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Internet Radio Will Go Silent on June 26th

Posted by Zonk on from the up-against-the-wall dept.

Spamicles writes "Thousands of U.S. webcasters plan to turn off the music and go silent this Tuesday, June 26th, to draw attention to an impending royalty rate increase that, if implemented, would lead to the virtual shutdown of this country's Internet radio industry. 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. Internet radio sites would be charged per performance of a song. A "performance" is defined as the streaming of one song to one listener; thus a station that has an average audience of 500 listeners racks up 500 "performances" for each song it plays."

8 of 250 comments (clear)

  1. And in other news by MyLongNickName · · Score: 5, Funny

    .... five users wonder what happened to their favorite web site.

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    See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
    1. Re:And in other news by Nullav · · Score: 2, Funny

      Rarely do I chance to hear the words "The cable's out again. Call Congress."
      Who's going to actually do anything about it if it's only for one day?

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      I just read Slashdot for the articles.
  2. Ob by edittard · · Score: 5, Funny

    Thousands of U.S. webcasters plan to turn off the music and go silent this Tuesday, June 26th
    Coming up after the break, John Cage's estate launches biggest copyright infringement suit ever.
    --
    At the bottom of the /. main page it says 'Yesterday's News'. Well they got that right.
  3. Obigatory Ogg Vorbis request by FrostedWheat · · Score: 2, Funny

    They should really be using Ogg Vorbis, because it's VBR nature means it encodes silence just that much better than MP3 or AAC ;-)

    1. Re:Obigatory Ogg Vorbis request by whoop · · Score: 2, Funny

      No way, 512kb encoding makes the silence sound WAY more realistic if you have any sort of mediocre sound system.

  4. SHH to Canada... by flyingfsck · · Score: 5, Funny

    The US stations could set up SSH tunnels to servers in Canada - 'internet underground railroad radio stations'...

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    Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
  5. Re:Retroactive? by flyingfsck · · Score: 3, Funny

    just pay them with retro money, like Greek Drachma or DDR Mark...

    --
    Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
  6. No Kidding by Nick+Driver · · Score: 4, Funny

    Shut off the whole freakin' internet for a day in protest.
    I'm all for it. Everybody should at least try having a real life for at least one 24-hour period anyway.