After decades of talking and singing about it, the date for the death of music has finally been set — it’s Tuesday. No, not really, but many webcasters including Live365, Launchcast, MTV, RealNetworks and others will pull the plug on their broadcasts that day to protest the looming increase in the royalty rates they pay. It is being billed as a "Day of Silence."

As we have written about before, many webcasters say the new rates are so high they will be forced off the air. The new rates are scheduled to kick on July 15th. Legislation is working its way through Congress that would knock down the new rates, which were levied by SoundExchange.

"On Tuesday, thousands of webcasters will call on their millions of listeners to join the fight to save internet radio and contact their Congressional representatives to ask for their support of the Internet Radio Equality Act," declared Jake Ward, spokesman for the SaveNetRadio coalition.