Did You Notice The Silence?

Internet radio fell silent today. Did you notice?

Thousands of Internet broadcasters turned themselves off today to protest the new bill in congress that would demand outrageous royalty fees from Internet radio stations. The way it’s currently worded, an Internet radio station would have to pay a small fee per “performance” of a song. That sounds fair until you read the definition of “performance.”

Basically, a radio station that had 500 listeners would have to pay 500 royalties per song. To give you a feel as to how much money this is, if you went retroactive to the time most stations started they’d owe a collective fee bigger than the GDP of the United States.

Unfortunately, this issue isn’t getting enough attention. I don’t think anybody I’ve met, chatted with, or encountered today has said anything about the Internet radio silence. Sure a few tech bloggers noticed, but that’s it. And that’s not enough to influence congress or the RIAA.

2 comments June 27th, 2007