Category: News & Entertainment

Internet radio providers could pay millions

As hopefully you’ve noticed, on the banner at the top of my blog, we’re still waiting/hoping and fighting for our rights to broadcast music on OrangeNoiseRadio. New rules could force Webcasters to pay higher royalty fees and additional administration fees – fees that are much greater than those paid by satellite and terrestrial radio counterparts.
RealNetworks, Yahoo, Pandora and our hosting company, Live365 have told Congress that the new administration fees could cost $1 billion a year. That’s a lot of money going to waste if you ask me.
From CNet:

Here’s how they say they derived that figure: When the CRB decided earlier this year to change the rules for Internet broadcasters, it also decided to levy a $500 minimum annual fee per Internet radio “channel.” SoundExchange, the non-profit music industry entity that collects the royalty and other fees on behalf of record labels, says that minimum payment is supposed to cover administrative costs.
But since some of the larger Internet radio services potentially offer their listeners hundreds of thousands of unique “channels” (RealNetworks’ Rhapsody offered more than 400,000 in 2006 alone, according to a company spokesman), the companies view the ruling as forcing them to multiply that mandatory minimum payment accordingly (for Real, that would amount to $200 million).
Such an amount would far outpace the $20 million in total royalty fees collected by SoundExchange from the Internet radio industry last year, the CEOs note in their letter. And besides, it’s not even clear that those payments would go to artists, as royalty payments do, the companies argue.

So we have until July 15 to hopefully save Net Radio.
What can you do?
Visit SaveNetRadio.org to get informed and to send letters and/or call your congressional leaders and get them to back and co-sponsor The Internet Radio Equality Act, H.R. 2060, and S. 1353.
If you’re in the Waxahachie area, Joe Barton is your representative. You can call his Washington office at: (202) 225-2002 or send an email via his website: http://joebarton.house.gov.
Also, anywhere in Texas, our U.S. Senators are Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn.
Call Kay Bailey at: (202) 224-5922 or contact her via her website: http://www.hutchison.senate.gov.
Call John Cornyn at: (202) 224-2934 or via his website at: http://cornyn.senate.gov.
Your help is greatly appreciated!

The times are a changin’

More from the DMN (via The Times of London):

The Times of London reports that the second most popular name for baby boys in Britain (after Jack) is Muhammad.
The name is likely to be No. 1 by next year.
In official lists, the paper reports, no one variant of the name is that high in popularity. But when all 14 possible spellings are added together, Muhammad (or Mohammed or Muhamad or … you get the idea) soars.
“Overall, Muslims account for 3 per cent of the British population, about 1.5 million people,” The Times reported. “However, the Muslim birthrate is roughly three times higher than the non-Muslim one.”
In Arabic, Muhammad means “one who is praiseworthy.”

Maybe I’m missing something here, but it’s wrong to make a cartoon with Muhammad because it’s irreverent, but it’s OK to name your kid after him? I guess different cultures see irreverence as different things.

Growth, growth, growth

The numbers are in from NCTCOG and according to their estimates, Ellis County’s population has grown 4.37% over the last year. That’s 6,050 people in 12 months, or roughly 16 new people moving in to the county every day. That’s a little lower than other figures I’ve heard recently. Some have suggested there are 22 new people moving in to the county every day.
Either way, that’s some rapid growth. Red Oak tops the list with 16.13% growth, despite everyone hating on their police department for alleged traffic ticket quotas.
Folks in Ferris, Italy, Ovilla and Palmer can rest assured though. They’ve apparently brought in no additional folks to their quaint towns.

Read the full report for the North Texas Region.

Grapevine Rail

The city of Grapevine is getting new passenger rail service. It should be in place by 2012.
Voters passed a three-eighths of a cent increase in the sales tax to approve building a new extension of the old Cotton Belt line that will connect Grapevine with DFW Airport, and later the DART Rail System, Colleyville, North Richland Hills and the Fort Worth Stockyards.
It will also pass by Haltom City, Richland Hills and Southlake.
With proposed extensions, the southernmost stop would be near Texas Christian University at Berry Street in Fort Worth, with other stops in the Medical District, downtown and near Interstate 35W north of 28th Street.
This was a smart move by Grapevine as they didn’t wait for the Texas Lege to get anything done this session – good thinking because I don’t think anything did get done this session.
The Legislatures were expected to consider removing the 8.5 cent sales tax cap for cities wanting to increase their sales tax for public transportation infrastructure, like passenger rail.
But now Grapevine is ahead of the curve and the new rail service is sure to bring even more economic development to the area.
Startlegram writer OK Carter had an analyst/overview of the decision by Grapevine in Sunday’s paper.
I’d love to see a rail line extended into Waxahachie.
The NCTCOG has proposed a rail line that would extend to downtown Waxahachie, make a stop at 287 and 77, another stop in Red Oak, and a final stop in Lancaster before arriving at Union Station, connecting passengers to the rest of the DART and TRE lines.
I know Laurie and I would surely take advantage of the system if it was in place here.
The COG estimates the cost would be $266.66 million.
In Grapevine, the county tossed in $25 million to the rail and the COG is expected to throw in $60 million.
If Waxahachie could get a similar deal, (unlikely since the county just passed a $53.8 million bond issue for facilities) the remaining $181 million could be divided by all three cities bringing the cost to around $61 million each.
It’s going to take some serious sales tax revenue increases and/or a property tax increase to see that kind of money raised. But if the people want it, they can make it happen.
Just gotta remember to shop Waxahachie and start bugging the city council members about it.
With a downtown station and a station at 287 and 77 you can just imagine the growth Waxahachie could see. That 4.67% that COG is talking about could really rise quickly.
If I remember correctly, DART has said in the past that in every area where they’ve built a light rail station, they’ve seen an average of $3.3 million invested into new commercial and residential improvements.
That’s a lot of money that could come to downtown Waxahachie and add some needed retail, eateries as well as upstairs living spaces, such as lofts.

Read the latest COG report.

A Fat Rant

A Fat Rant.

A family friend seems to be making it pretty big on YouTube. Joy Nash was interviewed on Entertainment Tonight for her YouTube video, Fat Rant. Over 775,000 views. Not bad.
From my mom:

Have you seen the video on the web called Fat Rant? It has created quite a stir. The creator and star in it happens to be Joy Nash. Do you remember her. Perhaps you were too young when they moved to California. Anyway, her dad was best man in our wedding. We were watching Entertainment Tonight last night, and they showed part of the video and interviewed her. Almost at the end it hit me….Joy Nash…..could it be? I hadn’t seen her in years (she was just a little girl when they moved), but she was the right age for the Joy I knew and looked like pictures I’d seen. Fred called John, her dad, and sure enough, it was her.

Checked out her website, and this is actually how I remember her (I think we might have even had this pic on our fridge at one point):