There is a new website up dedicated to saving Internet radio, check it out (Save Net Radio). I wrote some letters to all my congress peoples the other day and mailed them off. It looks like efforts have had some effect since The Internet Radio Equality Act is being introduced into congress to even out the rates. Luckily the looming date of May 15th has been pushed back to July 15th so the legislation might have a chance to get through.

I have tons of posts about half done, but have been to lazy to finish them up. Now Pokemon is out so I am spending a considerable amount of time on that, then I get to run off to Washington DC for a week (I wonder if I can yap at some congress people and tell them to support this bill, I don’t know how that works). I’m going to try and pump out those other posts though, we will see if I get the motivation.

As you may or may not have noticed I listed several channels on the right hand side to point to my Pandora radio stations. I love Pandora. I use to listen to it a lot at work, but our IT department just blocked all access to Internet radio, so I imagine I won’t be listening nearly as much.

Pandora may be one of the best things for the music industry. If you have never used Pandora before, basically it learns what music you like and then plays similar songs. It allows listeners to find new music that you may actually buy, seems like an ingenious asset for the music industry. This is oppose to typical radio broadcasts which simply play the same songs over and over again until they are stuck in your head and you decide you like them. I suppose in the later case the music industry has a lot more control over what will become popular, but in the former case, I believe, you are much more likely to enjoy what you are listening to enough to buy it (something Pandora also makes easy to do).

Of course the RIAA, their non-profit front group Sound Exchange, and a few judges have decided that Internet Radio needs to be squeezed for cash or die.

It seems everyone who has some relation to Internet radio thinks they are going to shut down and are hoping the rate change will be reconsidered. My original idea was that Pandora could shift to entirely indy music and avoid the charges, but someone posted a comment on their blog stating the same thing. It turns out that Sound Exchange collects revenue for all artists whether they are big label or not. I don’t know if they have an opt out policy or if you can sign your own deals with each artist you want to play, but the default is to pay them no matter who you play. Oh well, I am still going to ask them for a setting that allows me to only play indy music. Assuming they stay in business I don’t want any of the money going to the major labels. Likewise, I would never buy anything from the major labels so it isn’t worth my time to listen to their music.

It seems to me most artists would love to have their music on any station, AM/FM or Internet. Especially something like Pandora, that matches listeners with songs they are likely to enjoy.

By the end of the year the music industry could be at its lowest point in quite a while. The standard radio we have come to know and love (or, in my case, hate) will still be around. There will only be one satellite radio station, and almost every small Internet radio station will be gone. At least the music industry can keep their business model.

BTW, Librarians are hiding something.

One note: Not to completely bash on standard radio, I listen to talk radio all the time, its just every station that played even half decent artist in my area went under so I don’t actually use AM/FM to listen to music.