ivibes posted this:

"The webradio industry have been waiting for some time now for the final decision from the american government regarding payment-rates for streaming music on the internet. A couple of weeks ago the decision was made.

As many feared the US Copyright Office decided that all streaming webradios would have to pay quite a large fee to be allowed to continue their broadcasts. The Congress have decided that radio's broadcasting on the internet only will have to pay 0.07 cent per song per listener. If your broadcast got 1000 listeners it means you have to pay $70 per song you play.

The American Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel (CARP) even wanted the fee to be twice as high (0.14 cent) but luckily their demand wasn't complied.

But even if CARP and RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) probably aren't 100% satisfied with this outcome it will sure mean the death of many webradio's out there. Most existing radios won't be able to afford such a cost, and they will shut down their transmissions. Another solution for them is to move their broadcasts to non-US servers.

It has also been decided that on or before October 20 this year, webcasters must make a full payment for all music they've played from October 28th 1998 up until August 31st, 2002.

This rule will apply to all webcasts residing on US-servers, meaning that also European channels broadcasting from USA will be affected (like Digitally Imported).

Within a few months I think we will see other countries changing their fee's on music broadcasted on the internet too, since it is actually pretty cheap right now (main cost is the bandwidth usage)."


Are the americans getting out of their mind? This is non-sense...
Here at europe we don't have problems with discographic companys cause they know it's better for them. American companys are destroying themselves

___________________
INTERNET'S COOLSTUFF NEWSPAPER Funstuff Blog!