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New
stations that will be running
banners and PSAs tomorrow include WQXR/New
York City, Salem's
Los Angeles cluster,
Canada's TheIceberg.com
(co-owned by Standard Radio
and
CHUM Group Radio), Greater
Media's WRIF/Detroit, Radio Margaritaville,
Audiorealm, many IM Networks stations, and more!
To add YOUR station
to the list of broadcasters and webcasters crying "Mayday!
Mayday!" tomorrow in the "Day of Silence,"
please e-mail Kurt here.
|
 BY
PAUL MALONEY
Tomorrow will arguably be the most important day in the history
of our young industry. The "Day of Silence" protest against
the unreasonable and untenable operating conditions that would be
imposed by CARP-determined webcasting royalty rates has galvanized
a union of webcasters like nothing before.
For anyone sacrificing this one day of their personal concern
for
the greater tomorrow of everyone -- in whatever manner that might
be -- congratulations.
Given the diversity of talent and creativity in the webcasting
field, we're sure everyone will put their own sense of style into
how they present our "Mayday! Mayday!" cry. But should you
want to make sure you have "all your bases covered," as
a service to participating webcasters, we'd like to try and provide
a guide to some of the resources to help you help your listeners and
the press make the most of the event.
Emphasiszing royalty rates:
Emphasizing recordkeeping requirements:
We're sure you agree that the most effective way to convey
our message is to communicate in as clear and concise a manner as
possible. We've done our best to provide this information in that
way. However, we'd very much like to encourage you to participate.
If we're missing something you feel is important, or there's something
that you think could be clearer, please let us know at feedback@kurthanson.com.
Public Service Announcements
As one of the aims of tomorrow's event is to educate your listeners
as to the matter facing our industry, and how they can help. Several
talented radio professionals have written and produced short announcements
for the industry to use during their silence, the WolfFM
talk show, or to otherwise supplement their programming.
Mary McCann, aka "The Bone Mama" (above) at iMNetworks
has a collection from iM Networks here.
Tracy Barnes
from HardRadio has supplied
a few as well, here
and here.
On-site information
Again, keeping in mind that the goal of the protest is to call
attention to the imminent demise of the Internet radio industry, it's
really important to grab your visitors' eyes quickly and effectively.
We would recommend a highly-visible, conspicuously-placed image
or dialogue box on the page that will immediately inform the visitor
of why today is "different." Make sure your listeners know
that any abnormalities in programming are not due to technical difficulties,
but have been brought on as a response to a situation for which their
help is needed. An example, that is on the homepage of RAIN
Radio, is below.
MAYDAY!
MAYDAY!
RAIN Radio is participating in today's "Day of Silence"
for Internet radio (May 1st).
If the U.S. Copyright Office sets royalty rates as recommended
by its recent "CARP" arbitration panel, it will
bankrupt most smaller Internet radio webcasters and may encourage
the larger ones to shut down their streams as well. The Copyright
Office's decision date is May 21st.
We're asking you to call or write your Congressional
representatives (asking them to call or write the
US Copyright office) and one or two journalists of your choice.
Please follow the directions on this page, and click here
to learn more at SaveInternetRadio.org.
Please help us keep Internet radio alive! Otherwise,
soon after May 21st, almost all of Internet radio
may be silent forever. |
As you may know, we've also made a small collection of banner
ads that are available for "grabbing" on the SaveInternetRadio
site, here.
Help your listeners call or write
their representatives in Congress!
With the interruption of your programming
and a clear and concise call to
action on your site, hopefully your listeners
will be compelled to act. Here is a four-step plan
which you can present on your website
for your listeners to follow to make their voice heard to
help keep Internet radio alive.
Encourage listeners to contact the
legislators of your district and state -- a "how to" on
getting that information is below.
Listeners who aren't US citizens
can help too! They can either (1) contact the legislators
who represent you (make sure you
provide this information on your site), or (2) write US journalists
and express their views to them (step #4 below).
(1) Finding Representatives and Senators
in Washington, DC
Your representatives in Congress consist of two
senators for your state and one
member of the House of Representatives
for your district. Point listeners to the website "Contacting
the Congress" here
to find their rep's e-mail addresses and fax numbers. (If they need
to look up their nine-digit zip code,
the USPS site here
will work -- they just type in their Delivery Address and Zip Code.)
Click on the representative's name to visit their site.
By the way, the most relevant Congressional committees
are the Senate Judiciary Committee (here)
and the House Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property (here).
If your state has an members on those committees, those would be excellent
people to contact.
(2) Select the message
Please feel free to point your listeners to these sample letters,
or perhaps you've written one of your own. The following letters
describe the entire situation in various levels of detail: 1500
words / 1000
words / 600
words
Or, for listeners who prefer to call their legislators, here's
the short, verbal version:
| ------ |
"I'm
calling because I'm concerned about Internet radio and
the upcoming Copyright Office ruling on royalty rates. (If you
don't know, the Copyright Office established a CARP that has
recommended a royalty rate that's more than 200% of revenues!)
I'm calling to ask if you office could send a letter to the
Librarian of Congress similar to the Inslee-Cannon-Boucher
letter (here)
that some legislators sent last week.
Please don't let Internet radio die!" |
----- |
(3) Deliver the message!
Encourage your "at work" listeners to take some time
during normal business hours and call their legislators'
Washington DC offices and ask for "the legislative
aide in charge of copyright and the Internet." That's
person to talk to. Otherwise, opinions vary as to whether faxes,
e-mails, or letters are most effective.
The "action step" listeners should request is for
the legislator to write the Librarian of
Congress. The office of Congressman Rick Boucher (rhymes
with "ouch"-er) has a letter they could use as a rough draft
(the legislative aides can acquire this letter through Mr. Boucher's
office).
(4) Call a journalist...or an editorial
board member
Although this crisis for Internet radio has gotten some excellent
press coverage (here),
there are still many
publications and media/technology columnists have not written about
it. It would be very helpful for listeners to call or write a publication
or journalist, especially on the local level, who should write about
this topic.
Also, some newspapers' editorial boards
have come out with editorials in support of webcasters (including
the Los Angeles Times and the San
Jose Mercury News). Call or write your local newspaper and
ask if their editorial board would do the same!
Journalists can be directed to the SaveInternetRadio
website to learn more.
Watch
this space later this afternoon for an updated list of participants! |
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Help
support this effort —
and help keep Internet radio from a premature death!
To add your station to the list of broadcasters and
webcasters crying "Mayday! Mayday!" on
May 1st, e-mail Kurt here.
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Many webcasters will take part in the May 1 "Mayday"
emergency call by simulcasting and/or participating in the twelve-hour
talk show originating from Steve Wolf's WolfFM.com. This is one way
webcasters
who want to keep their stream active and still convey the urgency
of the situation can participate in the event.
Some of the webcasters planning on carrying Wolf's "The
Emergency Webcasting System" program include 3WK.com, Beethoven.com,
RadioIO.com, Hitsnetwork.net (ClevelandHits.com), WolfFM.com, Chronix
Radio, ChoiceRadio.com, Inetprogramming.com, Lvrocks.com, Ultimate
80s, Digitally Imported/Mostly Classical, SOMA, Twangcast, TheDownbeat.org,
and XIRadio.com. (Full schedule here.)
Along with various webcasters who've played key roles in the
battle against CARP so far, guests on the show will include
Jon Healey of the Los Angeles Times, DiMA executive director Jon Potter
(pictured left), John Jeffrey (below) and Raghav Gupta with Live365,
Susan Pickering of the International Webcasters Association, and RAIN
Publisher and Save Internet Radio creator Kurt Hanson.
If you plan on carrying the talk show, here's some important
technical information.  The
easiest way to carry the show seems to simply re-webcast Steve's stream.
Simply dial up the WolfFM stream on the machine from which your programming
normally originates, and go. The streams are here: 24k MP3 mono here,
56k MP3 stereo here,
and 128k MP3 stereo here.
Steve has asked that you don't simply change your "Listen"
links to his URLs, but rather that you actually re-stream his signal
using your own bandwidth. Not only is his bandwidth limited, but your
listeners with bookmarks to your streams would miss out!
The broadcast will also be carried via satellite, in analog
and digital forms. The analog feed will be available on C-band Satellite
AMC-7 137 degrees west, Transponder 5 7.5 wide band audio. The digital
feed is available on 4DTV at W7-973. |
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From RadioHorizon.com: "Lightningcast
is using its technology to benefit the entire interactive broadcasting
audience...
"Lightningcast has been supporting this webwide effort
by serving millions of in-stream commercials
that allow individual listeners to contact their congressperson
in the first- ever partnership effort of Internet broadcasting and
grassroots lobbying.
"Streaming these commercials on the Lightningcast network,
which represents approximately 40% of the interactive broadcasting
audience, will reach an estimated 20 million listeners. Lightningcast
has also made its technology available to interactive broadcasters
anywhere so that their audiences can send messages to Congress that
express their
viewpoints on the CARP ruling [available here].
"Using Lightningcast's technology, a listener will hear
a commercial on a favorite Internet station that explains the punitive
aspects of the CARP recommendation for Internet broadcasters. The
message contains a call to action encouraging the listener to click
and fax a message to their Congressperson. Then, with Lightningcast's
MediaThunder advanced targeting and the listener's profile data,
Lightningcast creates and sends a personalized fax to the listener's
two U.S. Senators and their Congressional Representative...
"Over the past four weeks, individual listeners have
sent more than 20,000 letters
to Congress."
This entire article is available here.
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Some creative webcasters have found a way to make the slick
"fax your Congressman" feature on the  Sound
Exchange website work for them!
You might recall that Sound
Exchange, the RIAA digital royalty "clearinghouse,"
purchased ad space in Billboard Magazine last week (in RAIN
here)
to publish an "open letter" asking readers to contact
their Congressmen in support of the CARP-determined webcast royalty
rate. Sympathetic readers were directed to the Sound Exchange homepage.
The link "Contact Congress" leads to a very nice
form-based function to determine the identity of your Representative
and Senators in the U.S. Congress. You can select to whom you wish
to correspond, and by which media (fax, e-mail, or letter) to send
the Sound Exchange's pre-written letter.
But some resourceful RAIN readers visited the site to discover
that the entire letter -- including the subject line -- is completely
editable. You can make the letter say anything you want!
While some have encouraged webcasters and Internet radio
fans to change the points of the letter to accurately reflect their
viewpoints on this matter, keep in mind that the resources of Sound
Exchange (as long as this form is still up) can be used for corresponding
with your (or any) members of the federal legislature about anything!
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 RAIN
publisher Kurt Hanson (pictured at right on bullet train) appeared
live yesterday on CNN Headline
News's technology segment. He was interviewed regarding webcasters'
"Day of Silence" protest against CARP-proposed
royalty fees.
Hanson appeared via satellite from the CNN studios in the Tribune
Tower in downtown Chicago. He was interviewed by CNN technology anchor
Renay San Miguel in the network's Atlanta studio.
Hanson briefly explained the realistic outcome for the Internet
radio industry should the CARP-determined rate be imposed. In response
to San Miguel's question as to whether webcasters
thought they should compensate musicians at all, Hanson said that
a 3-4% of revenue royalty, similar to that collected by music composers
and publishers, sounded intuitively reasonable, but that any "percentage
of revenues" alternative would keep the medium alive..
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