Auditioning, Buying and Downloading Pieces
Before You Begin: Get a Membership
To buy pieces on PRX, you will need either a station membership or an outside purchaser membership:
- Stations can buy PRX pieces to broadcast on the air. See our station resources page for membership info and other helpful stuff.
- Outside purchasers are non-station members of PRX who have special agreements set up so that they can buy pieces. Check out our outside purchaser info to read about how that works.
Once you have your membership set up, you can get going buying and downloading PRX pieces!
Step One: Audition
When you find a piece you're interested in, you have two ways of previewing the content:
- By listening to the streaming audio
- By downloading the audition-only MP3 file under Price and Terms on the piece page
Important audition-only MP3 file info: Stations and outside purchasers have access to downloadable audition-only MP3 files. This gives flexibility to station programmers who need downloadable files in order to plan programming away from their computers. Stations are NOT ALLOWED to play MP3 audition files on the air. Doing so would violate the PRX User Agreement and the piece licensing agreement. It would also rob the producer of royalties and would put low-quality audio on your airwaves. Just don't do it.
You can view the terms of each piece by clicking View the license terms under Price and Terms on a piece page. This is where you learn if the producer allows you to...
- broadcast the piece on the Internet as well as your airwaves
- offer the piece on your Web site as a download, a stream, or both
- edit the piece with or without producer permission
Step Two: Buy
License Terms
When you've picked out a piece, click Buy this piece in the blue bubble on the upper-right of the piece page. You will see the license terms, which you must follow if you buy the piece. If you do not like the terms of the license and cannot follow them, DO NOT BUY THE PIECE or click contact the producer directly.
Price and Payment
You will see the price in points and how many points you have left to spend.
Click Buy Piece when you know you want the piece and are ready to pay for it. PRX takes care of deducting your points and sending payment to the producer, and you will be able to download the audio on the next page.
Step Three: Download
Once you see the page that says you have bought the piece, you can begin downloading the audio under Download Audio. Or, you can have the audio files delivered to you by FTP if you provide the correct information under Deliver Audio by FTP.
You will have access to the audio files for one year from your purchase date. To get back to this screen in the future and download the audio, go to the piece page and click Download piece audio in blue on the upper-right.
Carriage Information
Carriage information — when and where you'll be playing the piece — is extremely important to producers. Producers need to have this information for funding and other records. It's also really fun for them to be able to tell friends and family when their work will be on the air!
Even if you're not sure when something will be played, fill out as much carriage information as you can (you can update it later). Also provide contact information where the producer can get in touch with you in case no carriage information is added.
