And while you're bitching about your precious internet radio, why not let your senator know what they can do with their Defense Authorization Bill. I suggested Hillary use her copy for toilet paper. Senate Switchboard: 202-224-3121

i'll cry if i lose wbar and somafm.

good luck getting anybody behind this cause, or ANY cause for that matter...

unless, of course, the cause is to let jellynyc know how terribly they dropped the ball on the 77 drums show...

maybe everybody should stop crying about their spoiled, i-deserve-everything, life-is-so-hard bullshit and actually do something meaningful...something that actually affects somebody, other then themselves, in a positive way...something to change the course of this increasingly fucked up world...

save internet radio and citysol is a great start, but we really need to take the power back in all arenas...

doesn't it bother anybody that we are entirely, 110% under the thumb of a self-serving and corrupt government??

things are OK, but can always be better...it starts whenever you want it to

Hey BklyVgn, can you permanently ban the moron above me? thanks man.

Hey BV,

thanks for putting the word out. This is important to most of your readers I'll bet.

I called both my senators and congressperson. It takes all of 5 minutes, maybe less.

You speak with their aides... you say, I want my representative to support the Internet Equality Act. you don't get into a conversation, they take your zip code. It's really easy.

The SaveNetRadio site gives you the phone numbers you need and what you need to say, (the short version for us shy folk, and the longer version for us talkers), and you of course can say your own thing too.

For the pessimist above who said, "try getting anyone to care" - I never make these calls, and yet I did today. If enough people are calling, voices WILL be heard. I suspect mr./miss pessimist did not make the calls and yet, here he is still complaining that nobody gets behind any cause. Shame on that person.

If nothing happens, at least you tried. You lost five minutes, at most. There is NO reason not to make the calls.

you rock bv for getting the word out. thanks.
I don't want to lose my wbar either.

I have been making these calls for weeks. You better believe the reps and senators listen. 6/26, the Internet Radio Day of Silence, saw switchboards being jammed all over Capital Hill. In fact, the Commerce Committee just hours ago started officially pressuring both sides to settle this (see http://www.kurthanson.com/ )
The bill (HR 2060) in the House has 129 co-sponsors; see if you can find other bills with that level of official support before a vote.

Kvetch and moan all you want, but make the calls!

it's not just the little guys who will suffer here if nothing is done; NPR, Yahoo! Music, Rhapsody, Pandora, Live365, KEXP, KCRW etc. etc. etc. will either close down or take major hits to their budget, preventing them from continuing to grow and support so many artists the BV community loves.

i'm calling now. if i have to end up listening to my co-workers' smooth jazz station at work, i will stick a fork in my face.

Might want to educate a bit before passing general judgment.

The new rates might be steep but they're being put in place on behalf of both artists and their labels (independents and majors both).

Internet & internet radio is going to be the new business model. If artists & the general population start hastily signing away their rights now all to "protect the poor internet radio station" - they'll be regretting it later when the business is booming and they're entitled to nil.

I'm all for being fair is all I'm saying.

I called my senators and representatives for my part of Arizona.

Senators McCain and Kyle haven't taken a stance on this yet, but Representative Mitchell is a co-sponsor.

Had this issue had any clarity painted around
it. Sites like this one would be rallying the
other way.

This is about artists being paid and yes their labels in one of the most important new areas.

So what the bar is set a little higher for people
who want to trade on artists and musicians work
to make or grow their business.

This is akin to peeps being behind radio (clear channel) and MTV (video) Both industries who have made their money off of others music and traded
nicely on it. (neither radio nor the bulk of mtv and video outlets paid/pay lic. fees.)

So round three and this one is important. The net's the new black and the new medium, and this is where the hipster set tosses it's hat in the ring?. WTF.

It is so transparent that depth and perspective
has been lost on this one and it saddens me to
have ink this for i assumed (never a good move see above) that people with taste also dig as deep for knowledge.

everyone assumed that its the big bad music industry at it again. Trust me, they ain't that smart.

I really don't need pandora et al all that bad. It would be nice to see the AOL's and Yahoo's of the world pay artists and labels. It would also be nice if the kcrw's would have a better rate.

Things need to be fair. blindly getting behind things with out digging deeper is plain weak.

mediaeater = weak

it is not hard to see what a putz this "be fair" poster is.

All internet radio is asking for is to pay at a fair rate. Terrestrial radio pays nothing for royalties. Satellite radio pays 7.5% and is currently negotiating for 1%. Most small webcasters are being asked to pay betw. 50% and 300% of their GROSS revenues. We are an intelligent group here and can do our own research.

As for the artists: most artists we are interested in here at BrooklynVegan would get about $10/month in royalty checks. That's less than one person per month going to a show and buying the CD at the show. There are very few ways left for these artists to get played; commercial radio and the labels have shut them out. I challenge the dork above to find a single artist on our radar here who would rather have the piddly check than keep a major source of their exposure to the concert-going community. Good luck on that one...

To clarify my confusing math above: if you are a performer and you do one show PER MONTH, and 2 people show up, get a ticket and buy your CD, you are already getting more cash from that than the royalty check would provide.

...snip
webcasters are being asked to pay betw. 50% and 300% of their GROSS revenues. ./snip

Then they have not made a business and this bar
is set to high for them now. I do think that
public radio and bloggers are a whole nother story and should be treated as such

snip..As for the artists: most artists we are interested in here at BrooklynVegan would get about $10/month in royalty checks....snip

That is what i said about the bands i liked when they where lil now they are the music bed for att and chevy. todays hipster tomorrows top of the pops.

bands can not tour their whole life. some do, but should not. it was not that long ago that bands
that are in the mainstream now were on these pages.

Might have been to rash of generalization on who does there homework. And Commercial radio should be paying there share as well. It all adds up in the long tail of things.

Not to mention, anon 4:51 and mediaeater, that if the Internet radio was already a robust business model, that would be one thing. At the moment, it's essentially a free service. I don't think I'm going out on a limb here by saying that this community isn't terribly concerned by the rate hike as it may affect the webcast of a Z100.

should be tiered is all.
Yahoo should pay cyhsy when they play their song
and sell ads around it, no?

would love to see artists polled on this
i bet the results would surprise.

It's always about the details it seems and they
get lost easily.

When I read the below i realized we are pretty much all on the same page 8^)

snip..
"I'm going out on a limb here by saying that this community isn't terribly concerned by the rate hike as it may affect the webcast of a Z100."

Commercial radio has been exempt from royalties since the '20's. This is because the labels in those days rightly knew that they were getting free promotion for their artists which was more valuable to all than any royalties involved. Now the major labels are trying to squeeze the independent labels and the non-major-label artists out of the picture so what little revenue the industry has left goes to producers of Britney Spears and the like.

To give mediaeater the benefit of the doubt, we are all looking for a fair solution here. Internet radio is fine paying the same rate as satellite radio, 7.5% of revenues. This is a higher rate than anywhere else in the world. Those who would dig deeper will see that this is just a thinly-disguised land-grab by the major labels.

You could make the case that cyhsy should pay Yahoo, if you think about it; what if 100 more people came to their show on a given night because they discovered them through Yahoo? That's a power promotional vehicle that the band benefits from without paying anything.

Word, anon. 7:42, word.

FYI

update

SoundExchange will not enforce the new royalty rates. Webcasters will stay online, as new rates are hammered out.

Update: Another source -- close to the situation although not inside today's closed-door hearing -- confirmed the following: Pandora was there; "progress was made"; the minimum fees are indeed off the table; and SoundExchange and the webcasters that were part of the Copyright Royalty Board hearings are going to have another chat about the rates.

However, the source said the big question right now is whether webcasters not part of the CRB hearing might still have to pay the rates set by the board, minus the minimum fees.