Webcasters To Air Sound Of Silence
In response to a impending royalty rate increase that, if implemented, could lead to the virtual shutdown of Internet radio in the US, thousands of webcasters plan to go silent next Tuesday, June 26, to draw attention to their industry's plight.
This "Day of Silence" is an encore of a media event that small webcasters organized on May 1, 2002 in response to a similarly royalty rate ruling from a Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel five years ago. That event garnered national attention and was subsequently followed by a rate cut by the Librarian of Congress and the passage of the Small Webcaster Settlement Act for the period 1998-2005.
Webcasters will be alerting their listeners that "silence" is what Internet radio may sound like on or shortly after July 15th, the day on which 17 months' worth of retroactive royalty increase payments are due to the SoundExchange collection organization under the terms of a recent Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) decision.
It will probably do nothing for their cause, but it's worth a try.
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