The end of audio streams in SL?

Yesterday (Tuesday June 26th) you might have gottan a partial taste of how it could be in the future. A lot of audio streamers, aka internet radio stations, went offline on purpose, to protest against the latest plans of the American Copyright Royalty Board (CRB), which will put most of them out of business.

Organized in the SaveNetRadio organization, they are fighting injustice, as they see it, and call on people to contact the American Congress to stop this crazy act. The Congress is the only institute that can stop this and so far they have received half a million emails and phone calls. Yet they are doing nothing.

Let me explain what this is about ...
Currently, audio streamers (aka internet radio stations) have to pay a royalty fee of about 8/100 of a (US$) penny per song. That doesn't seem much. Only L$ 0.21 per song. Almost a freebie. However, the rates will be increased up to 19/100 of a (US$) penny per song. This is an increase of 137%. This all still doesn't sound all that bad.

However, if you calculate what this would mean ...
Based on about 18 songs per hour (for non-stop radio stations and audio streams), this would mean L$ 220 per day, or L$ 6600 per month, or almost L$ 80,000 per year. This equals almost US$ 300 per year. However, this new ruling includeds an annual minimum charge of US$ 500 (or L$ 133,000) per year, no matter how many songs you play. And since 18-20 songs is kind of the maximum per hour, it is absolutely absurd to think that a station would even get over that minimum rate of L$ 133,000.

So, to operate any radio station or audio stream in SL (doesn't matter whether it's nonstop or not), it will cost you that staggering amount of L$ 133,000 per month.

And if that wasn't even enough ...
This new system will come into effect on July 15th 2007, calculating backwards to January 1st 2006. So, every radio station would have to pay about US$ 770 (or L$ 205,000) at once, and after that the annual fee.

Since it is very hard to get advertisement for the small time radio stations, this would certainly mean that they would have to stop. And the big time audio stream operators usually have many streams going on (sometimes up to 100), they would have to pay these fees for every station. Do the math!

In short ...
The sheer amount of audio streams and radio stations that can be used in Second Life by private residents, but also by DJ's for hire, by clubs/pubs/bars, they will be reduced to only a few commercial stations who can afford these royalty fees.

To top it off ...
Just to compare this with other kinds of broadcasting and radio .. normal old-fashioned broadcasting radio does not pay these royalty fees. They are exempt. Sattelite radio stations currently pay about half the fees that internet streams have to pay. And that is excluding the new plans, which only affect those internet streams !!

If you sympathise with the victims of this plan, make sure you surf to SaveNetRadio and read how you can help. This coalition is made up of artists, listeners, webcasters and labels.