Why save Internet radio?

^ No thats not what Internet radio is about. 

"Day of Silence" coming to Internet radio on June 26

By Eric Bangeman | Published: June 21, 2007 - 10:47PM CT

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070621-day-of-silence-coming-to-internet-radio-on-june-26.html

A number of Internet radio stations will be participating in a Day of Silence on June 26 to protest the retroactive royalty rate increases due to go into effect on July 15. Organized by Kurt Hanson, publisher of the Radio and Internet Newsletter, the protest is designed to remind listeners that silence is "what the Internet could be reduced to on or shortly after" the royalty increase begins.
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In March, the Copyright Royalty Board announced that it would raise royalties for Internet broadcasters, moving them from a per-song rate to a per-listener rate. The increase would be made retroactive to the beginning of 2006 and would double over the next five years.

After the announcement, a group of broadcasters spearheaded by National Public Radio petitioned the CRB for a rehearing, but a panel of judges denied the request less than a month later.

In early May, legislation was introduced into the Senate and House of Representatives that would overturn the CRB's decision and mandate a royalty rate of 7.5 percent of total revenues. Neither version of the Internet Radio Equality Act has yet to make it to the floor for a vote. A coalition of webcasters has also asked a federal appeals court to delay the rate hike.

Daunted by the prospect of legislation, SoundExchange—the licensing authority backed by the major record labels—offered Internet broadcasters an olive branch. Under SoundExchange's latest proposal, smaller webcasters would remain exempt from the new royalty schedule until 2010. Large, commercial webcasters would have to still have pony up beginning in mid-July. SaveNetRadio criticized SoundExchange's offer, saying that it amounted to throwing large webcasters under the bus while simultaneously ensuring that none of the small webcasters would ever see significant growth.

During the Day of Silence next week, Internet broadcasters will broadcast static or silence interspersed with public service announcements asking listeners to contact their congressional representatives and ask them to support the IREA. According to the Radio and Internet Newsletter, webcasters such as Live365.com, AccuRadio.com, and NPR affiliate KCRW will participate. Hanson said that he hopes that larger stations such as NPR, Pandora, Yahoo, and Real Rhapsody will also participate.

^Err Mike this issue is all about US based internet radio. 

Finnforest wrote: I agree Mickey.  It so sad to see people rationalize illegal downloading as somehow different than walking into a store and stuffing CDs into their coat, something they would probably abhor.    Its' the same thing.  Stealing is stealing no matter how they go to the ends of the earth to justify it.  Sorry, same thing.

?!?!?!  This isn't illegal downloading.  Internet radio isn't something that you save to your computer, it's a station that plays over the internet.  They already pay royalties for the music they play.  The new regulations would force them to pay much higher royalties than they already pay, putting most if not all of them out of business... in favor of radio that only plays hit singles.

If you're clever, sure there are ways to record the music to your computer.   Heck, you can do that with normal radio station, too. All you need to do is plug the signal in to something - anything - that can save the signal. So effectively, there's no difference except for the variety, and that you can get an internet radio station anywhere....

^ Sure, royalty rates should reflect how easy it is for someone to steal the music, but the proposed increases have nothing to do with that (unfortunately).  The new royalty rates will be royalties paid per listener, rather than per song.  Because the rates are retroactive, a huge amount of stations will go bankrupt the instant the law goes into effect.  This seems to tell me that this law has nothing to do with whether or not the royalty rates were/are fair to the artists.  This is all about lining some people's pockets with money, while stamping out a ton of small businesses.

If someone actually wanted to increase royalties paid to the artists themselves, they'd want the businesses that are paying them to stay in business.  But as soon as these businesses declare bankruptcy, boom - their debts are wiped out, and the artists don't necessarily ever see a dime past that.

So if they want to raise the royalties, sure!  Why not?  But why raise them to be so high as to destroy the businesses that are paying the royalties?  Probably because somebody wants all those businesses gone.

micky wrote:   when you see people, if effect,  stealing music...   I'm sure it's cyclic  People steal and the artists ask from from other sources.  Could launch into some diatribe about this being an a effect of the Reagan years.. of me first and to hell with others.  People only care for what they can get.. and for how little ...  music has never been free... nor should it ever be... most of us had to save our lunch money to buy cassettes and Lp's... not do a quick google search and download any album we choose to hear.  but I won't I guess. Don't want to go off topic. Sad to see that happen to IR... but it is the nature of business and result of the loss of income from other areas.

Rather than target the consumer, could you think about the dung heads at the the major labels. They had a chance to agree to a licensing agreement with Napster back in the day ... $10 monthly subscription fee for users, and then let's figure out how to divide up the revenue. The labels backed out, fearing the heat they would get from the retailers. At the time, Napster had 20 million users. Since then, they've played the legal card, suing P2P users to little avail, started their own music download services that were loaded with so many limitations (streaming only, high subscription fees, limited burning options etc ...), then tried to force Itunes to increase the 99 cent price per download (thank you Steve Jobs for refusing to kill your successful concept with another hairbrained unreal label brainstorm), and now they're left to squeeze out revenue elsewhere. Do you want to bet that many stations will simply refuse to play music by acts that charge such exhorbitant fees ?
Leave it to the music business to give itself the "business" over & over again until it's dead. For some reason, they still believe they can "force" people to pay what the label wants for music, as they could even 10 years ago ... remember the 70 minute CD with 2 good songs that you paid $20 for 'cause you couldn't get those songs any other way ?
If the major labels insist on killing themselves by their lack of vision, lack of reality etc ... I am not the one who is going to lose sleep over any of their "efforts" to extort revenue any which way they can. I rarely buy major label acts, and my radio listening is practically a thing of the past due to the 20 minutes of commercials & 10 minutes of music, the overplaying of the same songs, many that used to be among my favourites, and the insistence that central programming is the best way to generate long term revenue.
Within 10 years, our business schools will be using them as study cases to show how to run a business into the ground.
The music will live on. It will not resemble anything that we have seen yet, but there are examples already showing up. Keep your eyes & ears open, things are going to get very interesting now that the music fan has escaped from under the records label's thumb.

Why would I download something if I don't know what it sounds like? The fact of the matter is Internet radio exposed me to an entire world of music which I have then purchased from Doug Larson or Greg Walker because I now know what some of this rare stuff sounds like. Killing internet radio would prevent me from PURCHASING a great amount of music simply because I wouldn't otherwise have the opportunity to hear it. The unheard artist lose out