Save Internet Radio

Here is a letter I recieved from Tim Westergren of Pandora which is an internet radio station with a twist. You feed it information on music you like and it creates a playlist of music that fits in the genre and style of music hopefully fitting your taste. His station and many like it provide music that is fresh and not heard on most commercial radio station's. Sadly they are all in jeopardy of becoming extinct. Why you might ask. Well our exteemed government is thinking of obiging the greedy corperate world by raising the fee's they must pay by and extreme amount. This could and probably will bankrupt most if not all independent internet radion stations playing music that requires royalties to be paid. Now most or all of these internet radion stations do pay the royalties set for them. But this plan will charge them far and above the percentage paid by the likes of satalite radiio and commercial radion stations. I honestly don't fell that is right or needed.

We can however do something about it by follwing the link in his letter or on the front page here to the SaveNetRadio.org site. Sign the petition and show our government how we feel. I would like to thank you in advance if you so choose to help this cause as I and many other feel it a worthy cause.

Please find the letter from Tim below, and thank you.

Paul

Hi, it's Tim from Pandora,

I'm writing today to ask for your help. The survival of Pandora and all of Internet radio is in jeopardy because of a recent decision by the Copyright Royalty Board in Washington, DC to almost triple the licensing fees for Internet radio sites like Pandora. The new royalty rates are irrationally high, more than four times what satellite radio pays, and broadcast radio doesn't pay these at all. Left unchanged, these new royalties will kill every Internet radio site, including Pandora.

In response to these new and unfair fees, we have formed the SaveNetRadio Coalition, a group that includes listeners, artists, labels and webcasters. I hope that you will consider joining us.

Please sign our petition urging your Congressional representative to act to save Internet radio: http://capwiz.com/saveinternetradio/issues/alert/?alertid=9631541

Please feel free to forward this link/email to your friends - the more petitioners we can get, the better.

Understand that we are fully supportive of paying royalties to the artists whose music we play, and have done so since our inception. As a former touring musician myself, I'm no stranger to the challenges facing working musicians. The issue we have with the recent ruling is that it puts the cost of streaming far out of the range of ANY webcaster's business potential.

I hope you'll take just a few minutes to sign our petition - it WILL make a difference. As a young industry, we do not have the lobbying power of the RIAA. You, our listeners, are by far our biggest and most influential allies.

As always, and now more than ever, thank you for your support.

-Tim Westergren
(Pandora founder)