Use of Music/Royalties - Summary:
- Whisperings is 100% artist-owned.
- All artists on the program license their original music (or public-domain arrangements) to Whisperings on a royalty-free basis.
- We don't play cover tunes, only original piano music (or arrangements of public domain hymns or Christmas tunes) provided to us royalty-free by the copyright holder.
- Artists on Whisperings voluntarily waive any representation by SoundExchange, the RIAA, BMI, ASCAP, SESAC, SOCAN, GEMA, APRA, JASRAC or any other performing rights organization as it relates to having their music played on Whisperings: Solo Piano Radio. Bottom line, the artists (copyright holders) heard on the broadcast have intentionally, an purposefully, licensed their music for broadcast on Whisperings radio royalty-free.
- View the license agreement every Whisperings artists signs and agrees to.
The Details:
All of the music you hear on Whisperings: Solo Piano Radio is played with the direct permission of the artist/composer and copyright holder. In fact, the only "cover tunes" you'll hear on Whisperings are public domain works (such as Pachelbel's Canon in D). Every other song is an original work, licensed to us royalty-free, for broadcast on this program. For those interested, feel free to read the license agreement every Whisperings artist signs. In this license, artists waive representation by BMI, ASCAP, SESAC, the RIAA or SoundExchange as it relates to having their music played on Whisperings.
Why would an artist allow us to play their music royalty-free? Because Whisperings is more than just a radio program, it's an active community of piano artists who play concerts together, exchange marketing and promotional tips with each other, and share resources and experiences. The Whisperings community embraces the common goal of promoting a particular brand of piano music all while offering support and encouragement to one another. Every artist on the program wants to be on the program and freely contributes their music to the effort. Other benefits to artists: Beyond the community aspect, in our streaming players, Buy/Info buttons direct listeners to artist's official web sites for CDs and merch, plus we link to Apple Music and/or Spotify for further streaming and individual artist exploration. We also manage Whisperings branded Spotify playlists to promote our artists' music on that platform.
Income generated by Whisperings comes in three ways:
Whisperings Radio Income:
- Whisperings PureStream Subscriptions: Listeners can subscribe to an ad-free, "premier" version of our program for $5/month or $30/year. The income generated by subscriptions and adversing (see next) goes back into covering the operation costs of this broadcast.
- Advertising: We run paid ads on our free stream which, combined with subscriptions from listeners, help cover our bandwidth and maintenace costs, ongoing development costs, and "keep the lights on."
Artist Direct Income:
- CD Sales, Artist Streaming, and Downloads: CD sales and/or paid music downloads and streaming come by listeners either clicking on the "Buy/Info" links for a particular song/artist in the music player as they listen or via links on our Artist Listing. We direct listeners through these in-player links to artist's "Official" web pages as well as third-party music services (like Spotify and/or Apple Music) where they can further explore an individual artist's catalog. Whisperings does not receive income from an artist's CD Sales or downloads/streaming on these other music services. Whisperings' role is to introduce listeners to our artist's music, and then provide a means by which the listener can buy direct (or seek out more information or further explore the catalog) from the artist.
The most important thing to Whisperings and our artists is that people have the opportunity to hear and enjoy their musical creations. Most of our artists get very little airplay in a "radio" format. If you haven't noticed, you don't hear much solo piano music on commercial radio. That's why we created this promotional outlet in 2003.
If you are a solo piano artist interested in submitting your music for consideration, read this.
Privacy Policy
Whisperings is committed to your privacy. We will never give away or sell your information to a third party. Any information we collect from listeners/purchasers is used solely by us for the purpose of contacting or managing subscriber and/or listener accounts. Here are the circumstances in which we collect your information:
- Cookies: Our website media players make use of cookies for some features. In the case of our ad-free PureStream player, we use cookies to save your login info if you check the "Save Login" box. If you disallow cookies, the player will not save your login data. For our free stream player, we use the cookie data to track of which songs have played in your player. We also use your IP address while you're in session to approximate your location to prioritize in-stream ads (for the free stream player only) xo that the ads you hear might be more appropriate for your specific area. This data helps us optimize your listening experience. Rest assured, no personal or secure data is transferred as part of this process. For subscriptions and purchases, our site collects cookies to keep track of your shopping cart should you opt to purchase a subscription, make or donation, or another purchase. So if you "Add" something to the cart, we use cookies to track that and to keep the appropriate items in your cart.
- Your IP Address: Aside from the above, we use IP addresses on rare occasions to help diagnose connection problems from our listeners to our server or your particular subscription account should it become necessary to troubleshoot.
- Customer Personal Information: We only collect personal information if you place an order or subscribe via our web site. That information is saved to serve you and your account or subscription, but is used ONLY for that purpose and is never shared with any third party outside our cart system. All your credit card data, if we have that on file for subscriptions or orders, is secured and encrypted.
- Credit Card Information: We use third party shopping cart systems (Stripe and PayPal.com) and a subscription management system (https://pigeon.io/) to manage customer orders and subscriptions. All credit card information saved to those systems is encrypted and secure. We have no access whatsoever to your information in your personal PayPal account (aside from your email address to connect our service to your PayPal account) and while we do have access to basic customer information submitted via our shopping cart and subscription systems, all credit card data submitted or orders or subscriptions is secured and encrypted by Stripe. Even we cannot see the credit card information... only the last four digits for reference purposes.
- Email Addresses: If you are a PureStream Subscriber, your email address is your username and is saved in your Whisperings Account Manager. We can also view your name, email, and subscription information on our side in the event we need to assist you with your account. When you subscribe, we will use your email to send your receipt and subscription-related reminders (like payment due, cancellations, renewals, etc), but you can cancel or opt out of those emails at any time. We will also, rarely, send out Whisperings promotional emails (of our own) if we are running a special we think our existing customers, past subscribers, or listeners might be interested in, as well as announcements about new features. Beyond this, listeners can also subscribe to the Whisperings newsletter, but we will never add you to that on our own. Once you subscribe to that mailing list, you can opt out at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link in the newsletter, or by sending a request to solopianoradio@gmail.com. Finally, if you are a subscriber, your email is used for your payment method with Stripe and/or PayPal, depending on which you use. Beyond this, we do not share your email with any other third party.
- Third Party Sites: Our website and player does include links to other websites, like artist websites, Apple Music, Spotify, etc. We are not responsible for the privacy policy of these web sites.
The Official Whisperings Apps
All our official Whisperings apps for iOS, Mac OS, tvOS, Android, Alexa & Roku devices are designed, maintained and sold by Emphatek software which we work with in full partnership. They have been providing our app design and services for us for well over ten years, providing support for the apps as well as working together with us to design the look, feel and feature set. Emphatek Software has our full support and backing as our Whisperings App source and representative.
Refund/Return Policy
Whisperings is committed to serving their customers. If you purchase a subscription and wish a refund for that subscription, we will give you a FULL REFUND if requested within 10 days of purchase. The refund will be returned back to the same credit card and/or PayPal account you purchased from. If you request a refund after ten days, a partial, pro-rated refund will be given depending upon how long you've had the subscription. The $30/year subscription price is based on your agreeing to a YEAR term. The monthly term is $5/month, so if you request a refund after three months, then those three months will be treated as three $5 months... totalling $15. So your refund would be the remaining $15 of what you initially paid. Once you have had an account for six months, no refund will be given, because at six months in (at $5/month) you have used up the $30 you initially paid for the subscription. If you purchase an official Whisperings CD from us and wish a refund on that CD purchase, we will happily refund that CD if the CD is returned to us in resellable condition (still with the shrink wrap intact). If a CD is delivered to you damaged, we will happily replace that CD for you at no additional charge. Note that we are not responsible for any artist CDs you purchase from third party web sites... if you purchase a CD directly from an artist, from Amazon.com or any other third party web site, we will have no record of that sale or means to refund that purchase to you... but we will happily provide you with contact information for the third party web site that you purchased from. If you have any questions about refunds and or returns, contact us at solopianoradio@gmail.com
Delivery Policy
Whisperings is committed to making their customers happy! If you purchase a subscription, your subscription account will be automatically set up immediately and within just a few minutes you should receive a "Welcome" email that contains all the information you need to log into your account and start tuning in commercial-free. Note that our "Welcome" emails do get dropped into spam folders on occasion, so if you sign up and do not receive a "Welcome" message from us, you might check your spam folder... it might be there. Either way, if you contact support, we will happily get you up and running. If you purchase an official Whisperings CD from us, expect to receive that in the mail within 7-10 business days if you are in the U.S.A. Please allow longer for overseas orders.
Contact Information
If you have any questions or concerns at all about these policy statements, the practices of this site or your account, you can contact us at solopianoradio@gmail.com. If you need technical assistance/customer support, you can also visit our FAQ page which answers common questions and problems.
Our mailing address is:
Whisperings Radio
P.O. Box 116
Junction City OR 97448
