Today is the date of the original deadline served to the Internet radio broadcasters for paying up retroactive royalty payment totaling in the millions for some broadcasters. This date has been moved to June 15th 2007, but a few days back, in a bid to deal a small but political blow to the RIAA, I started the movement to stop the buying of music on the original deadline date, May 15th (today).

The movement met with criticism, stating it was pointless, useless, not sending the right message, hurting the wrong people, etc… The point I think the nay-sayers are missing is that this issue is localized to the United States. Other, obviously freer countries don’t suffer under the thumb of such organizations as the RIAA and the MPAA and so on. So this movement was more to show our American friends that we feel their pain and offer our support.

Living outside of America we have little way to impact the situation on any governmental level but we can always speak with our wallets. And that’s what today and this movement is all about. Will it change the overall outcome? Probably not, but a petition doesn’t sting nearly as much as lost revenue. Consider us and all the other international supporters on American Internet Radio, the constituency who vote with their wallets.

So I stick to my guns; DON’T BUY MUSIC TODAY, MAY 15th, AND STAND UP FOR INTERNET RADIO.

Tags: internet, music, radio, riaa