On June 26, thousands of webcasters will go silent and cut off the music in protest to the royalty rate increase by the Copyright Royalty Rate Board.
Some of the participants of this protest includes Yahoo, Rhapsody, MTV Online and Live 365.
Jake Ward, SaveNetRadio coalition spokesperson, said in a statement:
“The arbitrary and drastic rate increases set by the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) on March 2 threaten the very livelihood of thousands of webcasters and their millions of listeners throughout the country,”
“The campaign to save Internet radio — a genuine grass-roots movement comprised of hundreds of thousands of webcasters, artists and independent labels, and Net radio listeners — has quickly brought this issue to the national forefront and the halls of Congress, but there is still more to be done before the approaching deadline of July 15.”
On the SaveNetRadio website, countdown to July 15 starts, tagging that day as “The Day the Music Dies”. Internet Radio broadcasters are calling on Senators and Congressional Representatives to heed to their call and save the future of web broadcasting.
The decision made by CRB to make webcasters pay for music played over Internet radio stations is effective on July 15 and will include retroactive payments dating back to January of 2006.
Some say that while this is merely an appeal for drastic change, this event could also be the end of the Internet Radio industry. We’ll know soon.
Originally posted on June 22, 2007 @ 9:41 pm
I think when you want to make money with the other ones it’s normal you have to pay for that. I don’t talk about independant non-profit internet radio but like Rhapsody, MTV Online and Live 365, slacker and all the others like that