Recent government action in the United States has dramatically increased the fees internet radio companies must pay to play music - both commerical and independent.

While this may sound like a good thing for independent musicians, I believe it threatens the future of internet radio.

There are thousands of internet radio stations across the world playing music across all genres, many of which are struggling to survive as it is, and would soon disappear altogether with higher fees. The US government action is designed to help artists by getting them a fairer per-play royalty. However, the opposite may well prove to be true. With higher royalties, many internet radio stations will disappear, and those that do survive will be the bigger, commercial stations that play the popular, commercial music.

If we’re not careful, independent bands and musicians will find it just as hard to get airplay on internet radio as they do now on commercial stations - and we all know how hard that can be!

SaveNetRadio (www.savenetradio.org) is a coalition of artists, labels, listeners and webcasters working together to save internet radio as we’ve come to know and love it. I’ve put my weight behind the cause, and I urge every independent musician or label to at least sign the petition, if not get behind the campaign in a bigger way.

You can find out more at www.savenetradio.org, or sign the petition here.

This is one issue that anyone involved in independent music should be involved with!