I’ve been listening to online radio for as long as I can remember. Commercial/corporate radio has only gotten worse as I’ve gotten older, and I get tired of listening to the same shit, over and over and over again. This is why internet radio is so awesome - there are thousands of stations, all over the world, willing to play anything and everything your heart desires. There’s music for falling asleep to, there’s anime music, country, oldies, 80’s, top 40, latin, pop, you name it. I love internet music because it allows me to hear the exact kind of music I am craving, right now. And, it also gives me better access to album and band information, and some stations give you recommendations for “if you like this try —”.
The key thing to remember about internet radio is that the majority of it is put out by individuals and small organizations that just love music and want to share theirs with you. These aren’t multi-million dollar operations selling ads to Pepsi and playing 15 minutes of music per hour. The larger internet radio stations are non-profit outfits, that mostly (or only) survive on the donations of their listeners.
Recent changes have been made to the way internet radio stations pay to license their songs from the copyright holders. From SaveNetRadio.org:
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!). If the increased rates remain unchanged, the majority of webcasters will go bankrupt and silent on this date.
This is pure corporate greed at its finest. Please help stop the RIAA from further bullying people into conforming to its arcane and ridiculous ideals. Donate to SaveNetRadio.org or call your congressman.