Save net radio … save the world. I mean that.

SaveNetRadio.org ... help keep internet radio from cribdeath.Growing up in Cincinnati, Ohio had it's challenges.

One of the most problematic (especially in my later youth) was finding radio that didn't suck.

In the days before this new fangled interthing, you found good new music (meaning not necessarily whatever the  majors were pushing that week) through local venues, friends, magazines and radio. You all remember those days, right? When the only way you heard something new was when you'd get passed some mixed cassette by a buddy in shop class, who recorded from other tapes, and under the hiss of third generation tape quality you found magic? Or by dialing in some local college radio that managed to get a copy of some limited vinyl by that great 4-piece from Oklahoma that the major stations snubbed for lack of payola?

I was lucky, I had WOXY, number 97.7 on the FM dial. In retrospect I've come to realize that it was an important part of broadening my horizons musically. They really were the cutting edge of new music, not just in the relative confines of my small city.

Today I can still enjoy that station (and tons of others with similar ideals and taste) right here.

So can you and you and you.

At least for the moment.

I'm not going to cover the whole mess (use this link and enrich yourself) here, I really meant to bring this up sooner, but here's some bullet points:

  • Early in March '07 the Copyright Royalty Board passed a resolution to dramatically raise the fees paid by internet broadcasters, retroactive to Jan. 2006.
  •  April '07 the Copyright Royalty Board denies an appeal to rethink that decision on the grounds that there were no new arguments being made.
  • May 15 2007 marks the date these fees become effective and monies due.

The short of all this is that, in all likelihood, many stations that supply good new music will be forced to stop broadcasting.

That's not good for us poor schmucks that listen.

SaveNetRadio.org is trying to do something about it.

Read Up. Go there. If you think it's worth your time then sign the petition, write your Congressmen, link them from your site.

crank! 

5 Responses to “Save net radio … save the world. I mean that.”

  1. Jay Ferguson Says:

    I will definitely check that out as I enjoy Seattle’s amazing KEXP over the web since the signal is so weak, I rarely get good reception at my parents’ house in the suburbs and certainly not while I’m at school in Minnesota. Medicare, Shmedicare, but when the government starts screwing with my radio…now that’s just wrong.

  2. crank! Says:

    Right on!

    crank

  3. vorpal keith Says:

    But think of how all those songs must be clogging up the tubes! Won’t somebody please think of the tubes!!!!

  4. crank! Says:

    I think about the Tubes all the time.

    crank!

  5. G. Noel Gross Says:

    I’ll do my part.

    But, truthfully, I get all my music from the Crankcast.

    Fortunately, I have the attention span of a marmoset.