Internet Radio Equality

A few weeks ago, I posted a letter from Tim Westergren of Pandora urging people to sign a petition urging Congress to repeal the new outrageous roylaty paying scale that was recently passed that would place an unreasonable cost burden on websites and basically wipe out all internet radio as we know it.

Well, we did well, but we have to act again.

Hi, Tim again,

First, I wanted to thank you again for the support last week. It was absolutely overwhelming. More than 200,000 Pandora listeners contacted their congressional representatives! The entire fax infrastructure on Capitol Hill ground to a halt. We had to deliver faxes manually - literally boxes full of them were delivered to every office in the Capitol building.

The result has been swift and dramatic: more than a million people have already joined the cause! There is now a bill just being introduced called the "Internet Radio Equality Act" to fix the problem and save Internet radio -and Pandora- from obliteration.

I'd like to ask you to do one more thing which is to call and ask your Congressperson, Susan A. Davis, to co-sponsor the Internet Radio Equality Act:

Susan A. Davis's phone number: (202)225-2040

This fight for our life is not over, but there has been a marked shift in momentum. Thanks to your efforts, this vital channel for musical diversity has a hope of finally being treated fairly and being allowed to grow and nurture a newly empowered class of independent musicians.

Your opinion matters to your representatives - so please take just a minute to call.

For anyone "shy", know that the person answering your call is likely an intern half your age who sits with a clipboard and tallies the topic of the calls he/she receives on behalf of Susan Davis. Let her know this is something we care about.