Add Internet Radio to the Endangered Species List

July 15th could turn out being Judgment Day for many internet radio providers. Congress recently got hold of an upsetting new bill. If passed, this bill will allow the Copyright Royalty Board to bring rates from 300 to 1200 percent, according to the Chicago Tribune. Even though I don't know everything about royalties, the term "catastrophic" and "bankruptcy" are potent enough for me to understand that this is something big.

Like many people of the college age bracket, I like to pride myself by saying I have an "alternative" music taste. The normal radio doesn't quite play the "alternative" genre in the frequency that I'd appreciate, so I, like many others, turn to internet radio. According, once again, to the Chicago Tribune, "Right now, independent artists make up less than 10 percent of what's played on broadcast radio, but on Internet radio, we make up about 37 percent." That less than 10 percent is what I'm stuck with in my car if my MP3 player or CD player is broken (I still have a tape deck but carry no tapes...) Sure, NPR has some good stuff like This American Life and All Things Considered, but listening to music is always my preference. While I'm on the internet, I have a smorgasbord of choices to choose from, though I'm usually frequenting Pandora Radio or WOXY.com, though I must say that Pandora (bar the occasional complete failure of comparison) offers me more flexibility.

So it comes down to the real question. Do the artists want this bill to pass? Many of the published editorials in newspapers that I've read on the subject are against the price hike. These editorials are often written by independent artists. The majority of stations that I can find here in the great suburb of Cincinnati are all revolving around the top 10 of the day. Not only does this create redundancy, it's just annoying. It isn't rare to find two radio stations playing the same song at the same damn time. On internet radio there is a larger number of choices in stations and a much broader number of genres. I don't think I could find a station anywhere around here that plays the disorienting but addictive "trip-hop" or introduce a new "breakthrough" artist that I actually like.

The actual proposition was made in May for this bill, but the final word comes down on July 15th. The most widely used number of citizens listening to internet radio is seven million. This group of people may be responsible for thrusting a new artist into prominence by just listening to a stream of music off of a website. The "indie" music populace is generally in agreement with the indie music stations. Most of the unknown bands played on these stations are wishing for their big break and the well-known (relatively) bands may have been played first on that station. It just all goes back to roots. If the bands themselves aren't animatedly complaining about these things, then why change? I can understand if there was a radio that had ten million listeners and only played the Billboard 100, but, come on, this is Art Brut, UNKLE, and Elbow we're talking about here. They need the publicity more than the potential "missing out" due to royalties not being paid.

As a final note, the Copyright Royalty Board is targeting the wrong medium. P2P networks like Limewire and BearShare are still running fairly smoothly from what I've heard (I ditched it for iTunes because...well artists really do need their money). I think one of the funniest things I've read recently was when checking out Limewire again to see if it was even still available to download they confronted me with two choices. READ THE FOLLOWING!

I will not use Limewire to commit Copyright Infringement.
I may use Limewire to commit Copyright Infringement.

What a laugh! So, do the right thing and pitch P2P and support the bands you love by buying their album for a measly $9.99 on iTunes and know you did your part. That and go to www.woxy.com to learn more about what you can do to help stop the extinction of internet radio as we know it!