Do you listen to the radio via the Internet? Enjoy it while it lasts, because it’s doomed:
I like Accuradio.com. They provide the best selections of genres I have found yet. They’re always thinking of new ways to mix the music and appease the eclectic in all of us. Today, I received a desperate email from them:
Dear AccuRadio listener,
We’re organizing a campaign today that may save AccuRadio, and we need your help.AccuRadio is facing a very serious issue that could silence us forever. As you may know, a recent government ruling has dramatically increased the royalties that Internet radio stations must pay to record labels and recording artists. In our case, it’s an almost 1,200% increase — jumping to about 150% of revenues in 2006 and beyond.
Since no business can survive if it has to pay 150% of revenues for a single expense, AccuRadio and most other webcasters will be bankrupted on July 15th when payment is due. (You can read more about this in a Seattle PI article here or Chicago Tribune article here.)
Fortunately, there is a solution on the horizon! A bipartisan bill has been introduced in Congress called the "Internet Radio Equality Act" that would overrule the new rates and keep Internet radio alive.
Our goal today is to flood Congress with phone calls from AccuRadio listeners. Please, click the button below (between 9AM and 5PM ET) and call your two Senators and your Congressman and ask them to please co-sponsor the "Internet Radio Equality Act." (After you type in your zip code, you’ll be given the phone numbers to call and a sample script to use.)
Please, if you can, call today and help us save AccuRadio. Thanks for your help!
Sincerely,
Laura Holt
Editor
We’ve all heard about Digital Rights Management, a euphemism for Feed the Fat Cats, wherein entertainment media conglomerates are shaking in their Puss-N-Boots over the freewheeling technologies of the twenty-first century. To protect their market shares, companies like Sony BMG and Time Warner are creatively trying to limit the rights of paying customers to play music and video on any device they prefer. You can’t download from iTunes, burn it to CD to play in your car, nor can you buy Ghostbusters and copy it to your laptop to watch it after hours on a business trip. In order to protect the rights of the "owners" of the media, consumer rights are infringed.
If I remember my civics, free market trade is a cornerstone of Republican values. Regulating commerce in favor of the big guys is the antithesis of a free market. Not only is the White House loading the dice in favor of political contributors, it is betraying a long-held value of its constituents.This is just one of many ways the Bush administration has favored big business over all other considerations: The Best White House Money Can Buy.
Show your support of free markets and call your congressperson on behalf of consumer’s right to chose. And listen to the radio on the Internet, buy from their links and show the Fat Cats that online radio can be their friend.