"America's fledgling Internet radio industry could be effectively killed on
May 21st if the Librarian of Congress (1) accepts the recommendations of its
recent Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel ("CARP") concerning Internet
radio royalty rates and (2) sets impossibly-complex recordkeeping
requirements.Congress passed a law in October, 1998, called the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) which established that webcasters must pay royalties to record labels for the music they play. However, the CARP's recommended royalty rates are currently more than 200% of most Webcasters' gross revenues! If Copyright Office accepts the CARP's recommendation, most observers believe that the decision will effectively kill Internet radio, as the retroactively-owed fees would bankrupt all but the very largest Internet-only webcasters (and would probably trigger the shutdown of most broadcast stations' Web simulcasts, including almost all the educational and community stations )." To find out more about this & what you can do go to http://www.saveinternetradio.org/ ******************************************** Kate Bennett www.katebennett.com sponsored by Polysonics Discover the Indies at Taylor Guitars: http://www.taylorguitars.com/artists/awp/indies/bennett.html ********************************************
