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.

TorrentFreak offers a good explanation of why declining album sales and filesharing are benefiting the majority of musical artists.

“U.S. Consumers are Likely Legally Purchasing Music From AllofMP3.com”

AllofMP3 wants US consumers to come back, although it is not clear how US consumers are supposed to pay for the music they download because earlier this year the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry convinced Mastercard and Visa to stop processing transactions from AllofMP3. Maybe they take IOUs?

The U.S. and Russia have agreed to combat piracy by closing down several websites that infringe copyrights, according to the document, which cites Allofmp3.com as a prime example of such a website.

It appears that Russia has agreed to close AllofMP3 according to US demands, to improve their chance of joining the WTO. I hope its not true. It was a good service to millions of US consumers who couldn’t afford $1 a song to get music to fill their ipod, which would have been thousands of dollars if they had bought it all through iTunes.

APCmag writes about how to protect yourself when using P2P software. It recommends using Peerguardian or Protowall if you running Windows and MoBlock if you are using Linux.

All radio should be broadcast via this method, if only the FCC would get off their ass and make all radio like this instead of letting a company get the monopoly on everything. Only stations who buy new equipment from the company iBiquity will be able to broadcast HD Radio streams. Also only listeners who upgrade their car or home stereo will be able to listen. So what do you get?

• “CD-quality” sound
• AM stations with better sound quality
• Traffic, stock and song info

It is like listening to the radio on the internet in your car. Imagine you are wardriving and have an internet connection and are able to dial-in to your favorite online radio station to listen. Except that none of the good online radio stations (radio paradise) are going to be using HD Radio. Which means there is still going to be a plethora of advertising like normal radio.

If they got rid of the advertising than HD Radio might be more attractive. XM or Sirius is worth it if you don’t like to listen to local stations with ads every 15 minutes.

Howstuffworks has an article on how HD radio works or you can read more about it on the HD Radio website, on and of course the wiki article.

Red Hot Chili Peppers, QOTSA, T.I. Rock For Zune

Yesterday, Microsoft agreed to share revenue from Zune sales with record labels and artists. Forcing the issue was Universal Music Group, which at deadline is the only label named in the program. UMG refused to license its music to the Zune unless it could receive a percentage of each device sold, in addition to standard music licensing fees for downloads and subscriptions. “These devices are just repositories for stolen music, and they all know it,” UMG chairman/CEO Doug Morris says. “So it’s time to get paid for it.”

In typical RIAA fashion they accuse customers of stealing and force anyone they can to pay them money. This news of Microsoft paying off Universal because their device has the potential to store music that the customer either didn’t pay for or didn’t pay the extortionists “approved” price, is just a long line of news about how the RIAA screws over the American consumer.

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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