New Net Radio Rates

[Lazaro Vega]

Hi all -

More details on the new royalty rate:

The Copyright Royalty Board has announced new rates and terms that apply to

digital streaming of sound recordings over the internet. The new rates

represent a steep increase over the rates that broadcasters previously paid

to stream their stations' broadcasts. A good summary and analysis of the

ruling is here:

http://www.kurthanson.com/archive/news/030207/index.shtml

Highlights:

The new rates for commercial webcasters are:

$.0008 per performance for 2006

$.0011 per performance for 2007

$.0014 per performance for 2008

$.0018 per performance for 2009

$.0019 per performance for 2010

The transmission of a song to each listener is considered a performance.

Thus, transmitting one song to 500 people would be considered 500

performances. It has been estimated that in the case of a commercial

webcaster with an average of 500 listeners at any moment, broadcasting 16

songs an hour, 24 hours a day, this would result in a payment of about $211

a day for 2007, annualized to $77,015 a year. These rates are retroactive

through the beginning of 2006.

Noncommercial webcasters playing LESS than 159,140 aggregate tuning hours

per month (less than approximately 221 listeners in any given hour) are only

required to make the minimum $500 payment.

Note: these new rates apply only to the sound recording component of the

broadcast - that is to say, to the performer or record label. Royalties for

the underlying musical compositions are collected by ASCAP, BMI and SESAC.

The current ASCAP and BMI licenses permit broadcast radio simulcasts from a

station's website. SESAC requires a separate license.

There's some movement among webcasters and web radio fans protesting the

agreement, more information at: savethestreams.org and

saveourinternetradio.com. I'm looking into other avenues besides

petitioning congress and will forward what I hear.

All the best,

Jean Cook

Future of Music Coalition

www.futureofmusic.org

Edited March 8, 2007 by Lazaro Vega

[Lazaro Vega]

Royalty-Rate Hike Alarms Web Broadcasters

Small Radio StationsFear

Increase Will Force Them

To Abandon the Internet

By SARAH MCBRIDE

March 7, 2007; Page B1

Internet radio broadcasters face the alarming prospect of paying much higher royalties to song performers, a burden that could silence some online stations.

The Copyright Royalty Board, an obscure federal agency charged by Congress in late 2004 with setting sound-recording royalty rates for online radio stations, has carried out its mandate -- with the result that some broadcasters could be on the hook for millions of dollars more than they had planned.

The rates set by the board, effective retroactively to 2006, start at .08 cents per song, per listener. While that might not sound like much, it rises every year and adds up fast. And that's in addition to the sizeable royalties Internet radio companies pay to the songwriters and composers of the underlying works. "With these rates, there's no Pandora," asserts Tim Westergren, co-founder of Pandora.com, an online radio service with about six million registered users.

The schedule is likely to take up a big part of the agenda at a congressional hearing on the future of radio scheduled for today. RealNetworks Inc., a Web company, is among those testifying. While the hearings aren't expected to affect the new rates, the industry can appeal the decision at the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals.

But it's the small broadcasters that are hit especially hard. Until now, Congress has kept the stations' royalty costs artificially low to encourage a nascent industry. Previously, those smaller groups could pay 12% of revenue to a music group called SoundExchange, which collects royalties for digital spins of a song and doles them out to song performers and record labels. Because the smaller stations paid a percentage of revenue, they never faced a situation where their royalty bills exceeded their operating revenue, as many will now.

At the same time, music labels facing faltering revenue have been eager to make sure that everyone pays for their music. The board's new rates appear to be close to those sought by SoundExchange, an offshoot of the Recording Industry Association of America that now operates independently. But the Internet radio broadcasters say the rates hit one of the few bright spots in the moribund music business and thus end up shooting the labels in the foot. "People buy a lot more music because of what they hear online," says Mr. Westergren of Pandora.

"Internet radio is one of the best things happening to the record industry," agrees Kurt Hanson, owner of the online radio company, Accuradio. The entrepreneur calculated that under the old rules Accuradio's sound-recording royalty payments last year would be about $50,000. But under the new schedule, Mr. Hanson figures that his bill now amounts to about $600,000 -- more than all of last year's revenue from his radio Web site.

The rates also hit public radio stations like those affiliated with National Public Radio, which has been charging hard into online music. The public-radio stations were previously allowed to pay a flat fee under a separate negotiation with the music industry association. Now the stations will be subject to the new rates, after a small number of exempted hours of streamed music.

"NPR is consulting with the public-radio community to determine what steps must be taken to reverse this decision and its dire consequences on public service media," says spokeswoman Andi Sporkin.

Internet radio counts over 50 million listeners in the U.S., many of them tuned in to tiny, niche-oriented online broadcasters. That's well in excess of the 14 million or so subscribers satellite radio can claim. Satellite radio pays sound-recording royalties under a different schedule that was separately negotiated with the music industry; it too is up for renegotiation.

The schedule highlights an inequality that has rankled many online entrepreneurs for years. Regular radio stations don't pay royalties to performers for their over-the-airwaves broadcasts, although they do pay royalties to composers and songwriters. "It's flat out unfair," says Jonathan Potter, executive director of the Washington-based Digital Media Association, which represents online music companies such as AOL. His organization is weighing its options, which include appealing the new schedule within 15 days. Judge James Sledge, who oversaw the proceedings at the Copyright Royalty Board, says the schedule "is our best determination" given the boundaries established by Congress.

Write to Sarah McBride at sarah.mcbride@wsj.com1

Edited March 8, 2007 by Lazaro Vega

[Lazaro Vega]

http://news.com.com/2001-1_3-0.html?tag=prntfr>

e7cb6b9.jpg

http://www.news.com/2001-1_3-0.html?tag=pr...//www.news.com/

New Net radio rules draw fire on Capitol Hill

By Anne Broache

http://news.com.com/New+Net+radio+rules+dr..._3-6165336.html

Story last modified Thu Mar 08 06:01:00 PST 2007

WASHINGTON--A key Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives on

Wednesday slammed new federal rules that would require many Internet radio

services to pay higher fees to record companies.

Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) had harsh words for

http://news.com.com//2061-10799_3-6164865.html a ruling released Tuesday

by the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board. It proposes raising the amount that

commercial Internet radio services pay to record companies by 30 percent

retroactively to 2006 and in each of the next three years through 2009.

Each station would have to hand over a minimum $500 royalty payment.

The pricing inquiries arose in part because Mel Karmazin, CEO of Sirius

Satellite Radio, whose proposed merger with XM Satellite Radio is being

scrutinized by House members, seemed to indicate at a House hearing last

week that prices would never increase, even on the combined service.

"This represents a body blow to many nascent Internet radio broadcasters

and further exacerbates the marketplace imbalance between what different

industries pay," Markey said at

http://energycommerce.house.gov/cmte_mtgs/...ure_radio.shtml a

hearing here titled "The Future of Radio". The hearing was convened by the

House panel on telecommunications and the Internet, of which Markey is

chairman. "It makes little sense to me for the smallest players to pay

proportionately the largest royalty fee."

Before http://www.loc.gov/crb/proceedings/2005-1/...terms2005-1.pdf the

CRB's new rules (PDF), which are subject to appeal, most Webcasters

calculated their requisite royalty rates based on a percentage of their

revenue. According to calculations by the Radio and Internet Newsletter, an

advocate for Net radio services, the new retroactive 2006 rate would

require Webcasters to pay approximately 1.28 cents per listener per

hour--enough to cripple some smaller services, the group argued.

"One can easily imagine Web radio looking more and more homogenized,"

--Robert Kimball, general counsel, RealNetworks

The CRB's decision has imperiled Webcasters by widening the gap between

what Internet radio and satellite radio services must pay, RealNetworks

general counsel Robert Kimball told politicians. He was also speaking for

the Digital Media Association, whose members include Amazon.com, Apple,

Microsoft and MP3.com, a property of CNET Networks, publisher of News.com.

If the decision is not overturned, "one can easily imagine Web radio

looking more and more homogenized," Kimball said. That's because the higher

rates may force Internet radio operators to reduce the number of songs they

carry or increase their advertising prices and frequency, which could make

it a less desirable place for advertisers to invest, he said.

Kimball suggested the

http://news.com.com//2061-10802_3-6160483.html proposed merger between XM

and Sirius should be put on hold until Congress "corrects the Copyright

Act's bias against the Internet," thereby allowing Internet radio companies

to compete more fully with satellite firms.

For instance, the Copyright Act prohibits Internet radio from offering its

own recording devices and portable radio devices, but it does not levy the

same restrictions on other radio services, Kimball said. (A recording

industry-backed effort is under way in Congress, however, to

http://news.com.com//Senators+aim+to+restr..._3-6149915.html impose

new restrictions on satellite radio devices.)

Copyright law also places a number of programming restrictions exclusively

on Webcasters, Kimball said, including forbidding them from announcing

upcoming songs and playing more than two songs consecutively or four songs

over a three-hour period by the same artist.

Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) said she believes Internet radio could face

threats from another source: "broadband providers who have the ability and

incentive to limit consumers' access to the content of their choice." She

called for passage of

http://news.com.com//Net+neutrality+showdo..._3-6055133.html Net

neutrality legislation, which failed to pass Congress last year, that would

prohibit such a practice.

Questions about XM-Sirius

Although Internet radio played some role in the hearing, many politicians

continued to focus their questions about the proposed $13 billion merger

between satellite radio players XM and Sirius.

Just a week after a House panel that oversees antitrust issues

http://news.com.com//House+panel+grills+Si..._3-6163223.html grilled

him, Sirius CEO Karmazin agreed to field similar questions from Markey's

committee.

Several politicians on the committee, including Markey, said they planned

to scrutinize the proposed deal for potential conflicts with the public

interest. Some voiced outright reservations about approval of the deal.

"It's hard to see how prices of satellite radio will go down" as a result

of the merger, said Rep. Gene Green (D-Texas).

The broadcast industry opposes the deal on the grounds that combining the

two companies would amount to a government-sanctioned monopoly. Consumer

groups also have voiced fears that the merged entity would result in higher

prices for satellite subscribers.

Karmazin again argued the combined companies would give more programming

choices to listeners and would not result in raised prices--at least on the

individual services. He reiterated that the same receiver would be able to

get content from both services, eliminating the need for customers to

purchase another device if the deal goes through.

"You will not pay more than $12.95 for that service after the merger," he

told the committee. He added that the combined company plans to offer the

option of purchasing smaller batches of channels for a lower price.

Pressed by Markey on the combined company's pricing plans, Karmazin

acknowledged that customers who want to receive content from both XM's and

Sirius's previous offerings may have to pay more than $12.95. He declined

to give an exact figure but estimated that price would be "closer to $10"

less than the $25.90 it would currently cost to subscribe to both services.

It will ultimately be up to the Federal Communications Commission and the

U.S. Department of Justice to decide whether the merger favors consumers or

would hinder competition. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin made it clear as

recently as an interview published Wednesday in The New York Times that the

companies have high hurdles to jump. The Senate Judiciary Committee also

has http://judiciary.senate.gov/hearing.cfm?id=2601 scheduled its own

hearing on the matter for March 20.

CNET News.com's Desiree Everts contributed to this report.

Edited March 8, 2007 by Lazaro Vega

[Chalupa]

So how will this effect podcasters???

[Uncle Skid]

Here's an interesting perspective: The View from Paradise.

There has been much discussion about how unfair these rates are, but our listeners find one fact particularly apalling: while Internet stations like ours are being told they must pay royalty fees that exceed their income, sometimes by several times over, FM stations - including those owned by media conglomerates like Clear Channel - pay nothing at all!

[Lazaro Vega]

That's not true. FM channels pay BMI and ASCAP rates to broadcast FM. Those royalties go to composers, though, not performers. These web cast rates go to performers. And these rates apply to podcasters. Podcasting music is about impossible if you follow the rules as "on demand" downloading of music is seen (not by me but by these lobbies who've written the laws) as a point of purchase as opposed to listening.

Now that I've read the article they do deal with this issue. This, too, about the laws governing program on the web: "Their reasoning was that a digital radio transmission was not a radio broadcast at all, but a sequence of perfect digital copies of music performances provided to the user, who could then copy them rather than paying to own a CD."

This is the point where things went completely wrong. People listen to the radio to fullfill their imaginations. A very small percentage to "steal" music.

Edited March 8, 2007 by Lazaro Vega

[Neal Pomea]

Now that I've read the article they do deal with this issue. This, too, about the laws governing program on the web: "Their reasoning was that a digital radio transmission was not a radio broadcast at all, but a sequence of perfect digital copies of music performances provided to the user, who could then copy them rather than paying to own a CD."

This is the point where things went completely wrong. People listen to the radio to fullfill their imaginations. A very small percentage to "steal" music.

It's easier to copy an FM transmission on cassette and listen to it later. I don't know how to copy a stream. If I did, what is the difference between the two kinds of copying?

[Jim Alfredson]

Now that I've read the article they do deal with this issue. This, too, about the laws governing program on the web: "Their reasoning was that a digital radio transmission was not a radio broadcast at all, but a sequence of perfect digital copies of music performances provided to the user, who could then copy them rather than paying to own a CD."

A perfect digital copy?!? Are these people out of their minds?! Internet streams are at best low quality with lossy compression and at worst completely shitty (like 64kbps streams that most radio stations use). That doesn't mean people won't listen, but they are certainly NOT perfect digital copies of CDs. Ridiculous.

[ghost of miles]

Thank God Markey went on the attack about this today on the House floor. We're still trying to sort out how it affects public radio media (it does) & hoping that NPR/CPB will go to the mats for us on the Hill, which I think they will. This is ridiculous.

[Lazaro Vega]

(Copy of letter sent to Congressman Markey via his web site. Also

phoned his office with thanks).

Thank you Congressman Markey for your advocacy of more intelligent

rules and fees for Internet web streaming services.

I'm the Jazz Director at Blue Lake Public Radio (www.bluelake.org) and

the over regulations of programming content in the DMCA -- where you

may only play 4 pieces by the same artist in the a 3 hour period --

makes it impossible to broadcast a radio program which gives the

listener a true idea of the depth and scope of Duke Ellington's

contribution to American culture, for instance. It isn't just

Ellington, though, it is the entire 78 rpm era, the Swing Era, which

is forgotten in this legislation. Of course that was America's

greatest musical era. What's ironic is that music from the 1920's and

1930's has survived every technological advancement known to modern

man starting with acoustic recording, then electric recording, then

radio, then long playing microgroove recordings and on and on -- even

digital audio tape. But it managed to stay connected to the people, to

the music's audience. The DMCA programming regulations separate the

music from anyone interested in hearing it in depth via the web. Depth

is what educational, non-commercial programming provides. Yet that

strength isn't allowed on the web stream, not without the work of

getting web stream waivers from the copyright holders. However the

majority of labels who hold the rights to the 78 rpm era won't sign.

They say to block the stream when doing that kind of programming.

Keeping the music from the audience is antithetical to a radio

station's mission.

In any case, thank you for your advocacy of something other than the

profit motive. Radio is about connecting with people's imaginations,

not their wallet. The rules overlook the fact that people use the

radio to listen to music and that listening and purchasing are two

separate activities. The way the web streams are being regulated it is

as if each listener is using the stream as a delivery system for

purchasing music, and that's a fundamental mis-reading of the

audience.

Of course broadcasters should pay to be on the web -- that's not the

issue. The issue is fairness and, especially, keeping the audience in

mind. It's the only way music will stay "on the air."

Thanks again,

Lazaro Vega

Jazz Director

Blue Lake Public Radio

300 East Crystal Lake Road

Twin Lake MI 49457

WBLV FM 90.3/WBLU FM 88.9

www.bluelake.org

[Neal Pomea]

Nice letter, Lazaro!

On another note, if a musician's work is performing music, I would like to know why a recording is considered a performance. It is not. It is just a record of one performance, maybe several performances spliced together. It's no more of a performance than me audiotaping myself at work, then playing it back and claiming that it is me performing my job. I can't mail in my tape to my boss and say "See, I am performing my job." I need to perform my job over and over again. The musician needs to, also, in my view. Why the special meaning of "performance" for musicians, actors, etc. ? I think that if the public looked at it this way, they would wonder about this stretch of the language and the success of the music lobbies' special pleading. As much as we want to support artists, this stretch of the language that makes copyright the means of economic support is just too much, tending toward absurdity. IMHO. True, you wouldn't pay a thing to hear a tape of me performing my job, in contrast with a musician's performance. I just mean that this should be covered by contract law instead of playing around with the language to make it a thing covered by copyright law. The Supremes went down a slippery slope a long time ago when they called playing back a recording a performance.

Edited March 9, 2007 by It Should be You

[Dan Gould]

Now that I've read the article they do deal with this issue. This, too, about the laws governing program on the web: "Their reasoning was that a digital radio transmission was not a radio broadcast at all, but a sequence of perfect digital copies of music performances provided to the user, who could then copy them rather than paying to own a CD."

A perfect digital copy?!? Are these people out of their minds?! Internet streams are at best low quality with lossy compression and at worst completely shitty (like 64kbps streams that most radio stations use). That doesn't mean people won't listen, but they are certainly NOT perfect digital copies of CDs. Ridiculous.

That's true, but I have a very decent sounding digital recording of Organissimo's performance on Blue Lake a year or two ago. I just ran Goldwave while the show streamed and the results are more than listenable.

[Lazaro Vega]

The one with Arno?

Our friend in Ohio, Jerry Lynch, has recorded nearly every web cast we've done since first going on the web. It is a good solution for listening to a program that goes until 3 a.m. He can listen on his own time, and he'll BUY the music he hears that he enjoys. Not to mention he has great taste.

Edited March 9, 2007 by Lazaro Vega

[Jim Alfredson]

Nice letter, Lazaro!

On another note, if a musician's work is performing music, I would like to know why a recording is considered a performance. It is not. It is just a record of one performance, maybe several performances spliced together. It's no more of a performance than me audiotaping myself at work, then playing it back and claiming that it is me performing my job. I can't mail in my tape to my boss and say "See, I am performing my job." I need to perform my job over and over again. The musician needs to, also, in my view. Why the special meaning of "performance" for musicians, actors, etc. ? I think that if the public looked at it this way, they would wonder about this stretch of the language and the success of the music lobbies' special pleading. As much as we want to support artists, this stretch of the language that makes copyright the means of economic support is just too much, tending toward absurdity. IMHO. True, you wouldn't pay a thing to hear a tape of me performing my job, in contrast with a musician's performance. I just mean that this should be covered by contract law instead of playing around with the language to make it a thing covered by copyright law. The Supremes went down a slippery slope a long time ago when they called playing back a recording a performance.

I agree wholeheartedly.

Now that I've read the article they do deal with this issue. This, too, about the laws governing program on the web: "Their reasoning was that a digital radio transmission was not a radio broadcast at all, but a sequence of perfect digital copies of music performances provided to the user, who could then copy them rather than paying to own a CD."

A perfect digital copy?!? Are these people out of their minds?! Internet streams are at best low quality with lossy compression and at worst completely shitty (like 64kbps streams that most radio stations use). That doesn't mean people won't listen, but they are certainly NOT perfect digital copies of CDs. Ridiculous.

That's true, but I have a very decent sounding digital recording of Organissimo's performance on Blue Lake a year or two ago. I just ran Goldwave while the show streamed and the results are more than listenable.

It can sound decent, but I guarantee its not as good as the CD of said performance I have here sitting on my desk. And it certainly is not a "perfect digital copy".

[Dan Gould]

Yes, the one with Arno.

[WD45]

Now that I've read the article they do deal with this issue. This, too, about the laws governing program on the web: "Their reasoning was that a digital radio transmission was not a radio broadcast at all, but a sequence of perfect digital copies of music performances provided to the user, who could then copy them rather than paying to own a CD."

A perfect digital copy?!? Are these people out of their minds?! Internet streams are at best low quality with lossy compression and at worst completely shitty (like 64kbps streams that most radio stations use). That doesn't mean people won't listen, but they are certainly NOT perfect digital copies of CDs. Ridiculous.

That's true, but I have a very decent sounding digital recording of Organissimo's performance on Blue Lake a year or two ago. I just ran Goldwave while the show streamed and the results are more than listenable.

There are some stations that stream at 1411K uncompressed, the same level as CD. That is better than FM quality. KEXP in Seattle is doing this. I requires big tubes, but you can do it.

[Lazaro Vega]

Big tubes in their servers? Man, that has to be expensive, just paying for the bandwidth. I wonder how many on-line listeners that allows. They must have the Stay Puff marshmallow man as a sugar daddy. All sugar. Sucrose to burn.

[Lazaro Vega]

>From AllAccess.com:

As ALL ACCESS reported on MONDAY (NET NEWS 3/12), NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO is planning legal action aimed at overturning a ruling from U.S. Copyright Royalty Judges that raised royalty fees for webcasters. Now we know that legal action will come tomorrow, as NPR VP/Communications ANDI SPORKIN said in a statement, "NPR will begin on FRIDAY, MARCH 16 by filing a petition for reconsideration with the COPYRIGHT ROYALTY BOARD panel."

SPORKIN called the CRB's ruling "a stunning, damaging decision for public radio and its commitment to music discovery and education, which has been part of our tradition for more than half a century. Public radio’s agreements on royalties with all such organizations, including the RIAA, have always taken into account our public service mission and non-profit status. These new rates, at least 20 times more than what stations have paid in the past, treat us as if we were commercial radio -- although by its nature, public radio cannot increase revenue from more listeners or more content, the factors that set this new rate. Also, we are being required to pay an Internet royalty fee that is vastly more expensive than what we pay for over-the-air use of music, although for a fraction of the over-the-air audience.

"This decision penalizes public radio stations for fulfilling their mandate, it penalizes emerging and non-mainstream musical artists who have always relied on public radio for visibility, and ultimately it penalizes the American public, whose local station memberships and taxes will be necessary to cover the millions of dollars that will now be required as payment. We ask that the online royalties be returned to their historic arrangement and that public radio can continue to provide its vital service to music discovery."

[chris olivarez]

Now that I've read the article they do deal with this issue. This, too, about the laws governing program on the web: "Their reasoning was that a digital radio transmission was not a radio broadcast at all, but a sequence of perfect digital copies of music performances provided to the user, who could then copy them rather than paying to own a CD."

A perfect digital copy?!? Are these people out of their minds?! Internet streams are at best low quality with lossy compression and at worst completely shitty (like 64kbps streams that most radio stations use). That doesn't mean people won't listen, but they are certainly NOT perfect digital copies of CDs. Ridiculous.

Jim's right. The quality or the lack thereof would make burning a disc of an internet stream not worthwhile.It's really just for listening.

[chris olivarez]

We've gone through this before with these parties trying t gouge the fuck out of us. If that becomes enforceble we'll have to shut our streaming down.

[alocispepraluger102]

AP

Broadcasters Challenge Streaming Rules

Monday March 19, 7:12 pm ET

By Seth Sutel, AP Business Writer

Radio Stations and Online Broadcasters Challenge Copyright Ruling on Internet Royalties

NEW YORK (AP) -- A wide array of broadcasters and online companies on Monday challenged a ruling from a panel of copyright judges that they say could cripple the emerging business of offering music broadcasts over the Internet.

Clear Channel Communications Inc., National Public Radio, and groups representing both large and small companies providing music broadcasts online were among those asking the Copyright Royalty Board to reconsider key parts of its March 2 ruling.

That ruling, the challenging parties say, would greatly increase the amount of royalties that online music broadcasters would have to pay to record labels and performers as well as put unreasonable demands on them to track how many songs were listened to by exactly how many individuals online.

The royalties in question only apply to digital transmissions of music, such as through Web sites, and are paid to the performers of songs and record labels. Webcasters also pay additional royalties to the composers and publishers of music, similar to those also paid by over-the-air broadcasters.

Digital performance rights were originally granted to record companies in 1995, in part with the intention of protecting them against the possibility that digital transmissions could erode the sales of CDs.

Under a previous arrangement, which expired at the end of 2005, broadcasters and online companies such as Yahoo Inc. and Time Warner Inc.'s AOL unit could pay royalties based on estimates of how many songs were played over a given period of time, or a "tuning hour," as opposed to counting every single song.

Jonathan Potter, the executive director of the Digital Media Association, which represents major online companies affected by the decision, asked that the judges specifically allow a per-tuning-hour approximation measure for paying the royalties.

Potter also asked the judges to clarify a $500 annual fee per broadcasting channel, saying that with some online companies offering many thousands of listening options, counting each one as a separate channel could lead to huge fees for online broadcasters.

NPR argued in its filing Monday that the new rules would have "crippling effects" on public radio's ability to meet its mandate of serving the public interest, and it also objected to the $500 per-channel minimum fee.

A group of commercial broadcasters including San Antonio, Texas-based Clear Channel, the largest radio company in the country, also asked for a reconsideration of key parts of the ruling, saying that the methods used to calculate the fees were faulty.

The motions filed Monday covered relatively technical aspects of the ruling and mark the first of what is likely to be other legal challenges to the decision.

NPR said in its filing that it also intended, in due course, to appeal the overall decision by the copyright judges to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington.

A previous agreement covering small commercial webcasters, which also expired at the end of 2005, allowed those companies to pay a flat rate of 12 percent of annual revenues in lieu of calculating the total number of listener-hours as larger broadcasters and Web companies were required to.

The ruling makes no such provision, something that those companies are asking the judges to reconsider.

SoundExchange, an entity that collects royalties from digital music broadcasters and distributes them to rights holders, has said the ruling was fair and that the rapid growth in advertising revenues from online music broadcasting would more than allow webcasters to cover the new fees.

SoundExchange pointed to research finding that those ad revenues grew from $50 million in 2003 to $500 million last year.

[ghost of miles]

Bad news

[ghost of miles]

Clem,

I'll have to PM some remarks off-the-record, but my primary concern is the ability of Lazaro, Steve Schwartz, others, and yes, yours truly to be able to continue doing jazz programming via the web. Always the terrestrial audience to fall back on, of course, but the challenge & ability to try to construct shows for passionate fans around the globe has been invigorating...and I for one am going to sorely miss it if we're forced to cut back or eliminate Internet streaming.

[alocispepraluger102]

is 'retroactive' much of the problem?

[Lazaro Vega]

Blue Lake will no doubt pay the $500. Our web stream is limited to 70 or 75 users at any one time and has never maxed out -- it certainly doen't during jazz at night when the on-line audience on a good night is around 20.

The problem with this, pepsi-Lynch, is the cost. The new regs are cost prohibitive if you build a large audience for the programming, which used to be the point. It is no longer the point of internet transmissions. Ass backwards.

The entire "problem" revolves around the erroneous assumption that web stream radio tranmissions are a music delivery system, as in everyone who listens is using the system to download and store music, which led to rules where station's can't play more than four selections by a featured artist in a three hour period, post their playlists in advance, or otherwise do what radio has always done. And now the station's are being charged as if everyone who listens is actually a buyer. The "recording industry" has been trying to do this at least since cassette tapes and they finally found lawmakers who are more concerned with business than the audience which fuels it. Nothing about the regulation of web streaming music has benefited music or it's audience, though there's nothing wrong with artists being paid for their productions. Artists, however, will not be the big winners here if radio just says to hell with streaming. Limiting choices, again. Today's America.