Hundreds of U.S. commercial webcasters are going silent today, June 26, to protest to an impending royalty rate increase that could threaten their ability to make money broadcasting mainstream music.

Yahoo! is one of the Internet radio broadcasters that has announced that it is going silent: “Apologies to anyone who was hoping to listen to free LAUNCHcast today. We‚Äôre shutting down the Internet‚Äôs #1 radio service for the day to draw attention to the outrageous rates recently set by the Copyright Royalty Board in Washington, D.C.”

Our apologies to Yahoo!, Live365, RealNetworks, MTV, Pandora, and others that seem to think that this is the day that the music dies, but we’d like you to consider that this is also an Internet Radio Day of Freedom:

• It’s a Day of Freedom from hearing Phil Collins singing Sussudio. It’s a Day of Freedom from hearing Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder’s soulful Ebony and Ivory. It’s a Day of Freedom from hearing Skyrockets in Flight…. Afternoon Delight by the Starland Vocal Band.
• It’s a Day of Freedom from listening to Michael Bolton ask the question we really don’t want him to be asking, Can I Touch You There?
• It’s a Day of Freedom from hearing the Black Eyed Peas singing that immortal line, “My hump, my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump, my lovely lady lumps.”
• It’s a Day of Freedom from the Academy Award-Winning Djay f/Shug track It’s Hard Out There For A Pimp. It’s a Day of Freedom from Laffy Taffy by D4L, and She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy by Kenny Chesney, and I’m In Love With A Stripper by T. Pain with Mike Jones, and the Pina Colada Song by Rupert Holmes.
• It’s a Day of Freedom from hearing Achy Breaky Heart by both Billy Ray Cyrus and the plastic fish.

Fortunately for music fans, there are thousands of free music podcasts that feature great music that you can legally download and share over the Internet. We highlighted a collection of great music podcasts recently with our 31 Days of Free Music project.

It may be too expensive to play Phil Collins on Internet radio, but it’s still free to podcast some of the best music in the world. Here are a few podcasts you might want to check out while Yahoo! sits the day out:

• Free guitar music from Ottmar Liebert
• Flyinshoes Radio‚Äôs free americana music
• Blibb Blobb explores the world of 8-bit music
• The Irish and Celtic Music podcast
• Free jazz music videos from Jon Hammond
• The Acousticity podcast offers free acoustic music from singer/songwriters and folk musicians.
• The Renaissance Festival podcast features free music from Celtic, Irish, Scottish, English and Gypsy folk musicians.
• Free ambient music is featured in the Daily Ambience podcast.
• The Grateful Dead podcast features classic Dead performances that you can download.
• Groove it like Grandma with a free music podcast featuring antique phonograph recordings.
• Punk rock lives with GaragePunk, a podcast of free punk rock music.
• Girls, girls and more girls are featured on Rubyfruit Radio, a podcast of free music from indie female musicians.

There are thousands of other indie podcasters whose shows feature music that you won’t hear on mainstream radio because it’s not music that the music industry thinks it can make a lot of money with. But if you don’t find something you like, today would also be a great day to start your own free music podcast:

• Here’s a quick introduction to how to podcast.
• Here’s a short guide to how podcast feeds work.
• Jamendo, Magnatune, DMusic, Soundclick, Opsound and SectionZ are a few of the places you can get free music to podcast.
• If you have legal questions, check out Colette Vogele’s great Podcasting Legal Guide.

If there’s a terrible song that commercial radio plays to death that we missed, let us know in the comments. And if you have a great free music podcast, feel free to pimp it in the comments, too!