The RIAA has convinced the Copyright Royalty Board to release a ridiculous fee structure that will kill online radio. Pandora (to name my favorite) and others like it will have to shut down.
The time to write your Federal Legislators is NOW!
The Death of Internet Radio?
April 16, 2007
The RIAA has really gone too far with this. It boggles my mind when I think about how anti-consumer they are. Another site to visit is http://www.savethestreams.org. And, to keep current on the state of affairs concerning this and internet radio, visit http://www.kurthanson.com. And then when your done, find some great tunes at http://radio.cleverblue.com. 😀
Senator Hatch (R, UT) and Representative Bishop (R, UT) have both responded to letters of inquiry that I sent them regarding the CRB’s new rates.
Neither offered any solutions to solve the problem (as is typical with constituent correspondence in my experience), but Rep. Bishop did go on record as saying the current system is “elitist” and he is “concerned with the current system.”
Unfortunately, other than stating that the appeal of the CRB’s “decision is to the United States Court of Appeal for the District of Columbia” Rep. Bishop had no suggestions or commitments for addressing the problem.
Sen. Hatch did, however indicated that “judges of the CRB have announced that they have agreed to hear certain arguments from groups seeking a rehearing on proposed royalty rate increases” and that he could “keep this important issue in mind as [he] discuss[es] this issue with [his] colleagues.”
Read their letters (.pdf) here: [ Hatch | Bishop ]