The Webcasting Royalty rates have been determined as of June, 2002.  While they were reduced a little, we will still have to raise several thousand dollars in order to be able to pay the fees which are retroactive to 1998.  We also have server charges coming due very shortly, so we will need to raise roughly $4,000 to $5,000 by the end of July to cover the balance that will be due.

We would hate to eliminate the Free service, but if still we can't convince more of our large number of visitors who have not become members to join and support us, we may be forced to.

So please consider becoming a Member or increasing your Membership at whatever level you can afford.  You can easily join at our entry level for just $26.00 via PayPal and do YOUR part to help ensure that we can continue to be here.

SPECIAL THANKS to those of you who have contributed directly by check or money order!  We realize that it is not as convenient, but it provides us with an extra 6 - 16% that we would lose to the 3rd party (Amazon, PayPal) credit card processing costs!  For more information, click here.

SPECIAL THANKS ALSO to all of you listeners who have supported us in any way,  through Memberships, or making purchases through our affiliate links.

---------------

If you are still not quite sure what this is all about, here's a good article on ZDNet that summarizes it all pretty quickly:

"Save Internet Radio: Here's Why and Here's How"

You can also visit: Save Internet Radio.org

For more press coverage and articles of interest, click here

You alone may not be able to save all of Internet Radio, but you CAN save Music Sojourn!  Your Membership to Music Sojourn, at whatever level you can afford, can allow us to be able to pay the Royalty bill when it comes due and continue to be here adding new programs and music long after May 21.

-------------

Here's some additional info from the previous announcements:

These Royalties are on top of the Thousands of Dollars we already pay for ASCAP, BMI and SESAC artist performance Royalties.

We just don't get significant income from ads on the website because running non mainstream programs like Echoes, FM Odyssey or Celtic Currents just does not bring enough visitors for the millions of page views required to generate a few bucks from ads.  The only way the site has been able to meet expenses to date is from the few dedicated listeners who have chosen to support us by becoming Members.  Unfortunately, the majority of people who visit to listen to Echoes and the other programs do not support us directly.  Purchases through Amazon and CDnow help a little, but we would have to have EACH LISTENER purchase dozens of CDs PER MONTH to support us at a level that we would need to afford just these royalty fees!

The bottom line for us is that we may need to raise thousands of dollars just to pay the RIAA Copyright Royalty for the streaming of Echoes and the other shows to date, and then start paying an additional royalty rate of possibly hundreds or more per month in these fees at the current usage rates.  Plus, we will have to raise even more funds to develop systems to track the details of song usage required by the new laws.

So, basically, we're going to have to change things.  The most reasonable solution is to significantly reduce the amount of free content, and make the remainder of the content available under our Membership system.

There will still be a lot of FREE programming on the site via the Live 365 MP3 stereo streams, already available here (click here), but we also wonder how long Live365 can survive under these terms.

We do think that we will be able to survive serving a Membership base, but ONLY IF we are successful with enrolling enough new members to allow us to develop the tools and systems necessary to operate.  If not, then we won't have any alternative but to close up and move on to more boring jobs somewhere else.

There will be more information about this posted on the web site in the coming weeks, and please also check back to this page.

Please click here to support us directly and become a Member!

SPECIAL THANKS to those of you who have contributed directly by check or money order!  We realize that it is not as convenient, but it provides us with an extra 6 - 16% that we would lose to the 3rd party (Amazon, PayPal) credit card processing costs!  For more information, click here.

Scott Ericson