soma fm

one of the things in this world that i love is internet radio - especially somafm...and internet radio today is under major threat...

from Rusty Hodges blog:

Copyright Royalty Board rejects rehearing

The Copyright Royalty Board, a three judge panel responsible for the March 2nd ruling that set webcast royalties at their new increased rate, has denied all parties' motion for rehearing of the ruling on procedural grounds. The Board claimed that the motions introduced no new evidence and were therefore legally insufficient. At this point, getting legislation passed is the only solution to keping independent webcasters (as well as most other US-based webcasters) on the air. As of May 15th, SomaFM will owe $600,000 to SoundExchange for our 2006 royalties (which were formerly about $22,000).

some background to this:

...in the Washington Post: SoundExchange Executive Director John Simson says small operators who play music and don't try to sell ads "will have a hard time paying the rates" and that he thinks there are too many internet radio stations now, so it's OK if a bunch of them go off the air. The heyday of advertising-free Internet radio might be coming to an end. SoundExchange is the royalty agency that was formed by the RIAA after they successfully got legislation passed in the US requiring high royalty fees for internet radio stations. Simson and SoundExchange are heavily driven by the major record labels. They don't want the competition from independent webcasters playing great music from independent and unsigned artists, because it's a threat to the major labels' business models.

The Copyright Royalty Board has announced new copyright licensing fees for internet radio stations. The new fees are a staggering increase over our previous annual royalty rate of about $22,000 to over $600,000 for 2006. And the fees are even higher in 2007, based on our current listenership, they'll be over $1 million dollars for 2007! (Which is 3-4 times what we hope to raise in 2007).

Independent internet radio stations are in danger of being put out of business by newly announced royalty rates that are retroactive to 2006. SomaFM will have to pay $600,000 in royalties for 2006 and $1 million for 2007 under these new rates. (In the past, we've paid 12% of our revenues, but these new rates are three times our total revenues for 2006!

Please stand up and support internet radio!