Published by Randall Krause on Sunday, March 4, 2007 [Permalink] [Return to Top]
Call to Action: The Time Is Now to Save Internet Radio
The results are in. The Copyright Royalty Board wants to raise the royalty rates for all Internet radio stations nationwide retroactive to January 2006. Judges not only rejected proposals from industry experts in Webcasting, but they expressed an overall lack of concern for those businesses whose livelihood is directly dependent on Webcasting.
Small commercial Webcasters that previously paid royalties based on a percentage-of-revenue model, will instead be subjected to the burdensom "pay-per-play" model. Non-commercial Webcasters and simulcasters will face similarly exorbitant royalty rates. In addition, a $500 annual fee will be levied upon individual stations -- that alone could effectively shutdown services like Live365, Mercora, and SomaFM that offer multiple streams of music programming.
Please take a moment to contact each of your senators and representatives in Washington, D.C. Be sure to emphasize the need for immediate political action. It is imperative that our elected officials understand the plight of our community, so that they can launch an internal investigation. There will be very real and very devastating ecomonic consequences if this royalty rate increase is allowed to proceed unchecked.
If you can, also prepare a press release for submission to local, regional, and national news outlets. Expose this royalty rate hike for the injustice that it is. The more media coverage we can get during the coming few days, the greater the momentum we'll have to take this to the next level -- Capitol Hill.
There is an opportunity for all of us to make signficant headway prior to the appeals process. While, it may no longer be possible for the public to forestall the new royalty rates, our lawmakers, if they are well informed, can push an interim bill through Congress to provide Webcasters with much needed relief from the CRB decision.
Please find the contact information for your Congresspeople below:
http://www.cdt.org/action/contactcongress.html
