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Local DJ sells iPods with custom playlists
updated 04:20 pm EDT, Fri June 13, 2003
A local Philidelphia DJ is selling to various clubs, restaurants, and other businesses, according to the Philadelphia City Paper: "Armed with a small fleet of iPods, Porter's embarking on a one-of-a-kind business venture: filling the little mp3 players with a specially created musical catalog and renting them out to area businesses. 'Instead of going in with my vinyl and DJing for four hours, I can DJ for them for the whole month.' As far as he knows, he's the first to come up with this particular business model....For a couple hundred dollars a month, he comes in to switch up the playlists, and he provides the iPods."
isn't that illegal?
06/13, 04:29pm reply
How is it that he can give an iPod with music that HE owns to other people who don't own the said music?
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He renting the music
06/13, 04:32pm reply
He's not GIVING he's RENTING for a FEE.
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hmm
06/13, 04:32pm reply
It sounds very clumsy. renting an iPod? just buy it and add your own music. If you want DJ, turn on a radio and listen a live broadcast, why settled with canned programming?
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lol
06/13, 04:40pm reply
The guy got sued by the RIAA as soon as this story hit the presses is my guess... to the guy who recommended the radio, well, radio has commercials, which the iPod does not. Still, this is an illegal business model, or soon will be. He just killed his own idea by advertising it the mainstream.
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dumb a**
06/13, 04:41pm reply
think it will last for long since the club can just sink his iPod up to a computer and grab his mixes?
dumb a** will put himself out of business
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joker
06/13, 04:47pm reply
The guy is a joker. He can't mix so he rents music out on an iPod. I know him personally and he sucks as a dj. Oh well sucker.
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From the article
06/13, 04:53pm reply
Because many businesses already pay licensing companies like ASCAP and BMI for the right to play the radio in their establishments, Porter doesn't have to worry about licensing issues. And most places already have some kind of sound system in place, meaning they just have to plug the iPod in and press play.
The renting of pre-loaded iPods customized per location actually sounds like a good idea.
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Djing
06/13, 05:34pm reply
I assume that DJs buy differently licensed music than the $10-$20 CD you buy at Best Buy and that they are licensed to play them in public.
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sounds good...
06/13, 05:36pm reply
only if you need background music. The other guy is right, since it is the responsibility of the bar/club to pay the ASCAP/BMI/SESAC fees, that never falls on the DJ unless he is doing mobile work. The RIAA would not get involved in this. But the whole thing being pre-recorded is just stupid since it removes the one element that a DJ provides, the human connection with an audience through music. After 30 years of spinning, I can safely say this guy is not a premier DJ.
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Re: DJing
06/13, 05:39pm reply
DJ's usually do not buy music, we belong to record pools where we receive free promotional music, mostly vinyl, which is paid for out of the artists' promotional budget. Still it really doesn't matter where we get our music, the whole playing in front of a live audience means the club is responsible.
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