Well, I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later. Personally I never much cared for “internet radio” since I generally prefer video game midis to traditional music.

The U.S. Copyright Office decided Thursday to charge webcasters 70 cents per song heard by 1,000 listeners, or half of what a government panel had proposed in February.

Traditional radio broadcasters have been exempt from paying the royalties for each song played — the standard that is now being applied to webcasters. Broadcasters successfully argued before lawmakers that they already were promoting the music.

After the recording industry failed to impose new royalties on traditional broadcasters, the industry turned to webcasters and got what it wanted with a 1998 law

Personally I don’t blame the internet radio stations for not wanting to pay for the crap that passes for music these days. I’ll stick with my Billy Joel cd and let them figure out how to save their corporate ebroadcasting which caters mostly to hicks and commie youth.

---

Filed under: Uncategorized - @ June 24, 2002 3:08 am