Help Internet Radio Avoid Extinction
Corporate interests are hard at working making sure you don't have a choice because they make more money when you have no choices.
Protect Your Right To Diversity
Protect your right to hear eclectic indepenent radio and discover new artists.You can save Internet radio with less than five minutes of your time. Write your congressional representative today. Pass the word to anyone you know that loves or makes music. Also, please bookmark this page and check back frequently for updates. We need your continued support and action as the situation further develops.
Tell your representative:
I do not support The Copyright Royalty Board's (CRB) March 2nd decision to substantially increase royalty rates. Not only will it impact my choices, but the Recording Industry Association of America's (RIAA) manipulation of these rates, and the CRB's indifference will hurt working artists, damage small record labels and force law abiding small webcasters, already paying a large portion of their revenue per month in royalties, out of business. This decision will also damage hundreds of small businesses providing goods and services to working artists, small record labels and small webcasters.
I respectfully ask that you evaluate the CRB decision and do whatever is necessary to establish a reasonable royalty rate for all the parties involved.
Who, What and When
On March 2, 2007, The CRB approved royalty rates that will bury any small webcaster, and create a heavy burden even for big broadcasters like Yahoo, AOL Music and Pandora. How high will these rates be? Around 100% of a small webcasters revenue, give or take a few points, in most cases. What?! That's impossible to pay! Yep, it sure is..
How did this happen? The RIAA told the CRB thats what they wanted, and the CRB just gave it to them.
Your're probably thinking, hey that's awful, but who are the the RIAA and CRB?
RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) is a lobbying group formed by the five largest record labels. They are embedded in Washington D.C. They make sure laws are written to keep them rich, no matter what. They made headlines a few years ago opening lawsuits against elderly people, single mothers and children for trading music online, even though some of them didn't even have computers. Check out the latest RIAA headlines.
The CRB (Copyright Royalty Board) is part of the US Copyright Office. The Board is charged with determining the royalty rates that would be determined by a willing buyer and a willing seller in a marketplace transaction. They decided to jack the rates beyond a broadcasters means despite decades of royalty rates being 1 - 2% of broadcaster revenue. Raise your right hand if you want to take away consumer choice, hurt working artists, damage small record labels and put small webcasters out of business.
Take Action Now
* Write your congressional representative: [link to www.house.gov]
* Add your name to a petition: [link to www.petitiononline.com]
Stay Current on the Issues
* RIAA Targets Internet Radio: [link to www.webpronews.com]
* RIAA Settlement-O-Matic: [link to www.broadbandreports.com]
* RIAA Pushes Through Rates Designed To Kill: [link to www.techdirt.com]
* RAIN Newsletter
* Broadcast Law Blog
* New headlines from Google
For Broadcasters
* Visit webcastersunite.net for public service announcements, logos, and other resources.
* This site is brought to you by a coalition of independent webcasters who have had enough*
[www.savenetradio.org] - or just click the headline at the top of this article.
6 comments:
check this
My gut tells me that this is only the first part of the equation :
If you think that CorporateAmerica doesn't have its' eye on the Internet...
Let's all enjoy this while it's still free for you and me .
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution are a
Master Plan.
The only way to screw it up.....................
Is to change it.
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Let's just say this;
Corporate America has it's handle on the media ever since it's one-way information through only ONE-WAY of the information to be PAID for! It's filtered and censored information on "wag the dog" way of what is really going on!
Internet Radio -Television (IPTV) is going to be one different than a over the air radio station or television station..if this makes senes to you then you can see what the real deal is! eliminate the mom & pops even the a non-branded name brand of media outlets...but Clear Channel, Belo, Fox, Universal-NBC-G.E. just to name a few! will NOT let our voices be heard! It's been prevalent in the first "Gulf War" (1990) protests against US involvement in Iraqi...protesters against the war were hit by words like: "Support Our Troops" to be used put protesters on defensive! of course the anti-war protesters "support our troops"!
As People of this country we have been played!
Again "freedom is on the Rise!!"
I fight this everyday in my business as will! Steaming costs for music videos cost us .008 per play. It was once a "promotional service" just like radio..Now cost $'s
What ever it takes! I have written my congress persons and My senators! Snail mail is the best way..it does represent 1,000 people per letter! SO write your congress persons & your Senate person..like stated in the blog posting here.
Thanks,
Jeff & Jennifer Crawford
THE DELICIOUS TASTE OF SPAM
A most honorable thing to do, sir (writing to yout congressmen) but I have to confess my doubts that much of it gets read.
My bet is that it is more likely to be COUNTED than comprehended, ya know? Like these very busy bureaucrats are working really hard at ignoring the MEANING of what we say - more like estimating the size of the voting block by counting the voices.
I know I am being sour but hey, when you ask for water and they give you vinegar.......
Anyway... Why don't we take all those senatorial and government email addresses.... must be thousands of them..... and instead of WRITING to them simply use those addresses to fill out all the advertising questionaires we can easily find? The Google Autofill feature should work....
See, the deal is, we put them on so many SPAMMER mailing lists, they don't even pretend the email works, anymore. You already know they won't talk to you by phone.
I have one old account dejavu2u2@gmail.com that gets THOUSANDS os SPAM messages PER WEEK!
Why not put these guys to work changing the government?
Just a thought.
Ronco
Jeff and Jennifer,
Your post is right on. If we stop trying, we're part of it when it all falls apart. At least if we try, we know we made the effort. And things ARE changing for the better, slowly but surely.
"If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem."
Who said that? I've got it on a poster somewhere.
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