Last Chance to Save Internet Radio
link by Len MontgomeryINPIRG
We told you last week that the music industry is looking to put internet radio out of business, and we have until July 15th to stop them. Otherwise, we'll be stuck listening to the repetitive playlists that dominate AM/FM radio, and thousands of musicians will lose their main avenue for being heard.
The Internet has had an amazing impact on music. Log onto Pandora or Live365 or any of the thousands of online radio stations, and you get an explosion of music from artists all over the world. These stations give all sorts of unsigned bands a chance to be heard, make non-traditional music available to everyone, and offer listeners way more variety than normal radio. That's why over 70 million people now listen to Internet radio.
But the same greedy music industry executives who have spent the past decade suing college kids for downloading music have now managed to convince an obscure federal government agency (the Copyright Royalties Board) to jack up the fees that Internet radio stations have to pay every time they play a song, by as much as 1200%! These fees go into effect on July 15th, and will either drive Internet radio stations out of business, or severely narrow the number of songs any particular station can play.
Now, I think musicians should get fair royalty payments for their work. However, musicians won't benefit from bankrupting internet radio stations. These new fees will put the cost of streaming music far outside the range of these stations' business potential. The only ones who will benefit will be the mainstream music industry. And this situation is particularly unfair when you consider that AM/FM radio stations don't pay royalty fees at all.
Independent musicians, webcasters, and listeners are joining forces with members of Congress to reverse this bad decision. Representatives Jay Inslee (D-WA) and Donald Manzullo (R-IL) introduced the bipartisan Internet Radio Equality Act (H.R. 2060), which would reverse the decision.
Unless Congress passes this act, the music industry will have succeeded in turning the creative, independent and diverse range of musical choices now available online into the same cookie-cutter formats that have turned commercial radio into a mind-numbing race to the bottom.
We have just a few more days for Congress to act. Let's make sure they hear from as many of us as possible! Sign the petition and urge Congress to save internet radio:
http://inpirg.org/action/savenetradio
If you already signed the petition, then please take a moment to alert 5 of your friends. With their help, we can make sure Congress gets the message.
For more information on this issue, visit http://inpirg.org/consumer/savenetradio.
posted by J.G. Howard @ 8:37:00 PM
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