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Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2022 November 28

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November 28

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Can a streaming radio broadcast be recorded to play back later?

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The show I want to listen to is on twice a week, but one of the times is not a good time for me. I know a low-tech way to do it but it's complicated these days to find what I need for these low-tech solutions in stores.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 23:10, 28 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Your answer, if any, is going to be OS-dependent, browser-dependent, device-dependent, and also stream-dependent. We'll need to know various aspects of how it is accessed and what format it's transmitted in. Your success will be measured approximately by how much DRM is in the way, and whether it can legally be defeated or if you'll be liable under DMCA for time-shifting (remember when VCRs were controversial?) Elizium23 (talk) 23:18, 28 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Wow. I didn't think about time-shifting being a problem.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 23:28, 28 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It's not the fact of timeshifting but it's the question of whether you have a license to
  1. Record the stream for later usage
  2. Decode the stream for said recording because a facility is not provided
  3. Store and recreate the stream from its encoded format for later use
All of these actions may have implications under the DMCA and so software you pick up may not be cooperative with that, or you may have to pick it up in a dark alley using TOR. Elizium23 (talk) 00:04, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hold the phone, guys. Privately recording an on-line radio show is controversial and illegal? This calls for a shot of Scotch, if anything. Anyway, I just did a low-tech solution: fired up Audacity and recorded a short sample from my fave on-line station. Smooth as butter. To the OP: You most likely need to find some scheduling app to start up some recording script at a prescribed time and fiddle around a bit with it. Or ask a friend. --Ouro (blah blah) 12:06, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
It "should not" be illegal, but content providers can put enough DRM and obfuscation in the stream to make your life difficult, and if you propose to do this at scale, or commercially, rather than for personal one-off reasons, you want to be aware that DMCA is in play. If Vchimpanzee is just doing this for personal reasons then they only need to worry about running the gauntlet. Elizium23 (talk) 13:27, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'm Polish. We're genetically inclined to break these kind of dumb rules out of spite. --Ouro (blah blah) 16:17, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Meanwhile, I'm sure no one would have had a problem with the low-tech solution.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 16:48, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Under U.S. law, recording broadcasts for purely private use is generally seen as allowable; see Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., later cases such as A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc. and MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd. have attempted to introduce the sort of nuance to the practice that the digital age has brought in. IANAL, but in general, it is still usually held that a single person recording a broadcast for their own personal use is not illegal, though attempts to share the recorded material with others is where the line gets drawn. HOWEVER, as noted, this does not involve the intricacies of contract law and how Digital rights management is often handled in the modern digital age; depending on how the stream and/or how the service you used to access the stream has worded its EULA, use of the digital media may contractually forbid the end user from making digital copies of the media in question. Or maybe not. Caveat streamor and all that. --Jayron32 17:11, 29 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Caveat streamor it is then :) well worded. --Ouro (blah blah) 08:56, 3 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Are you able to play the stream using VLC media player? Then you can record the stream using that. You can use the Convert/Save option in the menu.
If you want to start the recording automatically, that's also possible. You would have to look up the command line options and use a task scheduler.
Sorry for keeping the answer so vague, but you haven't provided many details on what you want to do. Hopefully it gives you enough to start working on this. Otherwise, please provide more details on what you want to do (which radio station, which operating system, how do you want to start the recording etc.) and it would be possible to give more specific advice. El sjaako (talk) 13:45, 5 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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