Day of Silence an Effective CRB Protest?
I’ve seen a few stories go by on a day of silence protest among internet radio stations to protests the CRB’s recent rate hikes. Thankfully they are also encouraging folks to call their duly elected representatives. The latter is as effective a strategy as any. But a day of silence?
I hate to suggest anyone break the law, but if a calling campaign is not enough, wouldn’t an outright refusal to pay the new rates send a stronger message than essentially doing nothing? If the CRB is trying force out the smaller fish, the ones who they don’t think are worth doing business with, won’t this just whet their appetites? I suppose that if the bigger fish the CRB would rather keep around participate, it might send some sort of message, but at that point a sustained boycott would make more sense.
What is one day? Are any of the license terms fine grained enough for that to even register regardless of the rate? If the big players are unwilling to participate, if the licenses are too dear to them, well, then the fight just got a lot harder. Of course, if the rate structure is less of a drag on the bigger webcasters, which I believe it is, then that is going to be the biggest challenge to any sort of economic feedback. It might just take one biggie with a decent sense of fair play, perhaps, to hurt the CRB where they will feel it. Again, assuming you can go silent enough days to make a difference based on how often the rates are collected.
So everyone call your representatives. Be polite and stay on point. And if anyone works at any of the larger licensees, please talk to your bosses. Having a Yahoo! hold out long enough to pinch is going to do a lot more than anything else I can think of. Well, anything legal anyway.
