PLEASE READ

As many of you who read our posts, may know ... internet radio is under serious threat of being wiped out - courtesy of your not so friendly neighborhood RIAA (the recording industry lobby). "The strategy of playing only non-RIAA songs won't work though because the RIAA has secured the right to collect royalties on all songs regardless of who controls the copyright. RIAA operates under the assumption that they will collect the royalties for the "sound recording copyright" and that the artists who own their own copyright will go to SoundExchange to collect at a later date."

To make a long story short - we were forwarded this form letter that is fairly simple to use and send off to your Congressional representative.

Thus far, the public and artistic outcry against this downright dirty, money grab seems to be picking up steam, as quite a few Congressmen and women have co-sponsored the bill opposing this absolute ridiculousness.

While the momentum is certainly growing, this fight is far from over and WE SINCERELY NEED YOUR HELP! Let the entertainment lobby know that they cannot continue to walk all over your/our rights, as artists and consumers. READ, FILL OUT & SEND THE LETTER BELOW. And please, feel free to repost.

Support indie music or be force fed crap.

(A big shout out to our buddys Mike Arkus, DangerDoom & Gene Leone for keeping this issue out there.) ==============================================
Look up your representative and e-mail them this:

Dear [put their name here]

As one of your valuable constituents, I urge you to please look into this. It's urgent. The future of independent music and small radio stations on the Internet is at stake.

Internet Radio Equality Act, H.R. 2060,

Introduced April 26 by Washington Democrat Jay Inslee and Illinois Republican Donald Manzullo. The law would nullify the CRB's ruling and put webcasting on the same footing as satellite radio -- that is, with a royalty rate of .33 cents per listener-hour or 7.5 percent of total revenue, chosen by the provider. (According to estimates by tech site BetaNews, AOL would owe $916,000 for 2006 under H.R. 2060, as opposed to $23.7 million under the CRB's scheme.) July 15 may seem a ways off -- until this Tuesday the deadline was May 15 -- but Maloney and McSwain urge everyone to call their representatives in Congress now.

Thank you,
[Put your name here]