Thousands of radio station and internet-only streaming broadcasters are silencing their streams tomorrow for the national Internet radio "Day of Silence" organized by SaveNetRadio.org. We are calling for not only music streaming but all streaming–Talk sports, news, etc…Radio-internet and otherwise-must stand and go through this together. The more streams that are silenced (actually providing details and directing listeners to contact their Senators and Representatives on the Internet Radio Equality Act), the more clout it will have. We need to give everyone a taste of what things will be like come D-Day, July 15, when the new Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) rates kick in and kill the industry-silence of U.S. broadcasters.
The per-performance rate will rise to .08 cents in 2006 and reach .19 cents by 2010, a 250% increase over current rates, with a minimum annual fee of 500 bucks per streamed channel. The new rates, again, are scheduled to go into effect 7/15, with retroactive royalties for 2006 and 2007 due on that date.
There isn't much time for Congress to act, so this push is important to you and your fellow broadcasters. We must let The CRB and SoundExchange know they will not be permitted to arbitrarily kill an industry and the thousands of people working for it. If this isn't fixed, it will look like yet another US industry will be exported overseas. All of the servers and stations folks will have to tune to will be outside the US. How stupid is that?
And there are plenty of musicians who realize when these streams go silent, their music will too.
