Tomorrow, June 26, the SaveNetRadio coalition has called for a national day of silence to protest higher royalty fees that go into effect July 15. The new fees effectively put out of business the smaller Net radio stations.  Yesterday, Adam Curry made a great point about the situation. The increased fees apply to all music by default, but other agreements can take precedence. Therefore, if someone sets up an alternative system for granting performance rights for music, broadcasters could continue so long as they only use music from the alternative system.

Well, Adam already did this a couple years ago.  It's called the PodSafe Music Network. In the spirit of the Internet, it's a route around an obstruction, in this case the RIAA. While most of the content there is indie, there are some big name acts. There are definitely some great acts there that aren't big names but should be, such as Brother Love.

One of my favorite Net radio stations is SOMA.FM's Boot Liquor station. The overwhelming majority of the content on there is no major label content. It's music I haven't heard elsewhere. It's entirely possible for those acts to make themselves podsafe. And I wouldn't be surprised if an artist like Willie Nelson could make his catalog podsafe. This is how we change things on the Internet. It's the PBS model to annoy their listeners until they get enough money.  The Internet model is to stop whining and start routing around: do it yourself.