The future of Internet Radio

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ParaDOX Posted: 05-01-2007 12:07 PM

 I was sent this message as a member of the Live 365 community. I wanted to share it with all of you.

Dated: April 27, 2007 

Re: Ask your Representative to cosponsor the Internet Radio Equality Act!

Dear Live365 Listener,

 

The Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) recently denied webcasters' requests for a rehearing on its ruling of unfairly high new royalty rates -- a stunning 300 to 1200 percent increase -- for Internet radio for period 2006-2010.

Internet radio is singled out from all other radio, burdened with fees not paid by AM or FM stations, and at rates at least 3-4 times paid by satellite and cable radio. The ruling even included absurd minimum of $500 per station per year to penalize the smallest webcasters with the highest rates.

Should this ruling stand, many of your favorite stations will be silenced. You will find Live365's 260 genres reduced to the same meager, homogenized list carried on AM/FM radio, because the unfair rates would drive webcasters in niche genres with unique content unavailable elsewhere out of business.

You can, however, help protect your favorite tunes of your favorite DJs from being silenced.

The Internet Radio Equality Act (HR 2060) has been introduced in Congress by Representative Jay Inslee (D-WA). A simple phone call to your Representative to ask for their support on this Bill will go a long way toward ensuring your right to diversity and choice in radio. Better yet, please also write and fax to show how serious you are. They need to know how much your music means to you.

Click here for the number of your Representative. Call NOW!

Sincerely,
Mark Lam
CEO, Live365
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To learn how your single call can make the difference, visit www.live365.com/choice, and the SaveNetRadio Coalition we formed with listeners, webcasters, artists, and labels: http://www.savenetradio.org/.

For those of us who enjoy listening and broadcasting Internet Radio, spread the word so that we can make a difference and save Internet Radio!

www.ParadisesGarage.com 
Remember... Where ever you go, there you are...

Top 10 Contributor
Points 8,458
Save the radio!! Call the national guard! No yearly fines!! Long live {MC} and its SAM Radio Station!


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  • | Post Points: 23

 Its been like this for a long time. It has mostly to do with the Clear Channel which currently controls a monopoly over almost all advertisements and programs you see. Censorship on AM/FM radio as well as TV's are controled and cleared by the clear channel and billboards you see on highways to newspaper articles the clear channel has some part of it. But the internet is the land of the free. Currently, it is extremely hard to control the internets content because its a world wide....web. The US cannot regulate it because the US does not own the internet and other users from other countries are obviously not affected by US law. So the clear channel as well as the RIAA have decided to say "well, we cannot control the internet, but we can control our products (I.E. Music, Videos etc that are internationally copyrighted) and streaming it, although the audience may not be able to download it, is still a form of piracy. This is where most of the mp3/movie piracy lawsuits come in. When it has come to internet streaming though, I believe it was ruled legal but like broadcasting off-internet, there are licenses and what not that need to be associated to such broadcasting.

Currently on the net there are almost 100,000 stations on shoutcast listings alone, publicly. This does not include private shoutcast stations, ICEcast, Peercast, shout365 and other minor streaming programs. To form a lawsuit for each and everyone of these broadcasts is like trying to put out a forest fire with a pale of water. They know this and so do the broadcasters, thats why it still continues today. These organizations are trying to place such fines on the broadcasting because without licensing, its one more thing they could use for such a lawsuit and some will be scared away from broadcasting cutting the number of internet stations down to a more managable number.

Another look into the situation is what I refer to as the Internet Cold War. Like the real Cold War, its a constant struggle against those who want to have freedoms already experienced on the internet such as internet broadcasts and organizations who act like communist dictators who tell you what to play, how to play it and when to play it.

Im sure you will make the right decision 

  • | Post Points: 5
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