Hi Chris,

I'd love to host a bunch of long lost radio programmes, and some of our Antipodean chums have sent me some wonderful stuff that was originally aired on ABC. The main problem from my point of view is that of permission. I don't particularly want to jeopardise the future of the site by putting material up without the okay of the broadcasters - which would undoubtedly mean getting into the world of licences and contracts, and most likely, requiring money to change hands and vast chunks of time consumed managing the inevitable bureaucracy (For example, someone got in touch recently to say they had years' worth of recordings they'd made at their local folk clubs and they had donated it to their local Public Records Office/County Archive. When I contacted the PRO concerned to see if I could access some of this material, the fees were far too much to contemplate for a site that is essentially run at a loss in my spare time as a labour of love - though I can understand that PROs need to cover their costs, too!).

I'm happy to try to gain the necessary permissions (and I'll always do this for any recordings that I put up at the site anyway - usually from the artists featured, which is why I'm currently sitting on some real corkers I haven't been able to add yet...). However, given that I'm not running this site as a commercial venture, I don't want to get into paying the Beeb or ABC or whoever for the right to broadcast something they no longer care about and have probably lost.

I might be being too conservative with a small 'c' about this and would welcome alternative views.

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Charley - thanks for your comments - they are appreciated!

Nigel