Last month we posted a letter from Radio Indie Pop’s Rob Sacher, in which he discussed the potential decision to jack up the royalties paid by internet radio stations to artists and labels. In a news story today on Billboard.biz (via Coolfer), it looks like webcasters are one step closer to opening up their wallets.
According to the Billboard article, a panel of copyright judges denied requests by webcasters to reconsider their decision to raise royalty fees. In fact, the only break that internet broadcasters will be given is that they will be able to calculate fees by average listening hours rather than the new system which counts every time a song is heard by an online listener. Unfortunately, this is only for 2006. From now on, the new per-song per-listener rubbish goes into effect.
While the larger media companies should be able to keep their online stations operational, we are concerned about some of our favorite independent webcasters. This will obviously have a painful impact on their finances, just showing yet another example of the industry shooting themselves in the foot by eliminating another important form of promoting artists. Terrestrial radio is in the crapper, and it looks like online radio won’t be far behind.
The read the whole scoop, head over to Billboard.biz.
