The future of Internet radio is in immediate danger. Royalty rates for webcasters have been drastically increased by a recent ruling and are due to go into effect on July 15 (retroactive to Jan 1, 2006!). Today was a day of radio silence to encourage people to take action.

So that is what I did. I am calling everyone I know to get them to contact their congressional representatives. I will urge them to call everyone they know. Hopefully we can start a chain reaction.

Here is what you can do.

Send an email:

http://www.capwiz.com/thenation/issues/alert/?alertid=9796036

Call Congress:

You will need to know your complete zip code which you can lookup using the USPS site.

Lookup Representative:
http://www.house.gov/

Lookup Senator:
http://www.senate.gov/

Text to follow when you call:

Talking Points:
1) I am a constituent and I’m calling to ask you to save Internet radio by co-sponsoring the Internet Radio Equality Act.
2) The Copyright Royalty Board’s decision to increase royalty rates for webcasters is going to turn off my Internet radio and I do NOT want that to happen. Please co-sponsor the Internet Radio Equality Act.
3) I believe that artists should be fairly compensated for the music they make, but putting my webcasters out of business will only hurt artists more. They depend on Internet radio to get their music out to fans and build new audiences. When the webcasters go off the air, so do artists. Please co-sponsor the Internet Radio Equality Act.
4) Internet radio is one of the only bright spots for independent music and diversity. We NEED Internet radio. Don’t turn it off. Co-sponsor the Internet Radio Equality Act.
5) (If you are an artist) Internet radio enables artists like myself to reach fans throughout the country and enjoy exposure and airplay that we may otherwise have not received. I’m asking you to co-sponsor the Internet Radio Equality Act.

Don’t forget to sign the other petitions to make a difference.

Wired News: MPAA Kills Anti-Pretexting Bill

Legislature records confirm that the MPAA’s paid lobbyists worked on the measure. An aide to Bowen, who was forced out of the legislature by term limits and was elected Secretary of State, said the MPAA made its displeasure with the bill clear to lawmakers.”The MPAA told some members the bill would interfere with piracy investigations,” the aide said. The association “doesn’t want to hamstring investigators.”

The movie industry wants to be able to pretend to be you if they suspect you of terror… err downloading so they blocked a bill in California that would have made pretexting illegal. However the California Attorney General has already arrested the people who used pretexting in the HP Spying Scandal.

I don’t think they should make pretexting illegal, but I do think it should be a law that any company that offers pretexting must have security measures in place to prevent pretexting. I use Sprint for my cellphone and inorder to access any information online or over the phone I must enter my security code. Making it a law to password protect the pretext information is the only thing that makes sense to me.

The producers of An Inconvenient Truth offered American classrooms up to 50,000 copies of their movie for free but they were rejected over fears that it would piss off Exxon-Mobil, one of the National Science Teachers Association biggest supporters. So much for trying to educate the next generation.

I just wanted to warn you ahead of time that given the chance, I WILL Wii on your PS3!

Hollywood now wants their old business model frozen into a law to prevent any technology newer than their “historical” distribution method from being created. This would have prevented iPods and Tivos from ever being considered. Yet another corp. shill acting like a senator

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