If you haven’t read last week’s cover story on Web radio, check it out.
The House Committee on Small Business has organized a June 28 hearing on the Copyright Royalty Board’s rate hike, with hopes that a solution can be found before the July 16 “D-Day” that would effectively kill off web radio.
In a showing of solidarity against the crippling hikes, broadcasters all over the web are participating in a Day of Silence tomorrow, June 26. Major players Pandora and Yahoo! Launchcast are in, as well as local station Radio Free Charleston.
“We hope that our silence on Tuesday, and that of other web radio stations will alert streamers that silence is all you will have on the internet after July 15th if the CRB order stands,” says RadioFree founder Bunky Odom. RadioFree will air the “sound of the Atlantic Ocean” from 12:00 am to 11:59 pm Tuesday, resuming its Americana stream on Wednesday.
Links are available at Radio Free Charleston to sign a petition to Congress and send letters directly to Senators Graham and DeMint urging them to support the Internet Radio Equality Act. The proposed legislation bears H.R. 2060 in the House and S. 1353 in the Senate.
During the composition of this post, RadioFree played Radney Foster, the String Cheese Incident, Jimmy Reed, Little Feat, and the Black Keys. I sign off as Duane Allman and Dickey Betts play “the most perfect guitar song every written”: “Little Martha.”
God bless ‘em.
