You certainly have heard of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) but have you hear of CARP? The Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel is appointed by the US Copyright Office and reports to the Libraian of Congress. According to Salon.com
…under the DMCA, radio stations must pay a fraction of a cent per song, per listener, for every song they stream. Under the CARP ruling, Internet-only radio stations would pay a royalty fee of 14/100 of a cent per song, per listener, retroactively through October 1998. Webcasters are up in arms — while they are not opposed to the principle of royalty fees, they say the rate structure is far out of balance to the economics of these tiny, often one-person operations.
Fees could jump from about $1000 to $350,000 says Rusty Hodge of Internet radio station SomaFM. He and other Internet radio folks have formed a group called Save Internet Radio. The group is refuting the assertion that, although digital, the information broadcasted in Internet radio is a \”perfect copy,\” (due to degredation in compression which is a key bit of language in the DMCA.
The full story at Salon.com
And \”Plan to Alter Internet Radio\” from The Mercury News.
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