The Day the Music Died Pt. II

Yesterday, a substantial portion of the Internet radio stations operating in the U.S. muted their broadcast and observed a day of silence in a symbolic act of solidarity and protest against an unfair increase in royalty rates levied against them. A new schedule of fees to be applied in two weeks increases the amount owed for mechanical royalty payments by a factor of ten or more. This act will essentially bankrupt the majority of all Internet radio providers, at least those truly independent entities operating without funds from a large parent-company.
How did we find ourselves here? Major record labels (the primary lobby behind the new law) desperate to prop up their out of date business models that bring in less and less every year through traditional record sales, now resort to extortion, exacting unfair and unrealistic royalty payments from people that simply can’t afford them. But there is hope! The Internet Radio Equality Act is a simple, logical solution to this issue. This proposed legislation scales royalty rates according to the size of the broadcast entity. Everyone gets paid, radio diversity remains intact!