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Net radio will protest on Tuesday
Author: Brett ThomasPublished: 23rd June 2007
"The sound of silence" - net radio broadcasters will go dark on Tuesday to protest the RIAA price hikes.
Tuesday, June 26th, has officially been set as a protest date for Internet radio broadcasters. Dubbed the "Day of Silence," many of the most popular net radio stations will go dark - at least on the music end.
Most stations will participate in the protest, including the extremely popular Yahoo Music. Other big names on the bill (which was organised by the head of AccuRadio) are Live 365 Inc and the incredibly brilliant Pandora Media. If you haven't given Pandora a try, I'd highly recommend you do - on any day but Tuesday, of course.
The term "silence" isn't entirely accurate - one station is planning on hosting a one hour discussion between several heads of the Internet radio industry as they explain why this rate hike is bad for pretty much everyone but the RIAA. That interview will play on a loop for the whole day, and will be linked to by some other stations as well.
What is even more interesting is which companies aren't participating, though the list is rather unsurprising. AOL (which is now a fully-owned subsidiary of Time Warner, an RIAA affiliate) has chosen to decline the protest, citing it as an unnecessary reason to interrupt good service to customers. Media advertising mogul ClearChannel has also been waffling, though I would be willing to bet that it too will decline.
No matter what, it's pretty clear that the RIAA's determination is being matched with some equal effort from Internet radio. Who will win? Only time will tell, but you can place your bets in our forums.
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Comments (8)
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H.B.
I believe it's an American thing only.
Also, you can add www.di.fm to the list of webcasters that are observing the day of silence... this really sucks :( I really need to call my reps and voice my opinion.
Yep :(
2003 story -> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/07/09/riaa_faces_antitrust_suit/
What bothers me the most is a quick breakdown of current performance royalties that are paid by the various radio mediums:
Broadcast Radio ($20 billion/year): 0% of revenue
Satellite Radio ($2 billion/year): 7% of revenue
Internet Radio ($74 Million/year): 58% of revenue
The Internet Radio Equality Act, as best as I can tell, proposes Internet Radio to pay $0.0033 USD per hour of music per listener or 7.2% of revenue, with a $500/year minimum.
I agree with this wholeheartedly.
The Copyright Royalties Board has already passed law that goes into effect July 15, 2007 that will charge a flat rate of $0.009 USD per hour of music per listener with a $500/year minimum.
Because many online radio stations do not make much revenue, this would cause them to go bankrupt pretty quickly. I still agree with a $500/year minimum with a 7.2% of revenue fee to pay artists, because I like supporting artists, but I think taking away the revenue-based fee system will kill many stations.
Fortunately the radio station at my work does not have enough online listeners to exceed the $500/year minimum, but that's probably because we haven't been promoting our MP3 stream yet. (not many people want to stream Windows Media, including myself)
So, while our station's stream isn't in danger yet :), somaFM may not be around much longer. :(