BY DANIEL MCSWAIN
With the Internet Radio Equality Act (H.R. 2060) introduced to Congress and gathering cosponsors, the time to mobilize all webcasters and listeners is now. [See yesterday's coverage in RAIN here.]

The introduction of the bill gives supporters of the SaveNetRadio.org campaign a clear and direct mission: call your Representatives in Congress today and ask them to cosponsor the bill to keep Internet radio from being wiped out by the CRB rates.

Below is a list of "talking points" provided by SaveNetRadio.org for callers to drive home specific messages to staffers and aides in the office of their Representatives. The same list can be found on the SaveNetRadio.org site after entering your ZIP code, which will then provide you with your Representative's contact information:

Many supporters have written into RAIN and the SaveNetRadio.org campaign with copies of the correspondence they've received from members of Congress in response, which vary in tone from concerned and supportive to uninformed and off-topic.

Responses that fall into the latter category have left some listeners upset who feel that their Representative simply does not care about this issue. Now that H.R. 2060 has been introduced, we strongly urge supporters to contact their Representatives' office again with a phone call to reiterate the importance of this bill to you, their constituent.

When calling, remember to be polite but firm. Less than supportive responses from Congressional offices on this topic are usually the result of staffers and aides not fully understanding the issue; your phone calls could help turn an uninformed member of Congress into a champion of the bill!

Also, with a Bill making its way through the House, a webcaster "Hill walk" in Washington D.C. next Tuesday, and a "Day of Silence" planned for Tuesday, May 8, now is the perfect time to contact your own local media. An articulate and passionate Op-Ed in local papers would be a great asset for our campaign, and would be valuable in helping our message reach an even larger audience.

A copy of the bill in .pdf form, is available here.

(Your comments are invited using the feedback form below.)

...

... The "Internet Radio Equality Act" is, in my opinion, a bill that successfully takes into account the needs of virtually all stakeholders — large NAB-member commercial broadcasters, noncommercial broadcasters (including NPR stations), both large and small Internet-only webcasters, musicians, and even record labels (whether all of them realize it or not). We tried to get advice from representatives of most of those groups in putting the terms together, and I believe it worked. The most important change in the law is changing the "standard" by which Copyright Royalty Board judges determine a rate from the record industry's "willing buyer / willing seller" standard (which is wildly biased in favor of the seller when the seller is an established multi-billion-dollar industry and the potential buyer is a nascent new industry) to the "801(b)(1)" standard used in most copyright office procedures. (That standard balances the needs of the copyright owner, the copyright user, and the public good. See this issue of RAIN for a detailed explanation.) And for the "transition" period until the next CRB can be convened, it makes elegant sense to use satellite radio's royalty rate of 7.5% of revenues (or, for webcasters who feel the need to use a per-hour rate, a calculated equivalent). Internet radio and satellite radio are similar in so many ways that it's almost impossible to defend an argument that Internet radio's royalty rate should be 7 to 25 times higher than satellite radio's (as it is, given the current advertising environment, in the CRB decision). While the record industry may try to fight this bill, it's actually in their best interest: They're better off getting 7.5% of the revenues of a thriving new medium — plus all of the positive exposure for new genres and new artists, and associated CD sales, that Internet radio is providing — than 50% to 200% of nothing, which is what they'll get if the CRB decision stands and U.S.-based webcasting essentially shuts down on May 15th... -- KH ...

BY PAUL MALONEY
The following members of Congress have signed on to co-sponsor H.R. 2060, the "Internet Radio Equality Act," introduced yesterday by Reps. Jay Inslee (D-WA) and Donald Manzullo (R-IL).

"You can't put an economic chokehold on this emerging force of democracy,"
Rep. Inslee said in a press release. "There has to be a business model that allows creative webcasters to thrive and the existing rule removes all the oxygen from
this space."

Included in the bill's backers are Reps. Rick Boucher (D-VA), Barbara Cubin (R-WY) and Baron Hill (D-IN), who, like Inslee, are members of the key Energy and Commerce committee.

Bill sponsors
	Representative Jay Inslee Washington's 1st District 6th-term Democrat Key committee(s): Energy and Commerce
	Representative Donald A. Manzullo Illinois's 16th District 8th-term Republican

Co-sponsors
	Representative Corrine Brown Florida's 3rd District 8th-term Democrat
	Representative Rick Boucher Virginia's 9th District 13th-term Democrat Key committee(s): Energy and Commerce; Judiciary
	Representative Barbara Cubin Wyoming (at-large) 7th-term Republican Key committee(s): Energy and Commerce
	Res. Com. Luis Fortuno Puerto Rico (at-large) 1st-term Republican
	Representative Baron Hill Indiana's 9th District 4th-term Democrat Key committee(s): Energy and Commerce
	Representative Ron E. Paul Texas' 14th District 10th-term Republican
	Representative David E. Price North Carolina's 4th District 10th-term Democrat

"...And when you add the notion of WiFi music reception (streamed or cached) then you have a category which will be huge. Get ready.

"In other words, Bridge says interest in HD radio is decreasing even as your station works hard to increase awareness...

"Anyway, Bridge sums up the study:

Read Ramsey's analysis in Hear 2.0 here.

More and more webcasters are signing on to our proposed "Day of Silence" taking place Tuesday, May 8 [read full details in RAIN here]. We're getting more webcasters joining every day — if you've e-mailed us, we'll add your name soon. Below is a growing list of webcasts that have agreed to go "dark" for the day.