Group Wants U.S. Congress to Stop Music Royalty Payments for Internet Broadcasters.

Jay Armsworthy, a bluegrass musician and bluegrass broadcaster, who recently lost his show on The Bluegrass Mix, sent us a note asking for help publicizing a grass-roots movement to get U.S. Congressional involvement.

The Bluegrass Mix decided to "pull the plug", as they say in radio when a station goes off the air, after receiving a royalty bill for the month of January that was at least 15 times higher and unaffordable according to the station owner, Roger Randolph.


Armsworthy says,

"We are asking congress to step in quickly and put an INDEFINITE STAY on the Small Webcasters Agreement of 2009 OR DISCONTINUE RADIO ROYALTIES altogether and represent the tens of thousands of small webcasters facing execution. All radio stations PROMOTE the artist being played.. It's a trade off that has been in place for decades. This is reverse payola..  AM & FM pays nothing, why should anyone else?

The THOUSANDS of companies and radio outlets affected:

• All shoutcast stations, 
• All
• All icecast stations
• All live365 stations
• tunein.com stations
• iTunes internet radio.
• iTunes internet radio.
• Windows Media Guide
• Car radios and players on the internet..

The list goes on & On

The execution has started already with live365 shutting down operations, firing their staff and vacating their offices, January 1 2016. There's still some time to save the rest of us, Please help! Sign the petition and save net radio.
https://www.change.org/p/u-s-house-of-representatives-u-s-senate-save-net-radio-we-need-your-help-to-petition-congress-100-000-stations-will-perish?recruiter=238943366&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink

According to the group's statement, nearly 100,000 small webcasters will go off the air without help from enough petition signers!