A Rep. Jay Inslee bill (H.R. 7084) to prevent a dramatic increase on the fees that Internet radio sites like Pandora pay to the recording industry passed the House today.
Back in 2007, the federal Copyright Royalty Board passed a ruling raising the fees that webacsters had to pay—the rates would have gone up by as much as 300 percent, which would have crashed Internet radio.
SoundExchange, the group that collects the fees, said they were willing to negotiate lower rates, but any deal like that would have had no authority in light of the CRB ruling, which means SoundExchange always had the upper hand in the negotiations, and ultimately, could have collected the steep fees.
The effect of today’s vote, which passed unanimously on a voice vote, is to table the CRB ruling and give authority to any future deal that is struck between the recording industry and webcasters.
For background on the story go to SaveInternetRadio.org
But Josh, the internet is like a series of tubes and what will we do when all the tubes get filled up by internet radio?
Awesome. I love Pandora.
@1- we’ll buy another tube, of course! And put lots of shopping around it. Oh, and build a big park on top. ;)
Who give’s a royal shit that Inslee is looking at Internet Radio right now, how about closing all the F’n loopholes Bill Clinton signed causing the wiping out of the Glass-Steagall Act causing the F’n collapse of our Financial Markets today.
Reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act before signing any F’n tax payer bail out.
A 700 F’n Billion dollar whopper bailout withough stopping the bleeding is like giving a F’n blood transfussion to a patient with a Leg cut off that doesn’t have a tournicut.
How Stupid is this Pelosi Congress anyway?
DAMN!
Great news! I love Pandora and it would have been a crime that they would be forced out of business because of this.
re 4: The Republican Executive, Senate, and Congress had six years to fix this problem.
I guess thay were too stupid to see it.
I mean, really, with a free market, shouldn’t it have fixed itself?
Looks like momentum is building to dump Palin among conservativedom’s finest. Of course, this would be catastrophic for McCain because it would prove he made a rash, impetuous, ill-advised, and disastrous decision when he picked her. (All of which happens to be true.)
Quote Of The Day
“John McCain wants us to think he’s a man of character when he’s actually just a character.” — Jonathan Alter in Newsweek
Off By Half
John McCain said in last night’s debate that America buys $700 billion of oil a year from countries hostile to us.
According to FactCheck.org, U.S. oil imports are $536 billion a year, a third of which come from Canada, Mexico, and the U.K. Even if all the other countries we import oil from are considered “hostile” (e.g., Nigeria), that still amounts to roughly $357 billion — only half of McCain’s figure.
7
Hey Rog ol’ rabbit pal, got any links to back that up? Not that I don’t believe you, I just like reading them. :)
Good. I have been waiting for this for quite a while. Inslee is to be commended for taking the initiative on this. It’s a nice win for the little guys (and truth be told, some not so little guys, but by and large Internet radio is dominated by small businesses — I remember reading that Live365 has something like two dozen employees, and I think Pandora is similar).
At least Congress did something right this week.