Internet radio stations reject discounts

SOME SMALL Internet radio broadcasters are rejecting an offer from the music industry to discounted royalty rates for screaming music online for four years.

The music industry group that collects royalties from webcasters and distributes them to artists and record labels, offered to cut the amount stations pay by ten percent if the stations earn less than $1.25 million a year.

The small stations think that is already too high and the move has been designed to break up the lobby group of small interweb broadcasters.

According to Associated Press, Bill Goldsmith, who operates a small commercial Internet radio station called RadioParadise.com said the proposal is not viable.

A group of small broadcasters had been negotiating with SoundExchange for some months and Goldsmith claims the outfit only offered the deal as an attempt to "divide and conquer" the community of smaller webcasters and reduce his group's clout.

SoundExchange only negotiated at all after the small broadcasters managed to get support for their cause from the Senate. Senators were a little concerned that the amount of cash that SoundExchange wanted was going to stick Internet radio out of business. Since SoundExchange is closely connected to the RIAA, more cynical types might think that was the idea in the first place.

More here. µ