Many Internet radio broadcasters, responding to a recently approved increase in the amount of royalties they'll be required to pay artists and record labels, have suspended programming today (6/26).

Led by the SaveNetRadio Coalition--which describes itself as "a genuine grassroots movement comprised of hundreds of thousands of webcasters, artists and independent labels, and Net radio listeners"--webcasters are staging the blackout in the hopes of getting listeners to speak out against the royalty increase, which goes into effect July 15. SaveNetRadio claims that, if implemented, the impending royalty increase would lead to "the virtual shutdown of this country's Internet radio industry."

Participants in today's silent protest--dubbed the Day of Silence--include web-only broadcasters such as Live365, Real Rhapsody, Yahoo! and Pandora, as well as traditional AM and FM broadcasters whose stations offer online programming.

"The arbitrary and drastic rate increases set by the Copyright Royalty Board on March 2nd threaten the very livelihood of thousands of webcasters and their millions of listeners throughout the country," Jake Ward, a spokesperson for the SaveNetRadio Coalition, said in a press release. "The campaign to save Internet radio ... has quickly brought this issue to the national forefront and the halls of Congress, but there is still more to be done before the approaching deadline of July 15th. On Tuesday (6/26), thousands of webcasters will call on their millions of listeners to join the fight to save Internet radio and contact their Congressional representatives to ask for their support of the Internet Radio Equality Act."

Introduced in the House in late April by Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA) and Rep. Don Manzullo (R-IL), and in the Senate in late May by Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Sam Brownback (R-KS), the Internet Radio Equality Act would overturn the Copyright Royalty Board's rate hike and would instead require Internet broadcasters to pay a royalty rate of 7.5 percent of their revenue, reportedly the same rate as that imposed on satellite-radio broadcasters.

SoundExchange, the nonprofit organization that collects the royalties for artists and record companies, claims that the Internet Radio Equality Act would "enrich mega-corporations like Clear Channel and AOL as much as $100 million at the expense of artists and record labels," according to a press release.

"This legislation is a money grab by big corporations like Clear Channel and AOL at the expense of artists and labels," SoundExchange Executive Director John Simson said in a press release issued last month. I don't see any other way to characterize this as anything other than naked corporate greed. It's just not fair to artists."

The aforementioned SoundExchange press release goes on to claim that the legislation is being driven by the SaveNetRadio Coalition, which, according to SoundExchange, "purports to represent some artists and some small webcasters," but "is in fact funded by the big webcasting industry.

"Supporters of SaveNetRadio have been mislead into thinking that advancing this legislation would somehow help small webcasters and artists, when, in fact, it would give more money and power to the big webcasting industry," the press release read.

"The fact that they would advance the profit-grinding agenda of big webcasters without regard to the artists they are hurting speaks to SaveNetRadio's true mission and evident hypocrisy," Rebecca Greenberg, National Director of the Recording Artists' Coalition, said in the same SoundExchange press release. "If SaveNetRadio really cared about artists, they wouldn't be fronting for the big webcasters like this."

In a separate press release issued last month, SoundExchange announced that it was offering to extend to small webcasters through 2010 the terms of prior legislation known as the Small Webcaster Settlement Act (SWSA) with "some minor modifications."

"Although the rates revised by the CRB are fair and based on the value of music in the marketplace, there's a sense in the music community and in Congress that small webcasters need more time to develop their businesses," Simson said in the announcement. Under the terms of the modified SWSA agreement, small webcasters would pay royalty fees of 10 percent of all gross revenue up to $250,000, and 12 percent for all gross revenue above that amount, according to SoundExchange.

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