So once I plugged back in, I learned that Internet radio will survive! We knew it would, but it tok a lot of voices to make it happen. Here's the scoop as stolen from the Little Radio website:
SoundExchange's Jon Simson promised Congress that his organization, which collects all the future and retroactive payments made by webcasters, will not enforce the rate increase as long as a new deal is in the works between SoundExchange and the webcasters involved in the Copyright Royalty Board hearing. The per-channel minimums are also removed from the discussion, they would have easily shut down companies like Pandora and Live365. And the per-station minimum was also capped at $50,000 a year. This is fantastic news.
According to Wired Magazine's blog Listening Post, Pandora founder Tim Westergren's said, "No one thought those per station fees were remotely rational. It only makes sense that they're being taken off the table." And remember the Copyright Royalty Board? They set those ridiculous fees and got the government involved in this whole process without even taking a meeting with webcasters. Thankfully, they've been left out of the entire process from here on out. SoundExchange and webcasters will now negotiate a new royalty rate with Congress overseeing the whole process.
Isn't that rad? I'm so glad. And soon, I'll tell you about some of the things I saw last week. Like the Decemberists. Yay!