Fight The Good Fight: Save Internet Radio!

On Tuesday, June 27th 2007, WXPN wlll join other Internet radio providers in a “Day of Silence” to protest higher royalty rates expected to go into effect on or after July 15.

Silence is what Internet radio may sound like after that date because of a royalty rate hike scheduled to go into effect. The new rates will also be retroactive for 17 months and payment will become due to the SoundExchange collection organization under the terms of a recent Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) decision. The new rates could cost WXPN more than $100,000 annually; several times the annual funds raised by business support on the Internet streams.

WXPN will silence our four streams – XPN, Y Rock On XPN, XPoNential Music and Folk Alley. No music will be heard but a message will be played directing listeners to sign an online petition to protest this increase. WXPN is seeking a minimum of 5,000 signatures. An on-air message will ask you, our listeners, to sign the petition. We are also planning two minutes of silence on-air at 4pm Tuesday.

We owe it to you, our audience, to raise awareness that your listening choices will be reduced if these fees go through, as we will be forced to at least reduce the number of listeners who can access our online streams at any given time. This reduction in the number of listeners will result in reduced exposure for the artists who need it most…

Stick it to The Man by signing the online petition

E.

This entry was posted on June 26th 2007 at 3:08 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.