Internet radio stations will broadcast no music tomorrow (June 26) in observance of the rescheduled "Day of Silence" organized by RAIN's Kurt Hanson in protest of the new royalty rates that would cripple those Internet radio stations that it does not destroy by charging royalty fees that would be greater or equal to revenue for most webcasters.
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 offlinecompletely. For instance, KCRWplans to air a loop of an hour-long discussion ofthe copyright royalty situation called "D-Day for Webcasters"
(there was talk of me appearing near the beginning of the show tointroduce the situation, but the timing didn't work out -- bummer).
The show will consist of KCRW General Manager Ruth Seymor discussingthe impending death of webcasting with a panel of webcasters who wouldbe driven offline by the new rates:
- Mike Riksen: Vice President for Government Relations, National Public Radio
- Kurt Hanson: Publisher of RAIN, the Radio and Internet Newsletter
- Tim Westergren: Founder of Pandora.com
- Caryn Mathes: General Manager of WAMU, American University Radio
- Ian Rogers: CEO of Yahoo! Music
- Ted Leibowitz: Music Director of BAGeL Radio
- Johnny Floater: General Manager of Media, Live365.com
(image from lichtensteiger)*
