Internet Radio, Listen up! Options

[*superstitious*]

Internet Radio Will Go Silent on June 26th

"Thousands of U.S. webcasters plan to turn off the music and go silent this Tuesday, June 26th, to draw attention to an impending royalty rate increase that, if implemented, would lead to the virtual shutdown of this country's Internet radio industry. In March, the Copyright Royalty Board announced that it would raise royalties for Internet broadcasters, moving them from a per-song rate to a per-listener rate. The increase would be made retroactive to the beginning of 2006 and would double over the next five years. Internet radio sites would be charged per performance of a song. A "performance" is defined as the streaming of one song to one listener; thus a station that has an average audience of 500 listeners racks up 500 "performances" for each song it plays."

From Slashdot, further discussion at Lawbean.

A charge per performance of a song? Seems a little steep to me. Personally, I've almost entirely migrated from standard radio to internet based radio (with Pandora being among my favorites). I also listen to NPR online (and I love that NPR is opposed to the CRB on this).

It's bad enough that we (listeners) had to deal with the freedom of speech nazis that call themselves Clear Channel Communications, but now this?

[Detective]

This is ridiculous. why would they wanna charge us?

[*superstitious*]

This is ridiculous. why would they wanna charge us?

They're charing the internet DJ's and such, those who broadcast the music.