Save Net Radio

http://www.savenetradio.org/

Here's the gist of it: the feds voted to increase the royalties Internet radio stations pay to record labels by 300 to 1200 percent in the next few years. Worse yet, the royalties would be retroactive to the start of 2006. The future increase is bad enough, but the retroactive ones alone would be enough to bankrupt nearly all Internet radio stations (including Pandora, last.fm...). There has been a massive show of solidarity among Internet radio stations and listeners alike--thousands of letters have been written to congressmen. In July just about every Internet radio station went silent for a day to raise more awareness about the issue. The campaign has been so successful that the Copyright & Royalty Board has already pushed back the due date to pay royalties once, to continue negotiations. In the mean time, a bill has been introduced in the House that would overturn the ruling entirely. If it continues the royalties would be way above those of terrestrial radio and satellite radio--saving Internet radio means saving independent media.