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Save Internet Radio!!


jrockster21

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Just got this via email from Pandora, one of my favorite sites:

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Hi, it's Tim from Pandora,

I'm writing today to ask for your help. The survival of Pandora and all of Internet radio is in jeopardy because of a recent decision by the Copyright Royalty Board in Washington, DC to almost triple the licensing fees for Internet radio sites like Pandora. The new royalty rates are irrationally high, more than four times what satellite radio pays, and broadcast radio doesn't pay these at all. Left unchanged, these new royalties will kill every Internet radio site, including Pandora.

In response to these new and unfair fees, we have formed the SaveNetRadio Coalition, a group that includes listeners, artists, labels and webcasters. I hope that you will consider joining us.

Please sign our petition urging your Congressional representative to act to save Internet radio: http://capwiz.com/saveinternetradio/issues/alert/?alertid=9631541

Please feel free to forward this link/email to your friends - the more petitioners we can get, the better.

Understand that we are fully supportive of paying royalties to the artists whose music we play, and have done so since our inception. As a former touring musician myself, I'm no stranger to the challenges facing working musicians. The issue we have with the recent ruling is that it puts the cost of streaming far out of the range of ANY webcaster's business potential.

I hope you'll take just a few minutes to sign our petition - it WILL make a difference. As a young industry, we do not have the lobbying power of the RIAA. You, our listeners, are by far our biggest and most influential allies.

As always, and now more than ever, thank you for your support.

-Tim Westergren

(Pandora founder)

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What a bunch of crap!! :mad:

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Anyone else get any response back ?

Here is one of mine :)

Mr. ************

***************

Laurel, Maryland ******

Dear Mr. ******:

Thank you for contacting me regarding your opposition to

the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) ruling on rates for

nonsubscription webcasters.

The CRB announced new royalty rates for certain digital

transmissions of sound recordings for the period of January 1,

2006 to December 31, 2010. The Copyright Royalty and

Distribution Reform Act, enacted into law in 2004, established the

CRB, which replaced the Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel

(CARP). CARP made the previous recommendation for the initial

royalty rates for nonsubscription webcasters. Congress passed the

Small Webcasters Settlement Act (SWSA) in 2002 in response to

opposition to the recommendations. The bill allowed small

webcasters to pay royalty rates based on a percentage of revenue or

expenses rather than on a per song, per listener basis. The law only

applied to the CARP recommendations and cannot be considered

in future ratemaking proceedings.

The CRB rate structure does not make provisions for small

webcasters addressed in the SWSA. Moreover, the Board

expresses that it lacks statutory authority to carve out royalty rates

for emergent businesses. I believe the differences between the

CRB ruling and the SWSA merit further consideration by

Congress.

Again, thank you for contacting me. Please do not hesitate

to contact me again if I may be of any assistance in the future.

Senator Ben Cardin

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  • 2 months later...

The "stay of execution" runs out on net radio on Sunday. On July 15th, the new web rates will go into effect for internet radio stations forcing them to pay flat rate for every song they broadcast instead of a rate based on a percentage of their revenue.

There's still time to call your Senators and Congressman/woman and urge them to co-sponsor the Internet Radio Equality Act.

For more information on this bill go to: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070427-internet-radio-equality-act-would-overturn-decision-on-webcasting-fees.html

For more information on what you can do to help stop this travesty please go to:

http://www.savenetradio.org/index.html

A shout out to everybody else in this thread that's already helped promote this issue.

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