"Dear Listeners,
June 26th is the Day of Silence. The future of Internet radio is in immediate danger. Royalty rates for webcasters have been drastically increased by a recent ruling and are due to go into effect on July 15 (retroactive to Jan 1, 2006!).
To protest these rates and encourage you to take action and contact your Congressional representatives, we are taking part in an industry wide Day of Silence, by silencing our programming for this day.
Please excuse the interruption of our normal programming, but consider that unless something is not done this silence may soon become permanent. We ask that you take action by calling your Congressional Representatives today. For citizens of the US, please click on the banner image link below for instructions how. For a huge number of our foreign listeners, we ask you to kindly contact and all of your friends in the USA to do this for you and for them.
On the page which opens from the link below you will be able to enter your zip code. This webpage will automatically show you who your Representatives and Senators are, along with their office numbers. A full list of talking points is also presented for your review so you know exactly what to say.
<a href="http://capwiz.com/saveinternetradio" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.di.fm/blog/call_your_reps-478x60.gif" border="0" height="60" width="478"></a>
A few tips I can share with you which make it easier to call for those shy folks among you:
1) These people work for *us* the people, so they should be so lucky as to hear from you. Don't feel like you are taking up their time, because it is really your time. They get paid by your taxes.
2) You will not actually reach the representative or senator - instead you will reach one of their legislative aids. Those young men and women are actually the ones doing most of the work. Usually an aide is the one who picks up the phone, so get straight to your issue once they do.
3) If you called once before, then please call again. Often times it just takes persistent calling. Obviously if you called your Representatives before, chances are you didn't get to call your Senators yet.
Some Resources:
<a target="_blank" href="http://www.di.fm/blog/read/2007/05/we-will-go-silent-unless-new-royalty.html">Previous Post</a> in which I briefly outline this issue for our service.
<a target="_blank" href="http://www.di.fm/blog/read/2007/03/outside-of-usa-and-want-to-help.html">Other Ways</a> you may help (spread the word, press, contribute to funds).
<b>For offline or online press coverage please contact me at press[a t]di.fm.</b>
Thank you all, as always.
<i>PS: for contractual reasons we are keeping the Premium service on air. The public streams which will be silent account for over 95% of our streams.</i>"
- Ari Shohat
Founder
Digitally Imported, Inc.
http://www.di.fm