Make Your Voice Heard! New and Higher Royalty Rates for Music May Shut Many Internet Radio Stations Down

It's a simple fact that nothing is truly free. When I first worked at WKZE back in 1995, I had no clue what the future held for listening to radio online. RealAudio was just getting it's sea legs, and I didn't own a computer. It was just my collection of 1500 CDs, mostly from my years in college radio, keeping me company. As my tenure at KZE came to a end, a paradigm shift was taking place, as the rise of MP3s, P2P and online streams was building to a fever pitch. Twelve years and one set of copyright royalty rates later, everything that has been built up from humble beginnings is in danger of disappearing for good.

Since this past week's decision by the Copyright Royalty Board, my current home, Robin Hood Radio, is one of thousands of independent stations in danger of shutting down due to the financial terms mandated by the new royalty rate structure. Massively popular stations like Radio Paradise, MVYradio, SomaFM, RadioIO and many public, community and independent radio stations streaming their content are in danger of giving up, unless a comprimise is made somewhere, which may not happen unless we make it known that this is not the way for the major label recording industry to recoup their less than stellar expenses from inferior crap.

Follow the links from this page at KCRW and please get informed. I may just be entertaining myself in a few months.

Thanks in advance.