"I've said all along, we are in this together." John Simson, executive director of SoundExchange - the royalty collecting arm of the RIAA - extends an olive branch through 2008 that will cap the advance payments internet broadcasters will have to cough up at $2500 per year. This comes in the wake of the Day of Silence, (it was June 26, did anyone notice?) spearheaded by Los Angeles-based terrestrial/online radio station KCRW (home of the brilliant Morning Becomes Eclectic) and SaveNetRadio, during which some of the biggest names in online radio - include Live365, NPR and Pandora - went dark for 24 hours, airing a one-hour broadcast twice during that day on the history of flat fees in public broadcasting. [direct .mp3, 38mb] Under the much-maligned changes made by our government's Copyright Royalty Board, the top six internet radio stations would have had to pay 47 percent of their total revenue (anticipated to be around $37.5 mil.) to the RIAA, starting this July. The Internet Radio Equality Act [summary, in its entire pdf glory] has been introduced to the House of Representatives, seeking to permanently reverse this decision.
posted by phaedon on Jul 3, 2007 - 69 comments

April 14, 2005: The Day of Truth. On April 13th thousands of students will don black-and-red t-shirts and remain quiet for the ninth Day of Silence in order to "recognize and protest the discrimination and harassment--in effect, the silencing--experienced by LGBT students and their allies." But this year the Alliance Defense Fund, "a legal alliance defending the right to hear and speak the Truth [yes, "Truth" is capitalized] through strategy, training, funding, and litigation," plans to add a twist to the occasion by following up with its so called Day of Truth in order to protest the homosexual agenda and promote their interpretation of Christianity. Though in their "Hostile Questions" section they claim they're not Day of Silence copycats, in addition to the silent treatment like their DoS foes students who register will receive t-shirts and explanation cards to distribute to inquiring minds, albeit with a slightly altered message. But will it draw participants? Well, Clint Armstrong can't wait--he staged a protest of his own last year.
posted by schroedinger on Apr 13, 2005 - 43 comments

Since 1996, the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network has sponsored an annual national Day of Silence event to help create safer schools for all students, "regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression". Today is the 7th time such an event has been held across the country. Are you participating? What is school like for you in this context?
posted by WolfDaddy on Apr 9, 2003 - 22 comments

May 1st Day of Silence Hundreds of Internet radio stations and channels across America are shutting off their music streams on Wednesday, May 1st, in a "Day of Silence" to highlight their concern over the upcoming U.S. Copyright Office ruling on royalty rates that may shut down or bankrupt the vast majority of the nascent Internet radio industry. Write your senators and congressmen and women--Here's how--the Copyright office (info here) and the press. Please note: Letters to the editor (which must be entirely original and not contain any pasted material) can also be sent to your local daily & weekly papers. In both cases we recommend that you send a copy of your message to all of your congressional representatives. See congress.org for email addresses. A copy via fax is also recommended, since faxes often carry more weight than email. Snail mail to Congress these days is very slow, due to the anthrax screening. Please write, this is important. And thank you, Su, for reminding me.
posted by y2karl on Apr 29, 2002 - 2 comments

today is the day of silence, which was originally a project to raise awareness about hate crimes towards gays, but has been modified by many organizations (including my college) as a blanket protest against hate crimes. is "deliberate silence" an effective way to "end the silence"? if you've ever participated in the day of silence, was it harder than you expected to keep quiet all day?
posted by rabi on Apr 10, 2002 - 17 comments