Today, June 26, 2007 Radio Dismuke joins thousands of Internet radio stations in observing a Day of Silence to call attention to the impending shutdown of the vast majority of Internet streams if the new sound recording royalty rates are allowed to go into effect on July 15. For today only, listeners who tune in will be directed to a non-music informational stream explaining the crisis facing Internet radio and featuring testimonials from a variety of broadcasters. Normal Radio Dismuke programing will resume on Wednesday.
The Internet Radio Equality Act has been introduced in both the US House and Senate which would establish Internet radio royalties at a rate that is equal to the more reasonable percentage of revenue model that satellite broadcasters pay for airing the exact same music. By contrast, the rates which are scheduled to go into effect on July 15, are based on a per-song per-listener basis and would amount to well over 100 percent of most existing webcasters' annual revenues - and they would be applied RETROACTIVELY back to January 2006. The Act would also do away with a $500 per channel minimum so-called "administration fee" that is part of the new rate structure. Radio Dismuke's service providers, Live 365 and LoudCity host THOUSANDS of Internet radio stations. This administration fee alone is likely to send them into bankruptcy. Indeed, based on the number of unique channels they offer, four of the top Internet radio networks, Live 365, Rhapsody, Yahoo and Pandora alone would owe SoundExchange, the RIAA's royalty collection arm, approximately $1 BILLION per year for these administration fees alone IN ADDITION to the very expensive royalties. To illustrate how absurd this is, that $1 billion in "admin fees" from those four webcasters alone would vastly exceed the $20 million in total royalties that SoundExchange collected last year from all Internet radio stations combined.
The new rates are nothing more than a thinly disguised attempt on the part of the RIAA to kill off a rapidly emerging medium which, by bringing the public's attention to an unprecedented range of independent artists and niche genres, threatens the market share the RIAA labels have held for decades. According to Live 365's Director of Engineering, last month the several thousand stations across the Live 365 network featured recordings by over 250,000 artists. That's probably around 249,000 more artists than you would likely be able to hear on your local FM radio stations - artists who would have almost no opportunity for broadcast air time to expose their works to new audiences were it not for Internet radio. That's 249,000 artists whose existence and music the RIAA would prefer that you not know about.
The major RIAA labels make their money by selling mass market recordings aimed at the widest and lowest common denominator - i.e., the sort of music you will hear on FM radio and find in the limited assortment of CDs available at your local discount retailer. The degree to which audiences discover and become enthusiastic about the wide variety of wonderful artists and music that fall outside of the RIAA labels' lowest common denominator offerings is the degree to which their market falls apart on them. Every time I receive an enthusiastic email from a high school student telling me how, as a result of discovering Radio Dismuke, 1920s and 1930s popular music is now his or her favorite type of music, that is one less person who is likely to act like a good little sheep and buy the latest hit recording that has been played over and over again on half the FM stations in town. And the same is true for the people who, through Internet radio, discover stations which play Ukrainian folk music, or ragtime, or polka, or blues, or jazz or even features some group of young rock musicians who perform at local clubs and are not famous enough to get FM airplay.
Internet radio is at the forefront of a wonderful revolution in both how enthusiasts listen to music and how aspiring artists promote themselves. It is bringing about a world where audiences will have endless options to access an unprecedented variety of quality music and where artists - especially those who previously had little hope of getting past the focus groups and "gatekeepers" at the RIAA labels and FM radio stations - will have new opportunities to make themselves known to new fans and to promote their recordings and live performances. The RIAA does not have any special advantage in such a world and will face new competition from a wide variety of sources, including artists who in an earlier day would have signed with an RIAA label but now realize it is increasingly advantageous to remain independent and thereby retain ownership and control of their music and keep all of the financial rewards for themselves. Therefore, the RIAA has used its political pull in an attempt to kill off the new and increasingly popular industry which is making such a world possible: Internet radio.
If you value the music that I and countless other Internet broadcasters present, please do not allow that to happen. Please telephone your Congressperson and both of your Senators TODAY and ask them to support the Internet Radio Equality Act. In the House, the specific bill is H.R. 2060. In the Senate the bill is S.1353.
For those who have responded to my previous requests to contact your representatives, I and all other Internet broadcasters thank you. Your letters, phone calls and emails were what has made it possible for bills to exist today in both houses of Congress. But there is still a lot of distance that needs to be covered before the future of Internet radio is secure. Now that there are very specific bills on the table, please consider contacting your representatives AGAIN and encourage them to support the Internet Radio Equality Act.
Those who have followed my postings here on this blog now know that I am not a fan of statutory royalties in any form. As I pointed out in a previous posting, under such a compulsory and crude "one size fits all" approach, it is impossible to be fair with or adequately protect the rights of all players. There are certain aspects of the Internet Radio Equality Act that I do not like and take exception to. But these shortcomings pale in comparison to the profoundly unjust and, in my judgement, downright evil attempt to kill off an absolutely wonderful new medium with endless potential and possibilities for the purpose of artificially propping up a de-facto cartel of dying and technologically obsolete companies which through their legacy revenue streams are, unfortunately, still able to purchase and wield a substantial amount of political pull. Short of a radical reexamination and reform of certain aspects of our copyright laws, the Internet Radio Equality Act is our best hope of stopping this injustice before it does a great deal of damage to both webcasters, artists and enthusiasts of the many musical genres that, prior to the Internet, were simply shut out from radio airplay.
Hearings on the Internet Radio Equality Act begin soon so it is important to take action NOW. By contacting your representatives, you will be doing your part to ensure that the Day of Silence is only a DAY of silence and not a permanent reality after July 15.
News about Radio Dismuke along with commentary and analysis on Internet radio, technology and the rebirth of the music and popular culture of the early 1900s decades.
About dismuke
- Dismuke
- I own and operate Radio Dismuke, a 24 hour Internet radio station devoted to popular music and jazz from the 1925 - 1935 decade. While I was born many decades after the wonderful music I present passed from the scene and was forgotten, I have been passionate about it ever since I discovered it as a child. I seek to present the music to new generations of listeners so that it may forever have the appreciative modern audience I strongly believe that is worthy of.
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