Most RECENT Blog
Topic:
To See All of Scott's Blog Posts, Click Here >>>
Help! (We need "A Little Help from our
Friends!")
December 20, 2007: As you may have heard,
charitable donations are way down at most
non-profit organizations this year, and we are
included in that statistic! (unfortunately).
New Memberships and donations are the lowest
this month, December, 2007, since any month that
we have run this service since the year 1999. To
help us not "Just Fade Away," please consider a
Membership and take advantage of the extra
Membership premiums that we are now offering -
or our Two-For-One Free Annual Gift Membership
option - send a Free Annual Membership as a gift
when you start an annual Membership for
yourself!
See details and start your Membership here >>>
If you are an existing Member, please consider
an extra tax-deductible gift if you are able.
We will also send you the option of taking extra
CD premiums if you like. Here's a link to
our extra donations page >>> or use the
standard Membership pages here >>>
Thank you for your support and for using our
service!
Coolstreams / Music Sojourn NEW POD
Format Update
(September, 2007)
As you may have noticed by now, we have
completely redesigned our POD (Programs On
Demand) Series' Section, making the Series
pages much easier to view and navigate, and
presenting the most recent ("Freshest") POD
Sets right up front on the main page of each
series. Our Freshest POD sets now open in a
new player window with an embedded Windows
Media or Apple Quick Time player, and
information on each set.
We hope that these changes make using the
Freshest POD features much easier.
We began these revisions in early July and
had hoped to have all series' completed by
Labor Day, but life interfered (plus the
project proved more complicated than we
thought) and we missed that target for
several series.
Note that the new series pages also have new
URL's. If you have bookmarks, you should be
automatically redirected to the new pages,
or see the bottom of this message for a
listing.
Series' remaining to be completed are Lost
Oldies, Alt-80, Celtic Rock, Paul Ingles
Features, and also Soul of the Web which
will now be teamed with Lost Oldies under
Popular.
We hope to have most of these remaining
series completed by the end of this month,
and we will then focus on making the
remaining site pages easier to navigate and
use also. Until then, updates on the
completed series will be fewer, and we will
resume a more frequent update schedule as
soon as possible.
WHY WE MADE THE CHANGES
-----------------------------------
The primary reason for changing to an
embedded player window was to eliminate the
problems that many listeners had with the
Freshest POD features depending on which MP3
player they used (e.g.: iTunes player users
would almost never get the programming in
the order that we presented it).
However, the more significant change
is that, with the new format, we can now
more easily and more rapidly program our POD
Features in "Sets" much like our original
POD "programs." We still believe that the
Quality of carefully selected and ordered
"Sets" of music are what sets our
programming apart from the masses of random
song streams that are available elsewhere.
While that may not be for the masses, we
hope that you, our supporters and members,
agree and can appreciate the new
presentation format. As always, we are
interested in your feedback, so please feel
free to respond with your thoughts or
suggestions.
We will also continue to present our older
POD Programs occasionally under the
"Archive" tabs on each series', and as time
goes on, the new Set format will also be
featured there. Note that the MP3 buttons on
the Old Programs will still open your
default MP3 player at this time (or you can
also still use the old Real Player buttons
there).
Once we have completed the changes, we also
hope to be able to incorporate YOUR
Listener/Member designed sets into the
programming as well!
Thanks again for your continued support and
for your patience while we complete these
improvements!
Scott Ericson
Here's a list of the series that are
completed and the new URL for each:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alt Aspects:
http://musicsojourn.com/POD/Alt/AA/index.htm
Ambient Caverns:
http://musicsojourn.com/POD/Ambient/AC/index.htm
Celtic Currents:
http://musicsojourn.com/POD/Celtic/CC/index.htm
Coffee House:
http://musicsojourn.com/POD/Folk/CH/index.htm
Folk Rock Cafe:
http://musicsojourn.com/POD/Folk/FR/index.htm
Nightshades Prog:
http://musicsojourn.com/POD/Prog/NSP/index.htm
Retro Rock Adventures:
http://musicsojourn.com/POD/Prog/RRA/index.htm
Timeless Canyons:
http://musicsojourn.com/POD/Ambient/TC/index.htm
------------
A Special Important
Scott's
Blog Topic Reposted here also:
If you would like to read more of
Scott's
Blog Posts, Click Here >>>
If you have
already read this and stopped back here,
Click here to support us with your Memberships and
Donations >>>
UPDATED September,
2007:
The tug of war over the new
Internet Radio Royalty payments DRAGS ON, BUT
YOU still need
to take action to help:
EMAIL OR CALL YOUR
CONGRESSPERSON NOW TO ASK THEM TO CO-SPONSOR H.R.
2060, THE INTERNET RADIO EQUALITY ACT!
A bill has been
introduced in Congress that will save Internet
radio from the devastating royalty fee increases
that will put thousands of Internet webcasters out
of business on July 15th. Please call or email your
Representative in Congress as soon as possible and
urge them to co-sponsor H.R. 2060, the Internet
Radio Equality Act.
When calling or emailing,
please consider adding these talking points:
- PLEASE CO-SPONSOR H.R.
2060, THE INTERNET RADIO EQUALITY ACT!
- One of the internet
radio services I use is Coolstreams. While
the IRS has determined that Coolstreams operates
in the public interest as a PUBLIC CHARITY, the
Internet Radio royalty rates implemented by the
Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) on March 2, 2007,
might force this NON-PROFIT Internet Radio Site
to close, and I do not want to see that happen.
- H.R. 2060 will make
the Internet Radio Royalty fair for Non-Profit
organizations like Coolstreams and other
Non-Profit Organizations who offer Internet
Radio Streaming.
If you need help to find
your member of congress, you can use this lookup
page on the SaveNetRadio.org web page to find them
by zip code:
Find your Representative by zip code >>>
EMAILING your
representative takes just a little more work.
There is no central listing of Representative's
email addresses, so you must visit their web site
to find this - HERE is a listing of most
Representative's web sites:
Find your Representative's Web Site & Email >>>
Please remember to
include the points above in your messge!
If you would like to read
more detail about this issue,
click here >>>
Thank you!
Prior posting:
A
convoluted new Tale of "The Good, (The Bad) and
the Ugly."
Two important events that impact our future
occurred in the first Quarter of 2007:
The Good: In a strange
twist of logic, the IRS is actually the GOOD in
our story because they have approved Coolstreams
(including Music Sojourn) as a Tax Exempt public
charity under IRS section 501(c)(3). That means
that YOU now may be able to
claim your donations AND Membership fees to
Coolstreams as a tax deduction! >>>
The BAD: Well, the weather has been
fairly lousy throughout much of the U.S. this
winter & spring. While that has not affected us
too much, there is, unfortunately, ...
The Ugly: At almost the same
time as we received the GOOD news above (early
March, 2007), the Copyright royalty board decided
on new internet radio (webcasting) royalties. A
combination of onerous new per song rates and per
stream minimums have caused a new uproar in the
internet radio industry, with most independent
outlets claiming that the new rates will exceed
their total incomes, some claiming by 25% to
50% above their total revenues. Rather than try to
rewrite what many others have covered well
elsewhere, I will include some additional reading
links for you below.
Many of the larger players (including National
Public Radio) are currently preparing appeals to
try to have these rates adjusted or repealed. This
will play out over the month of April and possibly
into May & June, 2007. For now, WE must assume the
WORST CASE (meaning that the current rates prevail
without amendment).
As a small specialty webcaster, the worst case
WILL impact us badly also. While we are still not
certain of the total impact (as some aspects of
the decision still need some interpretation), we
are pretty certain that this will cause us to make
changes in our programming going forward in order
to survive.
Specifically, any areas of
Coolstreams' programming that are not well
supported by
Memberships and Donations will probably need
to be discontinued due to these new minimum
royalties.
We hate to drop ANY programming that we have
already identified and produced as an area
supporting our mission, but lack of enough
support to at least cover the new minimum royalty
rates to stream them will leave us with no
alternative.
This is the time to show your
financial support for the specific programs that
you enjoy and use on Coolstreams. It may be too
late by May or June.
Click here to support us with your Memberships and
Donations >>>
People say yes to our programming. It is time to
say yes to supporting us financially!
If you are not a Member, please say yes to our
reasonable
Membership options now. If you are a
current Member, please say yes to an
extra donation. Either way, your Membership or
donation (or both) can be tax deductible for you,
and you can also say yes to some great music
premiums from our Member Premiums section!
On our
Member's sign-up form, you can select one or more
programs that you wish to support and help keep
alive on Coolstreams. Your selections on our form
is critically important, and just about the only
way that we will know which areas we can keep
alive if we are forced to that decision.
Thank you for reading and
caring!
Click here to support us with your Memberships and
Donations >>>
UPDATE:
If you are a current Member and have read
Scott's Blog notes above about the new Royalties
and how it may affect programs and streams that we
offer, you may wish to complete our
CoolStreams Member's Programming Support
Designation form to support the Program Series
and Coolstreams that you use most. For the
CoolStreams Member's Programming Support
Designation form,
click here >>>
Special note for performing artists:
If you are an independent artist that is receiving
airplay on one or more of our programs, please
also consider either a small donation, or a
donation of some extra CDs that we can offer as
Member Premium incentives. Either your donation or
the value of your donated CDs is also a tax
deductible contribution for you!
Click here to support us with your Memberships and
Donations >>>
Here are some good links to
read more about these issues (all open in a new
window):
If you would like to read
more of Scott's
Blog Posts, Click Here >>>
UPDATE:
If you are a current Member and have read
Scott's Blog notes above about the new Royalties
and how it may affect programs and streams that we
offer, you may wish to complete our
CoolStreams Member's Programming Support
Designation form to support the Program Series
and Coolstreams that you use most. For the
CoolStreams Member's Programming Support
Designation form,
click here >>> |
