Let's have a moment of silence... in protest of the Copyright Royalty Board's price hike (coming July 15th) on internet radio broadcasters. (See article, BBC news) Ok, actually it's a day of silence, but it's the principle of the thing. The SaveNetRadio Coalition is spearheading the whole she-bang.
Many internet radio sites, like Pandora, Yahoo! LaunchCast, and Live365, are shutting down all day today for this day of silence. Interestingly enough I could access and listen to my Yahoo! LaunchCast "station". But, out of sheer patriotism, I did not listen at all. :P
Pandora had a neat letter to the listeners explaining why they are down today.
I guess Last.FM is sitting out on this protest, at least they aren't taking as "radical" of a stand. (See the PaidContent article)
Well, I hope this all works out and the CRB backs down on fees... if they don't, it will be a sad day. I'll have these "save internet radio" banners on my blog for a while... I hope they help.
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