WASHINGTON — Across the Internet, the music will die today.
It's a protest staged by online radio stations to preview what they say will happen when substantially higher royalty rates kick in next month, silencing for good stations that can't afford them.
Thousands of webcasters will replace their music streams today with periods of silence and occasional messages about the dispute, urging people to press Congress to reverse the royalty rate and fee increase set by a federal board. But despite growing support, Congress is unlikely to act before July 15, when the new rates take effect.
That leaves Internet radio operators hoping that a federal court will grant an emergency stay, or that negotiations with SoundExchange, the organization that collects and distributes Internet music royalties, will lead to lower rates and fees.
"It's not a moneymaking venture; it's a labor of love," said Ted Leibowitz, 39, a software engineer who runs BAGeL Radio from his San Francisco apartment.
He pays about $1,000 a year to broadcast "indie rock" 24 hours a day, sending out about 40,000 music streams a month through Live365.com, an Internet radio service based in Foster City, Calif. The new royalty rates threaten to shut down Live365, and Leibowitz estimates that he would have to pay more than $100,000 a year in royalties and fees to keep his station going.
"Even if I was a wealthy man," he said, "that would be a very expensive hobby."
So BAGeL Radio is joining Yahoo Music, MTV Online, Rhapsody and other sites in the National Day of Silence led by SaveNetRadio, a coalition of large and small webcasters and artists opposing the royalty hike. Many of those sites will point their listeners to an hourlong forum on the issue being aired continuously today by KCRW-FM (89.9) in Santa Monica, which may have to cut back its Internet music streaming if the rates take effect.
The webcasters are protesting a decision in March by the Copyright Royalty Board, an obscure group of federal judges. The current rate of 0.08 of a cent per listener each time a song is played will more than double by 2010. The board also set a $500-a-year administrative fee for each channel a webcaster broadcasts, and removed an alternative rate structure for small sites that capped royalties at 10% to 12% of their revenue.
Many webcasters will have to pay a large lump sum July 15 because the new rates and fees are retroactive to the start of 2006, when the old rates expired.
