Please scroll down (or click here) for graphics and produced public service announcements you can use on your site or in your stream to encourage your listeners to support HR 5469 (read details in today's issue).

BY KURT HANSON
The best hope for a thriving Internet radio industry — which would be good for consumers, broadcasters, webcasters, artists, and even (although they may not be willing to publicly acknowledge it) record labels — is the bill that Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI, pictured at left), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, introduced yesterday (see story below).

Because both webcasters and copyright owners are dissatisfied with the rate decision and have filed appeals in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, Sensenbrenner's bill would suspend the deadline for CARP royalty payments by six months, "providing both sides the opportunity to have their day in court," he notes.

Without the passage of his bill, he observes, the industry could become extinct before the appeals have the chance to be heard in court! Broadcasters will quit streaming, small webcasters will go bankrupt, and niche artists will lose any chance of exposure of their music to the public.

How you can help:
Because this bill is scheduled to come to the House floor for a vote on Tuesday, the time to show your support of this bill is today!

(1) Identify your Congressman
Look up the phone number of the Washington, DC office of your representative in the House of Representatives via the Congress.org website here: (A) Type your ZIP code into the first box on the page. (B) If necessary, use the form at the bottom of the next page to find your nine-digit ZIP code. (C) Under the photo of your "Rep.," click the "info" link.

(2) Call and ask for the right person
Ask to speak with "the legislative aide in charge of Internet and copyright issues." Learn his or her name. Explain that you're a constituent — i.e., you live or work in the Congressman's district.

(3) Ask for their support
"I'm calling to urge you to support HR 5469 next week — the bill that would prevent Internet radio from being shut down on October 20th. (It will be up for a vote on Tuesday.) As you probably know, the CARP process was a total failure. Both copyright owners and webcasters are unhappy with the decision. This bill would postpone the CARP decision for six months so that both sides can have time to have their appeals heard in the Court of Appeals."

(4) Add personal insight
Talk about how the CARP decision affects you as a small businessperson and/or a listener. Mention the great Internet radio stations we've already lost (Entercom stations, smaller-market Clear Channel stations, SOMA FM, free KPIG, etc.). Mention the new artists you've discovered and the CDs you've purchased thanks to Internet radio. And make sure they understand the difference between Internet radio and peer-to-peer download services like Napster — they're totally different! ("Napster bad (maybe)! Internet radio good!")

(5) Ask for a commitment
Offer to leave your number if they have any questions. If they're noncommittal, ask if you can call back on Monday to see what they've decided. In the unlikely event that your Congressman's aide is unfamiliar with the bill or needs a copy, feel free to point them here (or simply download the Adobe Acrobat file yourself and e-mail it to them):

http://www.kurthanson.com/documents/SENSEN_089.pdf/.

If time permits, you could repeat this process for the Congressman from the district in which you work, from the district in which you grew up (especially if, say, your parents live there and are voters), from a district in which you know you have listeners, etc.

Now send a fax, too!
Another way to communicate your message is to use the automated fax system Lightningcast has prepared: http://www.broadcastpromotions.net/carp/hr5469/.
One simply needs to supply one's name, address, and nine-digit ZIP code, and a "personalized" fax with all the relevant information is sent to the appropriate Congressman.

Later today, if you're a webcaster or broadcaster, you can also ask your listeners to help. Please scroll down to find banner ads and PSAs (or links to such) near the bottom of today's issue. And we've revised the home page of SaveInternetRadio.org.

Finally, let us know how you're doing! Drop us a line to feedback@kurthanson.com or use the feedback form lower on this page. Thanks!

...

... Obvious question: Will artists suffer from this proposed six-month delay? The answer is, essentially, no. Let's do the math: Total Internet radio listening this month is roughly 40 million hours. At the midpoint of the period during which retroactive royalties are due, it might have been 20 million hours. Multiplied by four years, that's about 1 billion hours of listening or about 15 billion "performances." At $.0007/performance (ignoring the fact that some webcasters owe the lower noncommercial rate), that's $10.5 million. I would guess 1/3 of that will be uncollectable (because the webcasters would be bankrupted by the CARP decision), leaving $7 million. Half of that is supposed to go to artists, or $3.5 million, less SoundExchange administration costs. I would estimate that about 1/3 of Internet radio airplay goes to the 500 or so successful, big-name artists (e.g., Britney Spears, the Rolling Stones, Coldplay, etc.) who have million-selling albums and other revenue streams and for whom a delay in receiving a check for $2,333 less SoundExchange administrative costs would not be a major hardship. More importantly, the balance would be divided up among the 10,000 or so other artists who get airplay on Internet radio and for whom SoundExchange administers royalties. The average one-time-only check would be $233 less SoundExchange administrative costs, representing royalties of about $4.86/month for 48 months. Yes, it would be a shame if a delay in receiving this one-time $233-less-adminstrative-costs check hurts these artists, but there are two points to consider: (1) This is happening because their interests are not being well-represented in the record industry's negotiations with webcasters. There were months of negotiations that could have led to a compromise royalty agreement for small webcasters; the continued failure of those negotiations is what led to this bill. (2) If I were an artist that wasn't getting significant AM or FM airplay but was getting exposure on Internet radio, I know I'd be willing to postpone the receipt of that $233-less-adminstrative-costs check if I knew that the tradeoff for receiving that check was that outlets for my music were going to be bankrupted and shut down. -- KH ...

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Various professionals from the Internet radio industry are contributing their talent and efforts to build a storehouse of resources to support Rep. Sensenbrenner's "Relief for Small-Business Webcasters" bill. These various graphic and audio files are intended to be shared by the industry, and used by anyone who'd like to encourage support of the bill.

Here are a "banner" and a "tile" for use on your site (courtesy of IRH-Live's Rabbett). He links them to his info page here, but the text on the images is such that they could link to any info page (such as SaveInternetRadio.org).

The voice of iM Networks and "Best of Planet" programmer Bone Mama (above right) has voiced a 60-second, 128 kbps MP3 public service announcement (PSA), available here.

Another excellent 60-second PSA (this one a 160 kbps MP3 produced by Rabbett) is here (text of the copy is here).

If you are a graphic artist, voice talent, producer, etc., and would like to contribute your work to the effort, please let us know about it so we can link to it. Send e-mail to paul@kurthanson.com. We'd love to be able to share it. Thanks!

From today's early edition of RAIN:


BY PAUL MALONEY
Late yesterday afternoon RAIN learned that Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI, pictured), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, introduced a bill that would impose a six-month moratorium on webcasting royalty fees, so that small webcasters don't go out of business before their appeals can be heard in court.

House of Representatives bill 5469, called "Relief for Small-Business Webcasters," is summarized in the notice below, sent out by the Judiciary Committee office to Congress and obtained by RAIN through that office.

According to a spokesman from the Judiciary Committee office, the bill will likely come to the House floor on Tuesday.

...

... Note the "small business" angle Sensenbrenner takes in his notice (though regardless of the title, it appears this measure will "stay the implementation of the decision" for all webcasters, regardless of size). Sensenbrenner is a noted small business advocate (Wednesday he was presented with the 2002 ‘Guardian of Small Business’ Award from the National Federation of Independent Business, the largest small-business advocacy group in the U.S.). Also note the phrase "the webcasting industry that Congress sought to nurture in 1998 may become extinct..." This is interesting for two reasons. First, it shows Sensenbrenner understands the gravity of the situation for small webcasters. But perhaps just as importantly he reinforces the idea of that the CARP process is faulty. That is, that the final determination on webcast royalty fees served to accomplish exactly the opposite of what Congress intended in passing the DMCA. -- PM ...