========================================================= COMMERCIAL MUSICIANS AND THEIR PROTECTION RACKET ORGANIZATIONS ARE KILLING FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN AMERICA BY KILLING INTERNET RADIO. PLEASE WRITE YOUR FAVORITE RECORDING ARTISTS AND TELL THEM YOU WILL NOT BUY THEIR MUSIC IN THE FUTURE IF THEY DO NOT STOP THIS UNCONSTITUTIONAL MOVE BY THE COPYRIGHT ROYALTY BOARD, SOUND EXCHANGE, BMI, ASCAP, AND OTHER MUSIC LICENSING ORGANIZATIONS. WRITE TO RECORD COMPANIES AND TELL THEM YOU WILL NOT PURCHASE THEIR PRODUCTS IN THE FUTURE IF THEY DO NOT PUT A HALT TO THIS KILLING OF INTERNET RADIO. ========================================================= _________________________________________________________________ Countdown to Silence Editorial: Kevin W. Smith The Congress of the United States of America created, ordained, and blessed a creature known as the Copyright Royalty Board. This board is fully the child of Congress. It is out of control and Congress refuses to take charge of it. So why does this matter? It matters because the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) has promulgated some new regulations that apply to internet broadcasters. These new regulations contain onerous new fees that apply to internet broadcasters that will definitely kill internet broadcasting. The new regulations not only impose unconstitutional fees upon internet broadcasters, they impose those fees retroactively to January 1, 2006--another unconstitutionality. A small web broadcaster with an audience of 500 people per hour of broadcasting is currently paying a little less than $1000 per year in royalty fees. This will rise to $72,270 per year. Ask yourself if you could afford that. Furthermore, the entire scheme is based on the erroneous idea that web broadcasters should pay fees that are not required of terrestrial radio broadcasters. Why should a web broadcaster have to pay fees that a terrestrial radio broadcaster is not required to pay? Why? The reason seems to be fairly obvious. Web radio has grown in popularity rather rapidly and rather impressively. Some 52 million people in America say they listen to web radio regularly. This growth has happened at the expense of terrestrial radio. The media on terrestrial radio can be somewhat controlled via threats to have their FCC licenses canceled. Web radio cannot be controlled. Web radio is truly about freedom of speech. The CRB has ruled that these new fees are going to be imposed beginning July 15th. On that day, web broadcasters will close down by the tens of thousands. On July 16, there will be a resounding silence all across the internet. But the problems do not stop there. When tens of thousands of broadcasters go silent on the web, there will be galaxies of bandwidth suddenly vacated. That bandwidth is provided by many independent companies. Those companies will be tossed suddenly into bankruptcy. As they go bankrupt, their collective debts become uncollectable. Their suppliers will go unpaid. Their employees will become unemployed. The ripple effect of this not-well-disguised attack upon freedom of speech will be a tsunami of economic disaster. If you think the "dot com" disaster on Wall Street a few years ago was a disaster, just hang on to your hat. This is going to be the big one. And while all this is more than obvious to normal human beings, the quirk headed politicos in D.C. are saying things like, "I'm not sure the government should interevene." Damn it! You politicos are not going to get away with this by means of plausible denial. You created the CRB and you blessed Sound Exchange. These two entities are your creations and they are doing your dirty work to control the media. You claim that government intervention is not the way to solve this as if the government is not involved already. The entire attack on freedom of speeech is orchestrated by your creations. The entire attack on freedom of speech is being done by government intervention already. You are doing it and we know you are doing it. On July 15th the web broadcasters will go silent. On July 16th, you will awaken in a new country, AmeriKa. I believe that talk radio hosts on terrestrial radio stations are the next target. Pleas understand that this is NOT a proposed bill that is going to be debated and voted upon. This is being orchestrated by the Copyright Royalty Board which was created by Congress, and which Congress refuses to rein in. This is already a done deal. There will be no vote at all. You will not be represented at all unless you can convince your representatives and senators to step in and halt what has already been decided. Mark your calendar. The countdown to silence has begun. July 15th is the date freedom of speech dies. July 16th is the date we can all sing "Bye, bye Miss American Pie". Well, we could if we could afford to pay the fees.