New Royalties threaten to KILL Internet Radio

[Armstead]

Well, if it doesn;t kill all Internet Radio, it'll leave only the rich powerful broadcast companies standing.

The Assholes who set royalty fees for Internet music have set a new set of rates that will be unafforsable to many Internet broadcasters.

Congress can rescind this, but only if the public makes a racket. So we need to do whatever we can to stop this latest attempt to KILL one of the last bastions of free expression available.

here's a website with more info.

http://www.savethestreams.org/

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http://www.chicagotribune.com/technology/columnists/chi-0703070314mar07,0,6077662.column?coll=chi-business-hed

Chicago Tribune

"Web radio reels from rate ruling
Surge in royalties threatens operators, many in industry say

Published March 7, 2007

Last year, AccuRadio.com, a Chicago Internet radio operation, paid 12 percent of its revenues, or about $48,000, in royalties to performers of the songs it played, said founder Kurt Hanson.

But a ruling by the Copyright Royalty Board of the Library of Congress made public Tuesday threatens to increase that royalty more than tenfold, putting AccuRadio and almost every other operator in the rapidly growing Web radio field out of business, Hanson said.

Those affected by the new rates, which change the royalty paid to a song's performers from a percentage of revenue to a per-song, per-listener fee, include not just Web-only outfits mimicking traditional radio stations, but also more specialized digital music services such as Pandora (pandora.com) and the Internet streams of traditional broadcast stations.

"It's absurd," said Hanson. "Under this, our royalty would go to $600,000 for the year, which means we would be bankrupted."

An Arbitron/Edison Media Research study last year estimated that 52 million Americans had listened to Internet radio in the previous month.

The liability for Pandora in the new rate's first year, he calculated, could pass $3.5 billion because the ruling includes a $500 minimum per channel, and Pandora functions by having its 6 million users set up as many as 100 of their own music channels.....MORE

[msongs]

1. make your own music - then you have NO fees to pay :-)

instead of complaining you can't use somebody else's stuff, use your own, which is totally free, correct?

personally I think there oughta be blanket licensing like on over-the-air radio and tv.

but the solution to paying other people to use what THEY created is to make your own.

and by "you" I do not mean you personally, but those "you's" who want to benefit from somebody else's stuff.

Msongs
www.msongs.com

[Armstead]

3. I strongly disagree

Sure, you're right in theory.

But this is much bigger than that. It is all about both whether the public has access to anything outside of the sanctioned Corporate Straightjacket that has all but killed radio, and the ability of smaller businesses and non-profit organizations to survive.

Your response is similar to telling someone in an apartment that instead of buying food they should just "grow their own." That's a hollow phrase to people who do not have the time or resources to do that.

[silverojo]

2. K&R!

My God, the recording industry is killing itself with its own greed. Why people don't just boycott buying CD's and mp3's for a solid month (to show them who has the REAL power), is beyond me.