Petteri Pyyny
26 Jul 2002 15:03
Three House representatives, Rick Boucher (D-VA), George Nethercutt (R-WA) and Jay Inslee (D-WA) introduced a new bill, dubbed as Internet Radio Fairness Act that would save small webcasters from the death.
Librarian Of Congress set the new webcasting royalty fees in June and since that, several small webcasters have either ceased their operations or are planning to do so. According to Rep. Boucher, "both the CARP and the Librarian of Congress were working under a flawed law that has produced a royalty rate which harms not only the hundreds of webcasters that have already shut down operations, but also Internet users seeking innovative music programming and artists seeking alternative avenues through which to promote their music."
According to the new proposed bill, small operations with less than $6M of annual revenue, would be exempted from the webcasting fees. Also, all future CARPs must change the royalty rate standard from the current "willing buyer/seller" model to the "traditional standard" which was created back in 1976.
Read more from the Radio And Internet Newsletter.