ACTION ALERT: Help Keep Internet Radio Alive!

The giant corporate music labels have decided that going after college kids downloading music from peer-to-peer networks and Digital Rights Management (DRM) aren't enough to keep the average music listener from cutting into their huge profits. Now they've strong-armed the Copyright Review Board into hiking fees for each song streamed by webcasters:

The new fee structure would change the basis of the payments to a flat fee for each song streamed on a per-user basis. Thus, in 2007, every song sent to every listener would net SoundExchange $0.0011, regardless of whether the broadcaster made any money by doing so. But that's probably not the worst of it. The fees are scheduled to more than double over the next five years, and apply retroactively to the start of 2006. Under this plan, it's hard to imagine that Internet broadcasting will make much financial sense without a dramatic increase in commercial time.

Luckily, Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA), along with Rep. Don Manzullo (R-Ill.), has introduced H.R. 2060 - the Internet Radio Equality Act, which would overturn that recent ruling.

If your representative is not one of the co-sponsors, I urge you to sign FreePress' petition and let your Congressmember know how important it is to keep internet radio alive.