WIRED Blogs on New rates for Wecasting (prohibitive webvasting rates will choke net radio)

This development is worrying, for sure. Rather than going for a revenue share that could be added to a minimum fee (per channel, or per user?) , the proposed rates will simply make webcasting utterly impossible. Keeping in mind that - unlike traditional radio - the costs of providing streams actually go up proportionally with the # of users, too, these licensing costs would be commercial suicide.

So where does that leave webcasters: direct licensing (tedious but maybe a good alternative), move to different countries?  Be sure to check the comments - some good stuff here.  But once again: here is another example of killing the golden goose. Arghhh!

WIRED Blogs: Listening Post.

Those fees will add up quickly for larger webcasters; the Radio and Internet Newsletter (RAIN) calculates that, assuming that the average station plays 16 songs per hour, sites would have to pay "about 1.28 cents" per listener per hour using the 2006 rate, and would owe this retroactively, in addition to licensing fees going forward.  RAIN's math indicates that the rate would render Internet radio unsustainable, or at the very least, more ad-laden than terrestrial radio -- and that's before the songwriters' licenses are taken into account:

    "Even adding in ancillary revenues from occasional video gateway ads, banner ads on the website, and so forth, total revenues per listener-hour would only be in the 1.0 to 1.2 cents per listener-hour range.  That math suggests that the royalty rate decision — for the performance alone, not even including composers' royalties! — is in the in the ballpark of 100% or more of total revenues."