Day of Silence
Dear Listeners,
Thanks so much for tuning in to BPR. Today the radio is down in recognition of a day of silence protesting impending increases in royalty rates. These increases, which go in to effect on July 15, could put many internet radio stations out of business. Read more details and about participating radio stations here.
Note that these royalty increases do not affect BPR. BPR explicitly operates outside the corporate music industry. All the music we play here come with explicit permission from our artists. We choose to do this not because we don’t want to pay royalty fees, but because our mission is to establish community with artists who are actual people and not corporations.
In unity,
Boston Progress Radio
Tags: News, Online Radio.
1 comment
I – as some BPRers know – was a little unsure of signing on to the Day of Silence, because I think of ourselves as quite different from other Internet radio stations. Certainly the large corporate entities, like Yahoo and MTV can afford to pay increased royalty rates. While other projects – although more community oriented – like Pandora or KCRW – still deal with record companies, rather than the artists who create the music – thus the increased rates are kind of an occupational hazard. Not that I have no sympathy for them, but that I think what we do is pretty different.
All our music is approved by the artists themselves, or a representative from their camp. If a record company at some point tells us to stop playing music from _____, they’ll be robbing their artist of the limited exposure we provide, and also going against the wishes of said artist.
In addition – we never pay money for the music we play, we never ask for people to pay a fee to listen to our stream. We don’t sell ad space, and I think our actions are explicitly anti-industry. Thus, the increase in royalty rates – while damaging to some worthwhile endeavors – kind of represents the exact thing we actively avoid.
Also, my style is old as a reptile. Thoughts?