From: owner-jangle-poets-digest@smoe.org (jangle-poets-digest) To: jangle-poets-digest@smoe.org Subject: jangle-poets-digest V9 #39 Reply-To: jangle-poets@smoe.org Sender: owner-jangle-poets-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-jangle-poets-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk jangle-poets-digest Wednesday, April 18 2007 Volume 09 : Number 039 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [JP] save internet radio! ["rhiannon giles" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2007 16:27:28 -0400 From: "rhiannon giles" Subject: [JP] save internet radio! Sorry about the mass email- But I know you all love music, and many of you may listen to internet radio. Recently, the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) - a division of the Library of Congress which administers statuatory copyright licenses, decided to enact a new royalty system affecting only internet radio and subscription radio services. It will effectively bankrupt most internet radio stations the day it is enacted. Internet radio is a great way for musicians to be heard... and increasing the royalties will only help the top 40 pop stars, as the lesser known musicians will never be heard by many potential listeners. Please go to the following website to send letters to your congressmen, senators, etc... you can either send the letter that is already written for you, or you can send your own. And, obviously, *forward this to everybody you can think of.* http://capwiz.com/saveinternetradio/issues/alert/?alertid=9631541 - ---*More information about this new royalty system*--- One internet radio station's general manager puts it like this: "In the past, we paid royalties based on a percentage of our revenues, in our case 10% of our revenue. But the new royalties don't allow that percentage of revenue factor, and instead charge us for each song we play times the number of people listening. This works out to about $8 per average concurrent listener per month. In 2006, we averaged over 6000 average concurrent listeners per month, and the royalties we will have to pay for 2006 is about $628,000, over 4 times the amount of money we brought in. And these rates go up drastically each year, until 2010, where they are 2.5times their initial rate: by then we will have to pay over $1 million dollars a year in royalties if we want to stay on the air. So you can see that this puts us in an impossible position. And to make it even worse, the rates are retroactive to 2006." Tim, the founder of Pandora, sent out an email to all pandora listeners today (if you haven't checked out pandora, you should, while you still can... www.pandora.com ): "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) " Check out the Kennedys' Official Home Page: http://www.KennedysMusic.com/ Fab photos, the Official tour diary, dashboard Buddha haiku, groovy merchandise...what more could you ask for? ------------------------------ End of jangle-poets-digest V9 #39 *********************************