This one totally passed me right by, but today is a "Day of Silence" to save internet radio. Why should we care about the corporate takeover of web radio? Because people that can't get radio stations on the airwaves anymore and folks (community run women and people of color stations) that have been put out of business by companies like Clear Channel, have gone to internet radio. But now internet radio is at risk as well.
Barring Congressional intervention or the success of one of the many appeals of the Copyright Royalty Board's decision, Internet radio will die on July 15th, when payments under the new scheme are due, though SoundExchange recently back-pedaled a bit by exempting small webcasters until 2010. (It's worth noting that SoundExchange collects royalties for all artists and labels, so webcasters can't even stay online by refusing to webcast music from RIAA bands.)However, no music doesn't mean that all webcasters will go offline completely. For instance, KCRW plans to air a loop of an hour-long discussion of the copyright royalty situation called "D-Day for Webcaster (there was talk of me appearing near the beginning of the show to introduce the situation, but the timing didn't work out -- bummer).
Also according to the Media Action Center at YMC:
The new rates mean fewer outlets to get the music and diversity we don't hear on broadcast radio. Putting webcasters out of business will only hurt artists more. They depend on Internet radio to get their music out to fans and build new audiences. When the webcasters go off the air, so do artists.This is particularly alarming for youth, women and communities of color that have been pushed out of any meaningful participation in broadcast radio. A recent study by Free Press found that despite compromising 51% of the U.S. population, women only control 6% of commercial radio stations. Racial or ethnic minorities make up 33% of the population but own just 7% of radio stations. For our communities, saving Internet radio is a matter of maintaining power in a media system wherein we have so little already. It means making sure we have choices and control over who and what we hear. It means radio belongs to everyone, not just who can afford it.
You can take action here.
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Save Internet Radio!.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.feministing.com/cgi-bin/movabletype/mt-tb.fcgi/5518
Weekly Feministing Newsletter
Feministing RSS Feed
Songs are the intellectual property of the owner of record. They have a right to charge whatever they want for them - just like a book publisher or video game publisher determines the price of their products. If you can no build a business model that creates enough profit to access this intellectual property, it is no different than some mom and pop video game store no longer being able to buy product from Ingram Micro because their cash flow is runnng short. Intellectual property is a product like any other.
Would have loved to, but the form assumes you are going to telephone the senators and representatives. There is no email based means of sending a message, which is too bad. I'll see if I can line up some hearing friends to call in.
Yeah, I'm deaf but I support keeping the internet radio going. Even if most of them don't provide transcripts. *shrug*
Would have loved to, but the form assumes you are going to telephone the senators and representatives. There is no email based means of sending a message, which is too bad. I'll see if I can line up some hearing friends to call in.
Yeah, I'm deaf but I support keeping the internet radio going. Even if most of them don't provide transcripts. *shrug*
Life without my Indie Pop Rocks will suck. It's what gets me through the work day often.
I couldn't call in so I just used their script and looked up my congresspeople's e-mail addresses Via google.
Composers and performers deserve to be paid fairly for their work. It is nearly impossible for most musicians of any genre to make a living solely off recordings and performances, especially in America. Big corporations aren’t getting these royalties; the money goes to musicians. If you can’t afford to pay for it, you don’t have the right to use it – just like pirated music people download. I would guess most of these homemade/basement radio stations aren’t paying their royalties in the first place. I’m all for non-corporation internet radio, so maybe listeners should have to pay for subscriptions if donations don’t cut it. By disagreeing with the new rates people are implying musicians rights should be exploited.
"Songs are the intellectual property of the owner of record..."
Meanwhile, there's more to radio than songs, and I'm pretty sure that can apply to internet radio as well as longwave and shortwave broadcasts. How would this affect non-corporate internet talk radio and internet radio sites that currently play some music and some non-music?
"Songs are the intellectual property of the owner of record..."
Meanwhile, there's more to radio than songs, and I'm pretty sure that can apply to internet radio as well as longwave and shortwave broadcasts. How would this affect non-corporate internet talk radio and internet radio sites that currently play some music and some non-music?
What also needs to be considered is this bill affects public radio stations. Public radio ALREADY pays a fee for the right to play songs - now the process is going to become impossibly complicated (check out the explanation that my local NPR affiliate posted) as well as prohibitively expensive.
While the only media for the people; internet radio is shrinking, Rupert Murdoch wants the aquire the Wall Street Journal. The only source for media diversity is being threated to shut down, Newscorp is on the verge of buying another paper to spin their web of right-wing misinformation from. It's awful how this nation bows down to the media moguls. We have to save the only resource to the citzenry left!
Thank you for calling attention to this!!