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1. Comment - Record Industry Proposes Huge Streaming Royalty Fees

   (Mar 7, 2007 - 1:00 AM)

   PC_Tool, you don't seem to understand this.
   
   Terrestrial radio pays $0 in performance royalties (they only pay small songwriter royalties, which Internet radio also pays). Why should Internet radio have to pay millions, while conglomerates like Clear Channel pay nothing? Internet radio services have plenty of expenses just like terrestrial stations, including bandwidth costs, personnel costs, hardware costs, and more.
   
   Webcasters aren't arguing that there should not be royalties. They have been paying them for years. They aren't even arguing that the royalties should be as low as terrestrial royalties. They just want the royalties to be at a reasonable level such that the services can continue to operate.
   
   The bottom line is that there is little (if any) money being made in the Internet radio market today. Even if Internet radio were able to capture the same ad rates as terrestrial radio, the ad revenue would not cover the new royalty rates.
   
   There's no reason why any Internet radio service would continue to operate a business (or hobby) when one source of costs alone accounted for more than the potential revenue of such a service.
   
   The only thing for the Copyright Office to do is to truly educate themselves on the economics of this business and establish a rate that encourages Internet radio services to grow into a profitable industry that benefits listeners, artists, labels, and Internet radio services. If the current decision stands, Internet radio will likely go away and all will lose.
   
   I wrote my congressman today, and suggest you do the same.