Internet Radio lives - SoundExchange will not enforce new royalty rates

by Brad Linder Jul 13th 2007

New royalty rates affecting online radio stations are set to take effect Sunday. But SoundExchange, the group responsible for collecting those royalties now says it will not enforce the new rates.

The news came out of a Congressional hearing on Thursday, and follows months of heated discussions. Webcasters say the new rates are high enough to put almost every internet radio station out of business. A coalition of webcasters held a day of silence protest last month, and Congress is considering legislation that would change the way rates are calculated.

SoundExchange says it will not enforce the new fees until a new agreement can be reached that would let stations like Pandora, Last.fm, and Radio Paradise remain on the air.

Tags: netcaster, online radio, OnlineRadio, soundexchange, webcaster

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

iamhoff said 12:59PM on 7-13-2007

Amazing! How in the hell did anybody in Washington find common sense?

Omegar said 1:00PM on 7-13-2007

wouldn't it be easier to move last.fm servers and/or pandora servers OUT of the US and give the chance to the users to "correct" the mistake they made when they said in their registrations that they were inside the US?
I am sure it would be quite difficult for any organization to collect these fees from Sweden, or the Cayman Islands...

Andrew Schrock said 8:39PM on 7-14-2007

Excellent and surprising news.

Featured Time Waster

Civiballs is a beautiful, soothing physics puzzle Time Waster

I have an absolute weakness for physics games, and while Civiballs isn't the strongest physics-based game, what it lacks in the physics department it makes up for a few times over in style and fun.

In Civiballs, you are presented with a few colored balls, and your goal is to get those balls into the same-colored urn on the level. The "civi" part of Civiballs is that there are 3 sets of levels to play, each representing a different civilization. While the civilization doesn't affect gameplay, the artwork for each level is beautifully themed to it's appropriate era.

To play the game, you are given only one tool - a sword with which to cut the chains that are holding the balls. The puzzle part of the game is in figuring out what order, and with what timing to cut each chain. Do it right, and all the right balls end up in the right urns, with no stray balls entering an urn (a no-no). Do it wrong, and you get to start over again.

Civiballs is not terribly deep on gameplay; the entire game can be completed in about 15 minutes. But if you enjoy this type of game, it will be a very enjoyable 15 minutes.

View more Time Wasters