The RIAA front group, SoundExchange, is threatening to take away our Internet radio! This is a very serious issue and if we don’t do something about it - we will no longer have Little Radio, last.fm, Live365 or any other Internet radio station you listen to.

Here’s the lowdown from the SaveNetRadio site:

“The future of Internet radio is in immediate danger. Royalty rates for webcasters have been drastically increased by a recent ruling and are due to go into effect on July 15 (retroactive to Jan 1, 2006!). If the increased rates remain unchanged, the majority of webcasters will go bankrupt and silent on this date. Internet radio needs your help! The Internet Radio Equality Act has recently been introduced in both the House (H.R. 2060) and Senate (S. 1353) to save the Internet radio industry. Please call your senators and your representative to ask them to co-sponsor the Internet Radio Equality Act by clicking HERE or going to SaveNetRadio.”

It only takes a few minutes to fill out the form. Please act NOW. If they take away our access to free radio, imagine what they’ll think they can take next. Don’t let this happen.

The first time I heard about Freemium was on my new favorite blog A VC.
Who knew a Venture Capitalist could be so cool!

I highly recommend reading his article on Freemium and the music business.

“I’ve riffed on the notion of free as a business model frequently on this blog. We’ve even come up with a name for a business model that uses free as its foundational element - ie freemium.

The fact is that the Internet demands a free business model. It’s a network where content flows freely in abundance. Scarcity works great for physical goods, but crumbles in a digital world.” Read more…

Some of us in the music biz have been waiting for something like this to materialize for the last few years. Although this may not be the brass ring - it is an option worth exploring.