No $50 million windfall exists; it's imaginary. It's money that SoundExchange hopes to see but never will, since, If the CRB royalty rate decision stands, most webcasters will most likely pull their streams down.

Microsoft, incidentally, is no longer a webcaster at all; they now offer a white-label version of Pandora, a service that would be bankrupted by the CRB decision.

This is deceptively-worded. The only minor change that webcasters requested three years ago was to change from a three-arbitrator panel (indepdendent contractors to the Copyright Office) to a three-judge panel (salaried employees of the Copyright Office), under the theory that judges would be more experienced in copyright law.

Unfortunately, this was the three-judge panel's first case, so they were as equally inexperienced as one-time-only arbitrators would have been.

In any event, all of the "painstaking" work on both sides was based building a case for a flawed standard ("willing buyer / willing seller") which does not even pretend to balance the needs of copyright owners, copyright users, and the general public. And the language of that standard was created at the request of the RIAA when the DMCA was written in 1998.

Subcommittee hearings, not the language of the bill itself, are the proper venue for describing the economic basis behind the bill.

But the factual and economic basis has alrady been made clear in the press -- the fact that the royalty is currently the equivalent of 80% to 300% of revenues for most webcasters (i.e., once other expenses are taken into account, a bankruptcy rate), compared to the 0% royalty the broadcast radio pays and the 7.5% royalty that satellite radio pays).

SoundExchange fails to mention the multi-million-dollar royalty checks they are trying to obtain for the big four record labels, using the cover of "hard-working artists" as their PR stance.

Furthermore, that $360 average is deceptive -- it's an average that includes both (A) largrer royalty checks to superstar artists and (B) checks that are probably more in the ballpark of $120/year to the artists that you and I would think of as "working musicians."

Those working musicans, as shown by the tens of thousands who've signed up for the SaveNetRadio Coalition, would rather have a thriving world of Internet radio airplay than the potential chance of a $10/month check.

Count on our full support for a "Day of Silence." We will shut down our streams on May 8th, and our listeners will hear the silence loud and clear. -- ClubNetRadio.com

Wind Band FM and SLT Radio fully support the "Day of Silence."

We will participate in the day of silence!! -- The Monks Media Radio Network,
www.monksmedia.com

May 8th, we will be supporting the "Day of Silence" and we will do whatever is necessary to help support. -- Firstclasshiphop.com

We will go silent on May 8th in support of the alliance. -- WebRadioPugetSound

The entire Radio X Network is in. All 5 of our stations will be silent on Tuesday the 8th. ---Radio X Network (.com)

Future of Music Coalition D.C. Policy Day: Washington D.C.

IBS Webcast Conference: Seattle, WA