(typical long rambling intro to the question in paragraph 3)

For years and years, I've wanted to just ditch my job and devote 100% of my time to becoming a club DJ / dance music producer / remix artist. Too bad I was born in the boring (yet lovely) rural New Jersey, far from any dance/electronica scene (well, there's NYC, which I "never have time" to go into).

Maybe things would be different if I was born in the UK, with its apparently amazing club scene and its frighteningly comprehensive techno radio programs. Best I can do out here is listen to Radio 1 (Essential Mix, etc) and Kiss 100 over the internet. It unfortunately doesn't fit my schedule with the time difference, etc, etc.

So, is it legal to download the recordings of the UK radio shows which I see on Usenet so often? I guess this goes back to the legality of taping something off the radio (which I should know by now).

If I ever figure out how PaulWay manages to post his mixes without getting in trouble, I'd love to post my mixes somewhere. Hopefully the UK mixes are allowed in a similar fashion.

I'm not 100% certain, but I'm pretty sure it is illegal. I think recording a show yourself is okay, but then making it available for others is not. Of course, it's the music licencing that is reason behind this. I'm sure the BBC would make every show it makes available for download if it wasn't for restrictions imposed by music/performing artist licencing.

Hm, apparently you can listen to them in the Radio 1 archive. I guess that's because they control the stream.

Oh well, guess I'll have to move to the UK for some good music!

I think certain things are made available for download, certainly you can listen to most shows online for a week after they were originally broadcast. I wouldn't be surprised if that duration was dictated by the licencing agreement though.

I really have to wonder how club DJs manage to play music at all with these licensing fees bearing down on them. They must build their sets a month in advance and spend the remaining 29 days negotiating with the recording companies.

To play live (or as-live) on radio is simple, the station just pays the usual per-song fee they usually pay for other shows. This would then cover them for the usual listen again features and live streaming.

If they then wanted to release it on CD or make it downloadable then they would have negotiate as usual for music releases, which is considerably more expensive. There's a bit about the pain of clearing music inside the sleeve of on one of the Soulwax, as heard on Radio Soulwax CD.