A Day of Silence has swept across the bandwidth of a number of music webcasting services as they protest new royalty rates that could put them out of business for good.
Yahoo Turns Off The Radio
If you want to hear the future of web radio with the Copyright Royalty Board’s new rates in place, chances are your regular music listening fix will be broadcasting the bitter sound of silence today.
Yahoo discussed its participation in the protest. Ian C. Rogers of Yahoo Music wrote on the official Yahoo blog how the new rates, effective July 15 and retroactive to January 1, 2006 (not a typo) would devastate what has been a boon for music fans:
The situation webcasters are in is simple: the new royalty rates are higher than the revenues anyone can hope to make from related advertising. In other words, we all lose money on Internet radio starting July 15th. Yahoo! has no intention of operating LAUNCHcast radio as a loss-leader. This senseless rate hike needs to be changed, or our business will have to.
Yahoo joins major music names like MTV and a host of other sites in protesting the proposed rate increase. Some, like Pandora, have placed a letter on their home pages explaining the protest. KCRW will loop an hour-long program where webcasters discuss the issue.
SaveNetRadio has more information about the Day of Silence. They urge interested people to contact their elected representatives in Washington DC and politely express their concerns about the potential loss of online radio.
