Internet Radio Will Go Silent on June 26th

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."

Comments

Go away, you're not 21

[tepples]

Support your favorite artist by going to their concerts But will one's favorite artist still be one's favorite artist after one has become old enough to enter the venues that one's favorite artist's promoter has chosen?

Re:Retroactive?

[ChicagoBiker]

Unless I'm completely off here (and I don't think I am), these new pricing structures do not apply to KROQ and other over-the-air stations. From what I can gather, KROQ is on 106 FM in Los Angeles. Their royalty payments will not change. Yours will go up 1300%.

This law aimed at shutting you down so no one listens to you and can only listen to KROQ via a traditional radio. If these rates go into effect and KROQ has a streaming channel in addition to their over-the-air broadcast, they'll shut off their internet stream (gladly). And they can rest easily knowing you can no longer compete with them with your internet station.

Of course if you wish to keep broadcasting on the internet once this law goes into effect there's a provision in it that allows the RIAA to negotiate a different royalty package for you, however this package will not allow you to pick your playlists. Your station will play what the RIAA tells you to play.

If this law isn't changed, your radio station is off the air in 22 days and will have to move outside of the United States and no longer play RIAA member music.