On Tuesday, June 26, thousands of U.S.-based webcasters plan to turn off the music and go silent in a unified effort to draw attention to an impending royalty rate increase that, if implemented, would lead to the virtual shutdown of this country’s Internet radio industry. Internet-only webcasters and broadcasters that simulcast online will alert their listeners that “silence” is what Internet radio may be reduced to after July 15th, the day on which 17 months’ worth of retroactive royalty payments — at new, exceedingly high rates — are due to the SoundExchange collection organization, following a recent Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) decision.
It really is a terrifying prospect- the rate hikes implemented by the Copyright Royalty Board mean that virtually EVERY independent and most large-scale web broadcasters will be finished in an instant. A few may survive only after signing licensing deals with major record labels, which would render them even more impotent than the terrestrial stations that nobody has listened to since the ClearChannel era began.
Thanks for bringing another bit of publicity to the issue.