
Want to look for a radio station, internet radio, world radio, by call letters, location, or frequency? Then this is the place for You: http://www.radio-locator.com/
An Excellent Blog about Internet Radio
Check out iiiThis finally led me back around to a site I had seen earlier in my quest, Save Internet Radio.
Save Internet Radio from Congress and the RIAA!
The site saveinternetradio.org is devoted to saving internet radio. Help them.
Here's an excerpt from their top page:
Most Internet radio stations are at risk of bankruptcy, and may be forced off the air by October 20th, because of a Congressionally-imposed royalty they will soon be required to pay to record labels. (You may have heard this called a "CARP" royalty, named for the U.S. Copyright Office's Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel that held hearings on what the rate should be.)
Here's some quick background:
Congress passed a law in October 1998 called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which established a new "sound recordings performance royalty" that webcasters must pay to record labels, similar to the royalty that both broadcast radio and Internet radio have to pay to composers of songs. (Note: The composers royalty is about 3% of station revenues.) However, the Copyright Office, following unclear instructions from Congress, set a rate for this new royalty that is currently more than 100% of most webcasters' revenues! (If broadcast radio stations had to pay the same royalty rate, it would cost them billions of dollars and wipe out the entire profits of the industry!)
If the record industry (the RIAA) doesn't offer a compromise "voluntary" license to smaller webcasters and/or if Congress doesn't pass emergency legislation by October 20th, most observers believe that the decision will effectively kill Internet radio. (The retroactive portion of the fees will bankrupt all but the very largest Internet-only webcasters — e.g., AOL, Yahoo!, and Microsoft. The fees will also probably trigger the shutdown of most remaining broadcast stations' Internet simulcasts, including almost all the educational and community stations )
You can write or fax Your Congressman, free. Send an email to congress; or, since not all members of Congress have email yet (I know, hard to fathom), maybe a Fax will carry a bigger impact. There's a couple of specific "Save Internet Radio" free fax locations around. Try this one: http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~willr/cb/sos/fax/noncommfax.html, or this one, http://www.voiceofwebcasters.org/smallwebfax.htm
Here is the letter the Voice of Webcasters will fax in Your name when You use that site:
I am writing you to express my strong request that you support immediate legislative relief to save Internet radio and the role it plays in promoting artists and their music on the Internet. I listen to Internet radio and I want to see the current diversity of programming provided by Internet radio preserved.
On July 26, 2002, Representatives Jay Inslee (D-WA), George Nethercutt (R-WA) and Rick Boucher (D-VA) introduced legislation called the Internet Radio Fairness Act (HR 5285) in the US House of Representatives. This vital bill would protect a large number of Internet radio stations from being forced out of business by unfair and unaffordable performance copyright royalties. Please act immediately in seeing that this effort is carried through the House and Senate and made law before it is too late to save Internet radio. Immediate action is required. The enforcement of retroactive royalties based on the currently unaffordable rates is set to commence no later than October 20, 2002.
We want you to understand that this legislative action does not seek to eliminate royalties paid to artists by Internet radio stations. It only attempts to ensure that fair and reasonable royalty rates are set to allow Internet radio stations to survive and continue to develop their nascent industry. In supporting this legislative action, you will be ensuring that artists will receive fair compensation from these stations and retain this valuable resource to promote their music.
This bipartisan effort is already supported by several important members of the US House of Representatives, including Representative Donald Manzullo (R-IL), Chairman of the House Committee on Small Business. We need your help to ensure that this action is passed by the US House of Representatives and joined by similar action in the US Senate. Please act now, there isn't much time left to save Internet radio.
Sincerely,
Your Name
Please send this fax. I did.
Howard Coble
Earlier I reported about Tara Grubb's run for Congress. She is out to unseat NC Representative Howard Coble, who happens to chair the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Courts & The Internet, and Intellectual Property. It is under Mr. Coble's leadership that this current assault on our First Amendment Right to peacefully assemble online has been encouraged and brought to its current state.
Mr. Coble's email address is howard.coble@mail.house.gov. His contact page, listing emails and all of his local offices in North Carolina, is http://www.house.gov/coble/ . Here is where You can see the transcripts of the hearings his committee has held about interntet topics: http://www.house.gov/judiciary/4.htm. There are a couple of hearings of interest, so be sure to check out the whole list.
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