Tomorrow: Webcasters' Day Of Silence
Reprinted from June 21 PM Edition of National Journal's Technology Daily
Web Radio Plans 'Day Of Silence' To Protest Rates
By Andrew Noyes
Webcasters around the country are planning to silence their audio streams Tuesday to draw attention to a recently proposed hike in music royalties that they believe could harm their industry if implemented.
Santa Monica, Calif.-based KCRW was among the first to announce its involvement in the "day of silence." The station will pre-empt its online channels to loop a one-hour special about dangers posed by the Copyright Royalty Board's March ruling, General Manager Ruth Seymour said.
The public radio station's program, called "D-Day for Webcasters," will give listeners information about the industry's fight against the rate hike, which takes effect July 15. They also will trumpet a bill introduced by Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., that would reverse the board's decision.
The protest "will give Americans a small taste of what could happen if we don't pass legislation or have the parties negotiate a solution," Inslee said. "It'll be a bitter pill that the 70 million Internet radio listeners won't want to swallow."
A spokesman for digital royalty rights collector SoundExchange, which supports the fee hike, countered that "jilting consumers by shutting down their businesses for a day does nothing to change the fact that artists and labels should be fairly paid by webcasters who build their businesses on the hard labor of artists."
KCRW's show will feature officials from popular webcasters AccuRadio, Live365, Pandora, Yahoo and the National Public Radio affiliate WAMU. They will join Seymour to describe effects that the new rates could have on their ability to reach Web audiences.
Some stations will cease all music programming and will run brief public-service announcements directing listeners to the Web site for the grassroots group SaveNetRadio. Pandora will be silent with the exception of a message from founder Tim Westergren.
Operators of some of the small commercial webcasters are planning various actions for the day. They staged a similar protest in 2002 to fight a plan to charge 14 cents per 100 listeners for each song played on Internet radio.
Radio Paradise will play low-level ambient sound between PSAs but no music, founder Bill Goldsmith said. If the board's ruling stands, consumers will be left only with foreign-based stations, pirate operations and "the bland, lowest-common-denominator offerings of their local FM stations," he said.
Radioio's Michael Roe, who helped organize the event, said he hopes the silence "will once again galvanize the Internet radio audience and the webcasting community in a powerful way."
"I have absolutely no doubt that the switchboards on the Hill will be very busy," he said.
SaveNetRadio spokesman Jake Ward said he is encouraged by the number of participating webcasters. "The diversity of size, style and geography among these webcasters is a clear reflection of the importance of the issue and reality of this threat," he said.
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