playlist, check out our Music Library.

2a) Too many tracks from a single album

2b) Too many consecutive tracks from same album

For each three hours of length, your playlist should not intentionally include more than three songs (and not more than two songs in a row) from the same recording. Please check your playlist and either (a) replace or remove some of the songs from the album(s) named in the message or (b) add more tracks to your playlist to make it longer. Again, our Music Library can be a great source of material for a longer playlist.

3) Fewer artists than permitted

This message means either (a) your playlist includes high concentrations of the same artists, (b) your ID3 tags aren't filled in properly. It's important that your ID3 tags be correct, so please use the ID3 Tag Editor on the Tracks page or Playlist Analyzer to input ID3 Artist, Track, and Album information for each track in your broadcast. (On either page, you can click the track title to open the ID3 tag editor window.)

It's also possible that you are receiving this message because you are broadcasting in LIVE or RELAY mode and you are not providing track metadata with your stream. See below for instructions on how to make sure you are transmitting metadata with your LIVE or RELAY stream.

4) Fewer albums than permitted

This message means either (a) your playlist includes high concentrations of tracks from the same album(s) or (b) your ID3 tags aren't filled in properly. Again, use the ID3 Tag Editor on the Tracks page or Playlist Analyzer to input ID3 Artist, Track, and Album information for each track in your broadcast. (On either page, you can click the track title to open the ID3 tag editor window.)

It's also possible that you are receiving this message because you are broadcasting in LIVE or RELAY mode and you are not providing track metadata with your stream. See below for instructions on how to make sure you are transmitting metadata with your LIVE or RELAY stream.

5) Playlist is too short

Your playlist must be at least one hour long. However, we strongly recommend that your playlist be at least three hours in length (generally, there are 42 to 50 songs in a three-hour playlist). To correct this error, add tracks to the playlist to ensure it is at least one hour long. If you need more material for your playlist, consider making use of our extensive Music Library

If your station is marked "not listed" and none of the above reasons is given, it may be that your ID3 tags are not properly completed. Complete your ID3 tags, then cue your playlist. It will be resubmitted to the search database and reappear in the directory in a one to six-hour window.

Live and Relay Stations

If you are broadcasting in LIVE or RELAY mode, your broadcasting tool must send track metadata to Live365's servers. Most broadcasting tools will handle this for you automatically after some set-up. For non-playlist-based live programming, you can send updates manually via the playlist updater.

The broadcasting tools we recommend are equipped to send LIVE and RELAY metadata that's compatible with Live365. They are: Studio-Live for Windows, Studio-Live for Mac, SAM and Winamp with the Shoutcast plugin. If you choose to use a different broadcasting tool, you can attempt to enable metadata streaming with this handy tool written by one of our broadcasters. For more information on enabling metadata streaming, see this document. We reserve the right to remove LIVE or RELAY stations from the Live365 station directory if those stations are not providing track metadata.

Issues and Exemptions

If you still do not appear in the search listing once you have completed revisions to your tags, you may submit your station for manual review at searchreview@live365.com.

If you are an Independent or Official Artist station or there is some other reason that you feel these rules do not apply to you, please submit your reasons along with your broadcast station name for review to searchreview@live365.com.