Help save internet radio! March 17
Well, it seems that one of my new addictions is already in trouble! The list of songs in my sidebar comes from a music service called last.fm They take info from what you play in itunes to make the list, but they also offer a very cool internet radio service based around the tracks you like. At least they do for now…here is the lowdown from www.savethestreams.org:
On Friday March 2nd, the U.S. government (specifically, the Copyright Royalty Board, or “CRB”) announced its determination of the royalty rates Internet radio webcasters must pay the owners of sound recording copyrights to license the music they play for the years 2006-2010. The owners of these sound recording copyrights are, in the vast majority of cases, recording companies (”labels”).
While successful webcasters which have built loyal audiences can usually cover most of their costs from their revenue (and sometimes even make a little profit), these new rates will almost certainly destroy the Internet radio industry, as they amount to well over 100% of even the most-successful webcasters’ online radio revenues. In other words, these fees are grotesquely disproportionate to any other expense a webcaster would normally face, and certain to bankrupt him or her.
There are several things you can do to help save internet radio. The best site to get info is www.savethestreams.org. You can also read up on some thoughts about next steps, see why it’s important to keep around, and hopefully start to understand why this is so important. We have already lost independent radio over the airwaves to the likes of clearchannel (I know I stopped listening to New York City radio stations about 5 minutes after I first got here). Lets not let this happen with internet radio!
