Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Like Our Country, Internet Radio Is In Crisis

Looks like we will have to give up any hope for the "Internet Radio Equality Act".

If you're a regular listener to internet radio, you may have heard aired on ours, as well as pier stations, a request for your support of Bills H.R. 2060 AND S. 1353, otherwise known as the "Internet Radio Equality Act".

To date, this has become a stagnant issue in Washington. The effort is to equalize the higher royalty fees determined by the Copyright Royalty Board to be paid to record companies, artists, and composers for the songs that you hear on internet radio. These are paid through the recording industry's sanctioned agency SoundExchange. Compared to the exact same royalties paid to satellite and eventually terrestrial radio for the same music, this was obviously un-fair and a stealth attempt to slowly bleed internet radio music stations to death.

Already crawling at a snail's pace to begin with, the effort has now hit a brick wall.

Needless to say, the financial debacle by government is now the 10,000 pound gorilla in the room. And because of the exposure of blunders by a majority of representatives, senators and the White House, before and after, the financial bailout action, makes it quite obvious by many that the pending upheaval of the upcoming elections will spell the doom of many incumbents. Perhaps the majority of those who co-sponsor the IREA.

Thus, what would be considered a moral act of establishing fair play of all entities that play music across the board, will take a further back seat, (more like taking a place in the upper pigeon hole in the furthest corner of the guest room closet) when compared to more pressing issues that have had to pause because of the 700 billion dollar mortgage crisis.

Realistically and comparatively to priorities, it's more for the reason that American's could care less about anything else at this point.

With all these delays, life couldn't be sweeter for the recording industry and Sound Exchange, who have had all the opportunities in the world to strategize and re-strategize it's efforts of holding together, the unbelievable large royalty percentage imposed on internet radio. This more than likely puts the internet radio industry at the mercy of a totally new line up in Washington.

The whole story began in Washington and ends in Washington. Who do you currently have faith in there to proceed with anything?

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