AbsolutBlog

I am not an activist by nature, but I feel this is important and I know most of you will be affected by this.

I don’t know if you are aware that the US Copyright Office has passed a bill requiring all internet radio stations to pay increased fees (nearly 20 times higher than current) for the music they play.  The royalty hike is vastly higher than what over-the-air radio stations are charged for a fraction of the listeners.  These fees do not go to the artists, but rather to SoundExchange “a digital music fee collection body created by the RIAA”.  The fees are charged regardless of the songs copyright status or the artist.  The artists have to subscribe to a yearly service to get some fraction of the the royalties charged for their songs. This even applies to songs that are not copyrighted by independent artists not affiliated with the RIAA.  For instance, the fees a small webcaster may currently be paying would jump from $10,000 yearly to over $700,000!!!!

On July 15th, this law will go into effect and many sites like pandora.com, shoutcast.com, live360.com, yahoo-music and the web based divisions of over-the-air stations like NPR, will all be forced to stop broadcasting or pay the outrageous royalties.  Unlike conventional radio, internet radio stations will be forced to pay royalties for each “performance” defined as the number of listeners per song played per channel.  So sites like pandora.com and live360 which have listener created stations will certainly be hit hard.  For more information check out the slashdot posts below.

One way you can help reverse this law and let the three old retired judges from the USCO who enacted this laws through heavy lobying via the RIAA know they are killing music discovery is by clicking on the link below, entering in your zip and calling your congress(wo)man.  http://www3.capwiz.com/saveinternetradio/alert_9738601.html

Don’t let internet radio to go extinct.  I know I won’t.  This has been a public service announcement.  Spread the word…thanks!

When Copyright Law Goes Terribly Wrong
Save Net Radio.org
Call Your Senator, Support the Internet Radio Equality Act
NPR Fights Back
Slashdot Informs

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We have great news to share!!!  Alisha is pregnant with our second kid.  Maddy is very excited to be a big sister and when asked whether she wants a brother or sister, she would prefer…both, ha.  Lets hope not.  We went to the doctor yesterday and could see the heartbeat so the chances for anything to go wrong (read miscarriage) dropped from 20% to 5%.  In another month we have an appointment to hear the heartbeat and the chances drop to 2%.  We are very excited!  Below is the ultrasound from June 13th (5 weeks the fetus is the size of a grain of rice between the two x) and June 22 (6.5 weeks the size of a blueberry between the two x).

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I have finally entered the 21st centry as a graduate student.  I purchased my first laptop to begin writing my thesis…one of the new Macbook Pros with Santa Rosa and LED back light…it is sweet!  I am just learning now.

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The patio is moving along nicely with much thanks to Hanna. Pictures have been updated on the gallery. Since it has stopped raining for the past few days and Lake Hall has dried up, we can begin to move the crushed granite around and fill in the hole. Then we can move the stone around back (with some help) and lay it down.

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It is summer in Austin when the temperatures inch above 90. While I dread mowing the yard and spending any more time than absolutely necessary outside in 100+ temperatures, my daughter loves being out and in the water. Her dread is long hair in the summer. Therefore, she has requested to have her hair cut (again). It was getting pretty long but she has been miserable with sweat and pushing hair out of her face. I gave in yesterday and she now looks even more grown up than I could imagine.

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