Radio silence
Today, some of your favorite Kinoma Media Guide channels will not work.
Today, webcasters around the world are protesting an imminent 300% royalty rate increase with a national Internet Radio Day of Silence.
The Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) made the decision to multiply royalty rates even though they knew that Internet radio royalties were already double what satellite radio pays.
While they were at it, the CRB killed a provision that let small webcasters calculate royalties as a percentage of revenue — as a result, in most cases small webcasters’ royalties will grow exponentially. Since internet radio advertising revenue was just starting to develop, most webcasters were barely making ends meet even before this ruling.
If this royalty rate is not reversed by the Congress, most Internet radio services will go bankrupt and cease webcasting. The result will be less creativity and less diversity.
Surviving webcasters will need sweetheart licenses that major record labels will be happy to offer, so long as the labels can control the programming and playlist. Very quickly, most internet radio could become as insipid as most terrestrial radio.
The royalty rate increases go into effect on July 15. You can make a difference, but you must act quickly.
Click the first link below to get phone numbers for your Senators and Representative. Ask them to support the bi-partisan Internet Radio Equality Act and preserve the future of Internet radio.
- Call your Senators and Representative today
- SaveNetRadio.org
- Partial list of participating webcasters
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