In opposition to the PERFORM act
April 30th, 2006 | by jg3 |Every so often people introduce legislation which, intentionally or not, which threatens to heavily restrict the relatively new medium of Internet radio. This exciting arena is largely run on free and open technologies and largely contains content that would otherwise be unavailable to an audience of such size and therefore impractical to produce. When arbitrary actions are taken to limit the methods and/or medium the ones who suffer most are those with the smallest financial resources and they are often the ones with the biggest emotional investment. The artists capable of producing the best of our modern times are threatened by legislation which stems from a cat-fight between some very large companies. Sad, isn’t it?
Link to Reuters/Washingtonpost story about the bill:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/26/AR2006042600054.html
Link to EFF site explaining the impacts of the bill:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004587.php
Link to site with simple, efficient method to communicate with your Congresspeople:
http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home/
Read on if you care to see what I have said to my Senators.
http://www.congress.org/congressorg/bio/userletter/?letter_id=706929526
Hello Senator,
I am writing you today to ask you to oppose the PERFORM act which Senators Feinstein and Graham have introduced (S. 2644). I believe that the language in this bill that limits the technologies and formats which Internet broadcasters can use would be bad for freedom of speech and bad for our economy.
The Internet has brought a new wave of freedom to people worldwide and new avenues of expression for those in the audible arts communities. This bill, as a result of its origin as a punishment on satellite radio broadcasters, would intentionally limit technologies that Internet radio broadcasters would be allowed to use while paying the artists through a statutory license. Unfortunately, this would put the licensing of broadcast material out of question for nearly every Internet broadcaster in existence today (especially those who are not affiliated with a for-profit entity). As the producers of Internet radio stations would be forced, under this bill, to pay for either unreasonably expensive, restrictive, and substandard technology licenses or opt out of the statutory license and pay impossibly high licensing fees for content. Further, it seems to me, that the only content that the largest category of broadcasters who could use today’s powerful and freely available technologies for broadcast would be those who produce their own material. This would relegate Internet radio in the United States to a modern AM radio-like band of dubious talk radio political ranting and religious extremists.
As to the impact on our economy, there would be more than the small pain of a few profitable ventures in Internet-only broadcasting. This law wold make illegal the format in which many airwave radio stations do their Internet simulcasting. A significant avenue for artists who cannot (or simply do not wish to sacrifice their artistic integrity to) get on the playlists of the few gigantic record labels or mega corporate radio stations would evaporate if this bill becomes law.
Please, Senator, oppose the the PERFORM act and work to keep the Internet as free and fair as possible.
Respectfully,
Please consider taking a moment to communicate your thoughts on this issue with your Senators.
Filed under: music, Politics, The Internet
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