Most statistics put streaming internet radio as one of the most common things people listen to when working on their computers either at home or at an office every single day. Everybody's learned by now that listening to music while you work not only helps you feel better but keeps you more intellectually inspired, even if you're doing a job on the computer you don't exactly love. It's possible, though, that some of those sites that provide radio stations may end up getting shut down soon due to a federal copyright law enacted in 2007 by the Copyright Royalty Board that says internet radio sites have to give more than double in royalty payments from what it once was for close to ten years.
It's why automated music sites such as Pandora are saying that something needs to be done soon or they may go bust. The situation isn't all that surprising, though, when you consider how many people get music from the internet now with artists fully aware and wanting their fair share. Especially when an artist gets their music played more often than not on the internet than on over-the-air radio, the move is on to get as much compensation out of that format from what was possible before. After all, we've seen iTunes and all other music services get hammered by lawsuits via ASCAP lately for not doling out heavy-duty profits made on phenomenally popular songs by the usual artists.
And because that's happening, you're going to start seeing attempts to appeal some of these rulings with probable war going on into the coming decade between sites providing music content and the artists who won't ever let themselves get screwed again as so many have in the past by record companies. Yes, that's a good thing, to a point.
Some kind of compromise needs to be done, however, to ensure that the other side also makes a profit. When the Copyright Royalty Board made a decision in 2007 that artists will get double the royalty payments after a song gets played on various automated music sites, the general statement was that internet radio would then go bankrupt before the end of the decade. Of course, the board (basically a trio of over-the-hill copyright judges and the Supreme Court of the copyright world) refused to compromise. Ultimately, it forced one thing: A new counterattack bill in the U.S. House of Representatives…
The Internet Radio Equality Act…
When introduced just a month after the CRB decision, it was supported immediately and was eventually introduced as a bill to the Senate that summer. A year later since its creation, it's unfortunately gone into limbo, hence threatening the internet radio industry more than ever as of this writing. In the bill was a true act of fairness to the whole system where the internet radio stations would pay a set rate of 33 cents per hour for every recording listened to by users. There was also the second option of paying out 7.5% of any royalties made in a given year.
There was undoubtedly some influence by the highly-influential ASCAP and BMI in putting the bill in limbo despite the fairness of the system. However, flat rates bother a lot of artists, particularly when millions are downloading their songs and expect to get compensated based on how many times someone plays the song. Now it makes execs at various internet radio sites sweat when a song becomes a massive hit, because the doubled royalty rate will take a huge chunk away of their profits at the end of the year.
Well, the internet radio industry did all they could to garner support for the bill. They even banded together to take part in a “Day of Silence” campaign to show what it would be like for one day if all internet radio wasn't around. Frankly, they should have done it for a week to really make it settle in to people's minds.
Not that that the listening public has any control over it. In fact, they probably don't care about the details, just as long as they can still get access to the music they want to hear. As for the artists, they seem to be in better shape than ever with the thought that if internet radio goes belly-up, they still have many other online options to promote themselves. Nevertheless, internet radio is still one of the most important tools for marketing an artist online.
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If the whole mess can't be fixed, some of the internet radio companies will move to other countries where the royalty payments aren't nearly as bad. Canada seems to be the next best choice, particularly because they aren't all that far away.
Yes, Canada seems to be the place where Americans always escape to when things are going awry here in times of war, government corruption and now unfair media laws…