Webcasters carry on with 'Day of Silence'

Computerworld - Large and small U.S. webcasters turned off the music today to protest the planned royalty rate increase by the Copyright Royalty Rate Board. A spokesman for the SaveNetRadio Coalition said more than 14,000 webcasters participated.

Some webcasters shut off access to their music streams, while others replaced their music streams with long periods of silence or other white noise, interrupted only by public service announcements about the issue.

"Webcasters of every size and from every corner of the country will stand united ... to protest a very real and fast-approaching threat to their livelihood," said Jake Ward, coalition spokesman, in a statement "With nearly a half-million e-mails and phone calls from webcasters, listeners and the artists they support sent to Congress in just the last two months, this national grass-roots campaign has certainly captured the attention of lawmakers, but there is more to be done and time is running out."

During what is being called a "National Day of Silence" webcasters are asking their listeners to contact their congressional representatives and urge them to support the Internet Radio Equality Act, according to the statement.

Internet-only webcasters and broadcasters that stream music online will explain to their listeners that "silence" is what Internet radio may be reduced to after July 15, the day the new royalty rates go into effect.

One participant, Yahoo Music, said in a statement on its Web site: "Apologies to anyone who was hoping to listen to free LaunchCast. We're shutting down the Internet's No. 1 radio service for the day to draw attention to the outrageous rates recently set by the Copyright Royalty Board in Washington, D.C."

"I'm hearing that listeners are incensed that they didn't know about the royalty rate increase, and they're all calling me," Ward said in an interview.

Ward said his organization hasn't heard anything from SoundExchange Inc., the group that collects royalties from Internet radio broadcasters. "I think they're probably listening to terrestrial radio today," Ward said.

SoundExchange spokesman Richard Ades said the protest is about big webcasters complaining about the new rates because SoundExchange has offered small Internet radio stations more time before they would have to pay the higher royalty rates. However, webcasters declined the offer.

"Going silent is just hurting their very own customers, and all it demonstrates is the value of music. If people don't pay for music, then there isn't going to be any music to build these webcasting businesses on," Ades said.

Earlier this year, the federal royalty rate board set rates that would at least triple the amount of royalties Internet radio broadcasters must pay to copyright holders to play a song.