Looks like the US Copyright Office has denied requests for a re-hearing on the issue of the new royalties structure for internet radio stations. For those who haven’t been following the issue, the RIAA in early March successfully got the US Copyright Office to accept a new set of exorbitant song royalty fees for netradio stations(full decision here). All is not lost, as a new bill (HR 2060) has been introduced in Congress that would roll-back the Copyright Office decision. The "Internet Radio Equality Act" does a number of cool things:
- nullifies the recent Net Radio decision
- changes rate-setting standard to match satellite
- sets minimum annual royalty per service no higher than $500
- establishes a new transitional rate until 2011-2015 CRB hearing
- expands Copyright Act Section 118 for noncomm webcasters and sets transitional rate
The deadline for action is May 15, when the new rate structure is supposed to go into effect. So contact your congressperson! Go to RAIN and SaveNetRadio.org for details.