With a little help from its friend, Internet radio is fighting back against the Copyright Royalty Board's decision to implement a harsh new fee structure. Luckily, Webcasters have National Public
Radio on its side. On Friday, public radio officials will file a petition to get the CRB to reconsider. If that fails, NPR has vowed to bring legal action against the oversight body, which was created
by Congress to settle royalty disputes in the music business.
An NPR spokeswoman called the ruling a "stunning, damaging decision for public radio" that could cost as much as 20 to 30
times what stations now pay in royalties. Tim Westgren, founder of Pandora, a service that connects users with Web stations based on their music preferences, says NPR, Pandora and other Internet radio
companies will challenge the CRB's decision collectively.
Web broadcasters want to see royalty fees returned to the original structure set up in 2002, whereby they paid $0.07 for
songs played simultaneously over terrestrial radio, and $0.14 for songs played only on the Web. Under the new guidelines, simultaneous performance fees would climb to $0.19 by 2010. The CRB also set a
flat royalty fee for public broadcasters at $500 per month--but only for certain listening hours; almost all station owners operate beyond those. Worse, for small stations owners, they used to pay
royalty fees equivalent to 10 to 12 percent of revenues, now they too must pay per-song fees.
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