Web radio planning day of silence to protest fees
Several internet radio sites, both major companies, as well as smaller, indy web-based stations, are planning silence on Tuesday to protest the increased music royalty fees approved by the Copyright Royalty Board, a panel created by Congress. Fees are set to jump from 7 cents, to 8 cents, gradually moving up to 19 cents by 2010, a figure many smaller web radio companies say will put them out of business. This increase also hurts even bigger companies, such as Yahoo, Inc. Major players joining in on the protest include Yahoo and MTV Online (owned by Viacom). While it’s said that the House and Senate are considering the Internet Radio Equality Act, which would roll back the increases, there’s been no determination as to whether they’ve actually figured out the internet yet they’re really listening.
Does stuff like this ever work?
@Leo I hope it does, this increase is big and it will affect small companies that play good music. So let’s see how it goes.
I could care less about this
I find this article very bias toward a press release issued by the DiMA. The DiMA is run by the big media giants. They do not represent small webcasters because their fees to join are extremely high. However they used the small webcaster as an example to gain sympathy from the blogosphere.
SoundExchange collects royalties not only for the sound recording copyright holder but also for the ARTIST. The majority of musicians do not belong to the FOUR major record companies and therefore are both the sound recording copyright holder AND the artist and will therefore get ALL royalties collected by SoundExchange. For some reason the independent musician has been forgotten about even though independent music makes up 37% of the US market.
You can read more about this from the point of view of an independent musician at:
http://www.blogdarren.com/2007/06/16/performance-royalties-in-the-digital-era-a-non-dima-tainted-view-for-the-independent-musician/
@chris
I couldn’t care less. :p