Ripping from the radio: III
p2p news / p2pnet: Remember Greg Ratajik’s StationRipper?
With it, you can grab up to 600 Shoutcast audio, video and podcast streams at one time, and you can drag and drop from iTunes radio.
StationRipper is now at V2.33 and, “A lot of things have been added,” Ratajik tells p2pnet.
“Iimproved track cutting, record to single stream with cue files, album art downloaded, yahoo Podcast support, parse rules for song name changes, translation to Danish, French, and German, etc.”
He also says the app has another innoivation he doesn’t think has been done before.
“StationRipper users to SEARCH for songs,” he says. “We’re tracking what Stations are playing, so our users can see what stations have been playing in the past. It’s can’t, of course, be used to record something now (by the time it’s in the list, it’s already started to play), but it can let users zero in on stations that play the type of music they like.”
Ratajik’s creation will, “also let users find the station that most plays a song, try to predict what station a song or band is most likely to play on next, list what stations gets the most traffic, etc,” he says.
“I’ve actually enjoyed the search function a lot as we’ve gone through the beta, as I’ve found some great stations that other users listen to.”
StationRipper comes in three versions – free, with a limited number of features, a $20 version with everything, except the chance to win a free iPod this March, or the free lifetime upgrades and support, both of which come with the $30 premium download.
Go here to check it out.
Also See:
StationRipper - Ripping from the radio: II, April 14, 2006
March 21st, 2006 at 5:18 pm
So? There must be hundreds of web radio recording apps. Here are some I remember off the top of my head: Streamripper. Kstreamripper. amaroK. XMMS.
It’s like a drop in the ocean, no need to “announce” it that way.
March 21st, 2006 at 5:32 pm
and you are?
March 21st, 2006 at 5:43 pm
I’d just as soon these things be left to fly under the radar. If they gain any amount of popularity they will just be painting bigger targets on themselves giving the RIAA more traction to push through crappy laws clamping down on web radio.
March 21st, 2006 at 7:14 pm
You can say that with just about ANY kind of app. I personally find stationripper to be the best of breed, and it looks like some of the new stuff makes it continue along those lings
March 21st, 2006 at 7:26 pm
What a stupid comment.
March 21st, 2006 at 7:39 pm
I’ve been using StationRipper for a bit more than two years now. SR was one of the first full-featured ‘recorder’ applications to be individually released as a stand-alone product AND also continuously supported by it’s developer, Greg. SR has been a leading innovator in introducing new features into it’s application domain and has kept up as the web radio scene has been evolving.
If one looks at the older posts on SR’s forums, you will find a post from Cary Sherman of the RIAA, so they are already well aware of SR. In fact the RIAA should be encouraging people to use SR and other similar applications. Why? The RIAA managed (with the help of Congressman James Sessenbrenner) to foist a really crappy royalties arrangement on all of web radio by coming to an ‘agreement’ with a group representing the largest webcasters. Actually that small group got a good deal, and everyone else got screwed. So, smaller webcasters are now paying royalties on a per stream per hour basis. the rate (when I last checked) was 7/10ths of a cent per stream per hour. This doesn’t sound like much, and wouldn’t be for a webcaster with 5-10 listeners. If the station gets more popular, and has 200 listeners on a 24/7 basis, the royalty payments now become significant.
Running StationRipper or any other recorder against a web radio station is treated exactly the same as an actual listener for royalty purposes. Thus, the RIAA rakes in more money when someone is merely recording a web radio station than just listening to it. Station Ripper can record hundreds of streams, limited only by one’s bandwidth and hardware performance.
The constituency that has the most issues with SR (and other recorders) are the webcasters as they are the people paying the bills, not only for royalties, but also for streaming bandwidth. Some webcasters avehemently opposed to and rabidly critical of such applications. With a few, it takes on the appearance of a psychotic obsession. The webcasters implement many countermeasures to attempt to hose a recorder’s track cutting function, such as flipping and diddling the mp3 tags transmitted with the stream, lengthy cross-fades, occasional extended silences to make the ripper think the station’s stream died, the disruptive use of sweepers, etc. The developers then implement counter-counter measures, and it’s now a silly game of “gotcha!”
(Instead of ‘playing’ this stupid game, I just record a stream as one long mp3 track and cut it and tag it myself.)
As for the RIAA, they are more focused on trying to reign in HD Radio. High Definition radio will allow terrestrial broadcaster to transmit high definition digital streams on their FM subcarriers. (See http://hdradio.com for more details) (This is how ‘MUZAK’ was distributed to supermarkets, medical offices, and elevators.) The RIAA wants a Broadcast Flag mandated that’s essentially a duplicate implementation of the infamous HDTV broadcast flag the MPAA has been pushing it’s employees, uh, I mean our Congressmen and Senators in Washington DC, to enact into law.
As it stands right now, since HD radio is a non-subscription (yes, it’s free) broadcast on the public airwaves, those ‘fair use’ rules apply to it, meaning you can record for personal use, time-shifting, etc, etc. Currently, terrestrial broadcasters do NOT pay any royalties to the recording industry. (Wouldn’t that be absurd given the modern versions of Payola various AGs are trying to clean up?) Given this new virgin territory that hasn’t been royally screwed-over yet, the RIAA is likely to focus it’s efforts here. Web radio, having been screwed-over twice, and obediently sending in royalty checks every month will not get much attention until a few more medium sized webcasters break into the ranks of major players in the medium and start asking why the emporer is naked. Again.
–TurboGeek
March 21st, 2006 at 8:55 pm
Up on Digg.. Digg it!
http://digg.com/music/Download_thousands_of_songs_a_day,_legally_-_now_with_history_searching_
March 22nd, 2006 at 12:55 am
thanks for the info - I was wondering how the anti-Home Recording Act fitted into this picture
March 22nd, 2006 at 12:58 am
Whats with all the references to digg all of a sudden???
March 22nd, 2006 at 12:44 pm
The picture says MP3 is not a crime.
I disagree for the following reasons:
RIAA and their lawyers says it is a crime. Being that lawyers are so studied and we depend on them for legal advise, we must listen to their advise. And remeber, the lawyers most repeated advise is “consult with a lawyer first”. How could they be wrong then?
The BUSH administration says it finances terrorism, when used along with p2p.
It causes grief to songwriters and artists who see that their music is being heard all over the world and they are not paid. This is salt in the wound, as before MP3, they were not paid either.
It causes unemployment of artists. This is also salt in the wound, as before MP3, they were also unemployed, mostly. After all, what restaurant wants to hire a pianist or band on the premises if all it will get them is a lawsuit from from the so called songwriter collectives, who when paid for using their catalog, do not give the restaurant a copy of the catalog.
It causes grief to the poor shareholders of Copyright Owners Cartel Association (COCA) assocoates, as growth of their fortunes is not increasing as rapidly as it could, for example, as fast as Bill Gate’s fortune did. After all, because MP3 has not been applied to sofware, Gate became richer that the Saudi king, and he started out with nothing, just someone else’s copyright.
And now, this radio idea. That is really dangerous for artists and songwriters that produce their work for the Copyright Owners Cartel Association (COCA) ’s benefit. And COCA is an expensive addiction that artists and songwriters will no longer be able to afford if COCA is eradicated by shared free radio MP3 music.
MP3 is dangerous when used wrong. For example, Vals Revolucionario (Revolutionary waltz) is traveling round the world for free and may actually induce some misguided people to a revolution to overthrow their benevolent dictator who saves the country a fortune in electoral expenses. Such revolutionay music could not travel around the world before, as COCA owned record companies simply do not want to shake up the dictators of the countries where they want to sell their dubious products. Just click on the link below and you will listen to the proof, Vals revolucionario.
http://rafa_venegas.web.prdigital.com/valsrev-albarosa.mp3
Rafael Venegas
http://www.genegas.com