If you stream ANY music, please read.

I may be bringing up something that has already been addressed, but if it hasn't here we go.

A lot of the parcels that stream you favorite music will no longer be available coming July 15th. We are in immediate need to speaking to our senators about co-sponsoring the The Internet Radio Equality Act.

You may think that this doesn't affect you, but it does. ALL (legal) webcasters will have to pay higher royalties to stream your favorite music.

If we had everyone take 5 minutes from their day to make one phone call and urge them to co-sponser this act then we should be in the clear.

Here is a clip giving more details:

"The future of Internet radio is in immediate danger!

Royalty rates for webcasters have been drastically increased by a recent ruling and are due to go into effect on July 15 (retroactive to Jan 1, 2006!). If the increased rates remain unchanged, the majority of webcasters will go bankrupt and silent on this date. Internet radio needs your help!

The Internet Radio Equality Act has recently been introduced in both the House and Senate to save the Internet radio industry. Please call your senators and your representative to ask them to co-sponsor the Internet Radio Equality Act." -http://www.savenetradio.org/

If you do not have the phone number to contact your senator please continue reading. The following link directs you to a site that will ask for your Zip code (US Residence). Enter this in and you will be provided with the senator for your state. Call this number, and simply ask them to please co-sponsor the Internet Radio Equality Act. You voice and opinion matters!

With close to 8 million users, SecondLife definately has a voice. Since ALL of our stations are streamed to us, they are all in danger.

http://www.capwiz.com/saveinternetradio/alert_9738601.html

Thank you - I stopped procrastinating. I was shocked to see how few supporters are officially on board in the Senate and US House. That webpage made it very easy to identify who to contact in Washington; details on the bills pending, etc.

ok so if someone would just explain these new laws then maybe I could make an informed decision on what to do, all i keep hearing is 'its sooo bad you better do something now' only i cant seem to find any specifics.

Is this correct? all, i mean ALL (big or little) radio stations which means the one you made on live365.com and has two listeners, have to pay .14 of a penny per song broadcast? retroactive for ten years or whatever?

What if you play music that is REALLY indie, not RIAA music then can you play it as many times as you want? Is this really a blessing to punkrock? bands that aren't part of the recording industry to begin with.

I just get the idea that there are giant recording industry people fighting with smaller recording industry people here but the the band who isn't signed can still stream away for free and maybe this would be a good thing to get the greedy musicians out of the mix, dunno just thinking here.

If you care about this please give me a straight answer as i dont just jump on the bandwagon because its 'cool'.

Hi, is this applicable to all radio streaming or just that originating in the US. eg. will UK based radio stream stations be affected?

when I had a tiny live365.com station I didnt have to pay royalties, will this stay the same? will knocking out those medium sized stations we all take for granted anyway encourage smaller, under the radar, one sim sized, stations?

Will radio get better and more diverse when we are encouraged to create more original non-RIAA music and spoken word?

dont quote me cos i could well be wrong .. but i think its just an american thing caroline ...we could well see alot of internet radio stations moving their bases to europe, or good old blighty.. although i dont suppose it will be long before we follow suit!!

This was advertised in SL some months ago, I have a notice with a url link in my shop since it was exposed.. From what I found out, this only effects America, on the basis that if you go to the website, it doesn't give the option to select any other countries.. unless the webmaster has fallen foul of the propaganda that the world is flat and ends at the horizon of the pacific and atlantic... <sarcasim mode on>

Yet another example of why we need tech savy people in office. This pay the record companies .33/hour/listener is absolutly %100 garunteed to get gamed. Think about it.

How many internet radio stations can one computer connect to at once?

Yup, that's the game. The deception is the notion that someone is listening. and you've got how many zombies tuned in right now?

haza!

Yep, that would be a temporary reprieve I'm sure. the swarm of parasite lawyers would find you as well.
A little ironic sarcasm: before ageplay was banned in SL we probably would have been able to get ahold of a lot of our legislators right here in world.....

just a point though ....

WTF has private collective like the RIAA having business making law any how...

its like saying i like chocolate and i work for mars there for it is now ileagal to eat cadburies .. or reeces, Orginaisations like the RIAA and MPAA are pretty much obsolete in this day and age . At one point in time if you was an artist you HAD to distribute through those channels as there was nowhere else. With the internet they arnt needed any more and people are distributing between themselves...... just like the old days. Im sure the owners of Sony or Capitol etc have NEVER bootlegged a vinyl record, or taped off a friend. They are just so high now that your are LITERALLY stealling the money out of thier childrens multi million dollar trust funds.

I wont argue over piracy BUT small fry internet radio stations that are playing thier artists songs are essentially marketing the RIAA's acts for free, now the stations that are streaming to ex amount of listeners are going to be both giving exposure AND having to pay for the priviledge.

I personally feel that the distribution methods HAVE to change in order for musicians to survive and the likes of sony etc will have to change with them. As an internet DJ myself I havnt been paying so far ... and now I have stopped becasue I can no longer enjoy my music or introduce people to the music that I like without paying for the privilidge.

I REALLLLY do have issues wuith the likes of the RIAA dictating law and policy. It makes no sense that its LEGAL to own a digital paedo representation of a infant in the USA as long as its not got a backing track of the eagals etc. Makes the justice system ONLY work for those that "Game" it ... i.e mr senetor I gave you money so you fight for me..... that is corruption not democracy. I can just imagine it .....

Mr Senetor ..... these pirates are undermining the american way ...
its economic terrorism....., if we dont stop it now .... it will be anarcy, there will be fighting in the streets ..... the chinese and the russians .... and the (incert country of choice) will invade and take out good whole some apple pie flag waving citizens and indroduce them into the devilsh ways.

next you will see a video of Osma with an I Pod or a copy of bit torrent on his computer (in his cave hideout *lol*).

You have no voice .......... unless it carries financial weight, your political representitives will only fight untill they are told to shut up or face becoming extrodited in the political community

can any of you explain in simple terms what this law we are supposed to be opposed to actually does?

if I am someone like DJ.Artillo who has maybe 50 people listening on his stream on a friday night will I be screwed by this law?

can someone post some specifics here that apply to us in SL?

This law will be enforced about as much as they do with downloading mp3's illegally.

they are busting college students and little old ladies for downloading mp3s here in the states unfortunately...

UK Internet radio has a different problem.

http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1766532,00.html

It looks like a two pronged approach:

1) USA where they are bumping prices so high most internet radio stations won't be financially viable. There's a minimum of US$500 per station which DJ.Artillo would fall under I assume. The Soma FM stations estimate their fees will be 150% of their income, so even relatively large operations are in trouble under these rates.

2) Where a countries congress has stepped in and limited the prices they can charge, they limit the rights to that country only.

Whether this will lead to a rise in Creative Commons based stations is debatable. Artists would need to include Commercial rights and thus potentially lose any income potential from their work.

In the UK, there are also moves to increase copyright term on recordings to 70 years, thus potentially killing any chance of 60s based stations on stuff about to fall into public domain.

The cynic in me suggests this might be another attempt to force DRM on us. I wouldn't be surprised to see reduced rates for DRM based stations..

because money really is the only reason to create content, without the potential to sell something no one does anything, so music is over, nothing but MTV from now on *kills self*

It's not the only reason, but we all have to live in a world (or two) where money is a necessity. I'd love to be able to follow my creative urges full time and give everything I do free to the world, but I have to eat. Charging for my creative output is less of a compromise than having a day job, at least I still mostly get to follow my urges.. Based on how much Creative Commons stuff excludes commercial use I think a lot of artists feel the same way, they want to share but if money is involved they want some of it.

Though if I did have an album of tunes I'd be very tempted to put out 3 of the tracks as By Attribution only, be good advertising for the album I should think..

With existing public use licenses - ie, playing a CD on a boom box in your cafe type blanket licenses - the RIAA will insist that you prove that none of your material is RIAA licensed, and will monitor you for weeks to see if they can catch you out, in which case they will sue you. (And similarly for live performance licenses, but that's a different license; still, you'll never see any live performance venue that doesn't pay the license, there's simply no way to prevent a musician onstage from singing a few lines of a copyrighted song and bang, lawsuit. This leads to the impression that there's no restriction on covering other bands songs in live performances, which is untrue - it's just that all the venues pay a blanket license.) I believe that this bill operates similarly, in that it only covers material actually licensed to the RIAA; but they'll make you prove it, song by song and artist by artist.
Mind you, though, the British pub music law was without regard to who owned the material, at least the law that was in effect two years ago, required all pub owners to either have no music at all, or pay a fee to their recording industry group. I don't know if that's still true as I don't follow their laws as closely. I know a lot of people were upset and wanted it changed.

Perhaps this is off-topic, but playing totally independent music really IS an option.

There are literally THOUSANDS of artists out there that would be extremely happy to have you play their stuff merely for the exposure (and altho they probably wouldn't admit it, for the ego-stroking).

And, strangely enough, it's really quite painless to acquire said music.

All you need to do is visit post-yer-own sites like www.macjams.com or www.macidol.com (there are many more), listen to the music offered and when you find something you like, a simple note to the artist saying "would it be OK if I played your tune on my internet station?" is really all it takes. The vast majority of artists would be thrilled.

Actually, you don't even need the note in most cases as just about everything is posted under the Creative Commons licence but it's a nice gesture to ask

I can recommend www.macjams.com as a gold mine of excellent original and public domain tunage in any genre you can think of

Well I for one would be happy to hear unsigned bands and commentary by people who are genuinely interested in broadcasting as an art/hobby than as a career and if the new laws allow such things to be broadcast without penalty I would listen.

heres an idea......... who looks after the artists best interests, im a musician as a hobby and i enjoy my creative works. Its not my JOB .... its my creativity.

The reality is that you have LARGE artists making MILLIONS ... then you have small artists making nothing...

Then you have the middle ground... where the artist is an emplyee and get paid a salary. this WILL end up with the music INDUSTRY calling the shots and you will not have a choice but to secome to their rules. You will download pirated music, you can listen to it ... but you wont hear music in the streets any more... you wont have any access to new artists.

I will tell you a reall life story ..

The other day I was on my parcel and a song came on the stream.... i REALLLY liked the song .. it wasnt a popular tune and wasnt new... (2003 - Caia Remebrance) i went to the stream web site found the song name, the next day at work i went to amazon and bought the song.... now if the RIAA gets its way .... then i would have never been exposed to the song .. i would have never had purchased the song therefor removing the revenew from the artsist... now WHO ..yes WHO stole money from the artist .... it was the RIAA byt not allowing exposure ... not ME for buying and NOT the station for letting me have exposure.

its like ITV paying ford to advertise on its channels

I have never employed you!!! LOL.. j/k... couldn't resist

The problem now with gaining revenues, is that the ball is now rolling, with the likes of Microsoft pandering to HollyWood, every organisation feels a sense of invulnerability and regainned self importance. As this continues to gain momentum, no doubt we shall see a repetition of the late 70's whereby the likes of the BBC tried to squash the off shore priate radio stations. Ironic that they became legit and overtook the BBC in their ratings lol.

What is in danger of happening, is the deluge of 'plastic boy bands' being thrust under the noses (or ears as it happens) of the buying public. The industry has already proved they can actually do that. With enough money behind them, and captured audiences over the airwaves, using a form of brainwashing, we will push even the cr*piest band to number one. My vote goes to freedom of choice, one of the reasons I will not install Vista on my system, all the time XP is supported, even then I may try and hold out (searches for his old 3.5" floppies of DOS).

Using the same business model, there is no real reason small unknown bands couldn't form an organisation to broadcast, utilising advertising for sponsorship, much like a few websites did throughout the late 90's into the millenium. Getting revenue to start is going to be the hardest task.

Anyone notice the many layers of 'updates' from Microsoft of late, under the guise of 'Validation' code? Big Brother's net closes in on us all.

Dearly Darlings,

Thanks for reminding me abut this one. We've been watching some serious legislation that affects the sport of dogs and I quite forgot about this. I made my calls to the hill this morning.

Ever Yours,

Mrs. Showdog Tiger

Dear RIAA,
Blow me. Wanna sue me for DJing on SL...fine. I'm broke, but you're more than welcome to some of it.

No Love.
Tybalt.

I own ThereIsNoRadio, an internet radio station that is shutting down on at midnite EST this Saturday night if there is no congressional action before then. I have explored every option possible to keep the station on the air.

The only way to broadcast legally, affordably, and royalty free, is to partner with a site like garageband.com, who allows us to play their artists 100% royalty free or get legal waivers signed by every band we play. Any music you play requires royalty payment regardless of record contract. Without waivers you are liable.

We are shutting down with hopefully thousands of internet radio stations at midnite Saturday because we will not be able to afford to continue broadcasting under these new rates. ThereIsNoRadio, and other members of the SaveNetRadio Coalition have been fighting since March to get attention to this issue and have successfully gotten two bills introduced in the House and Senate called "The Internet Radio Equality Act". These bills will strike the Copyright Royalty Board's decision and set royalty rates at 7.5% of revenues (the same rates that satellite radio currently pays) and it will fix the process that the CRB uses to decide future royalty rates.

We ask that you visit www.savenetradio.org and continue to contact your representatives in the House and the Senate and demand that they immediately get off the sidelines on this issue and pass the Internet Radio Equality Act before an entire industry is shut down due to the greed of the RIAA.

I have created SaveNetRadio T-shirts and distribution boxes that are free to anybody that wants one. Send me an IM in game and I will give you one to place at your locations. Both the boxes and the T-shirts are all full permission (copy/mod/transfer) so feel free to pass them around to everybody you know.

Thanks,

Badmonkey Slade
http://ThereIsNoRadio.com
http://www.SaveNetRadio.org

To make a dent in this, one should take a look at Generation Y. Damn kids eat up this Corporate Sanctioned music. If it aint on a major label, with a video out, played on the Radio, they dont like it. Trust me. I know. I've tried.

Sadly, the younger generation is partly to blame.