The Death Of Net Radio

[DDay]

The following info was copied from:

http://www.savenetradio.org/

from this link:

http://www.di.fm/blog/read/2007/05/we-will...ew-royalty.html

I for one regularly listen to Net Radio from various sites and this bill reeks of 'big brother' as it is going after any Net Radio that has listeners in the USA, and you thought all the crazy political antics and greed tactics were reserved for Thailand.

The first line of defense is as stated in the article, get the CRB to pass a realistic and practical law which means only US citizens can have an impact. The rest can spread the word that the Net is under attack from the GWB & Company worm.

THE ISSUE:

In March the United States Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) made a decision on what the webcasting royalties should be going forward and dating back starting with 2006.

The new fees, making us owe literally more than *two million dollars* due July 15th, do not take any realistic business model of a service such as ours and most others on the web into account. The short story translation is that Digitally Imported the company already owes just for 2006 many many times more in royalty fees than all combined revenue generated. Imagine a picture similar to if for every $1 we earn before even any expenses, we actually owe about $5 in royalty fees.

To make an analogy, imagine there was a law passed on an ice cream tax, and the tax rate depended on the number of visitors visiting your store rather than how much ice cream the store sold. So imagine the tax does not care if ice cream buyers came just to hang out and get a little bit of icecream - all ice cream stands would go out of business except those who sell wholesale mega packs to a few visitors in places like Sams Club or Costco, or Walmart if it was willing to loose money just to get you into their store.

The CRB judges completely ignored independent webcasters such as us and our business models, and adopted only a very high per song performance fee, without any kind of a provision for a percentage of revenue.

UNLESS THIS IS FIXED:

This situation spells doom for webcasting on the Internet, and many services such as Digitally Imported Radio will be forced to stop all public webcasting, switch to subscriptions only, or SHUT DOWN ENTIRELY - WITHIN MONTHS, IF NOT WEEKS!

MOVING AWAY IS NOT AN OPTION:

We do not want to consider moving to another country. First, there are legal precedents where it is established that as long as we serve listeners in the USA, regardless of where from, we are liable for that audience. As the business model relies heavily on affordable bandwidth in the USA, there is no realistic nice way of going around operating at least some of the infrastructure in the USA. Besides we just don't want to and should not have to do this in our own country.

OTHER FACTS:

- Terrestrial AM and FM stations in the USA pay absolutely nothing, for recording industry royalties due to a law made in consideration of promotion value that playing provides in return.

- Satellite Radio services pay 7.5% of revenue.

- So why must Internet Radio pay something that translates to 100-500% of revenue?

WHAT CAN BE DONE? WE AND ALL WEBCASTERS NEED *YOU* - RIGHT NOW!!!

All Webcasters big and small are united in the <a href="http://www.savenetradio.org/" target="_blank">S

aveNetRadio.org</a> campaign to persuade US Congress to change this recent decision and set more realistic and fair rates. A new bill titled Internet Radio Equality Act was just introduced in Congress and we need YOU to call your congressperson and ask them to support this bill # H.R. 2060. Unfortunately you can only do this if you reside in the USA, all others scroll down.

DOES YOUR CALL MAKE A DIFFERENCE?

Yes, very much so. A few years ago during the last round of troubles like this we had example of just one listener in a specific district call and talk to their representative and it was enough to convince him to vote in support of that bill. They are YOUR representatives, their job is to listen to you. Please exercise your rights, don't be shy or afraid to make the call, each call makes a HUGE difference.

HOW, WHO, OR WHERE TO CALL?

Please go to SaveNetRadio.org and there click on "Call Your Representative". The page allows you to enter your zipcode. Enter the zipcode and it will show you who your district congressperson is, their office phone number, and the summary of points we recommend that you should explain or mention to them. Everything is provided there for you. You will most likely reach the legislative aide, and it's good to talk to them as you will rarely be able to get the congressman directly on the phone in person.