Why does the government hate the Internet? Once again the Library of Congress is cocking up royalty rates for Internet radio stations. I read this today at the Washington Post site: “Internet radio stations must pay two sets of copyright fees. One royalty, set at 3.5 percent of total revenues, goes to the songwriters and publishers of a piece of music. The other fee — the one decided yesterday by Billington — is shared equally by the performers and the record company.“Radio stations pay only the music publishing fee, not the royalties for musicians and record labels.”
You’d think a democracy would kind of provide a nice level playing field, wouldn’t it? I’d think if anything Internet radio should be given a break just because it sounds so bad. So why is the government ostracizing Internet radio, as if it were the invalid relative hidden in the attic? Simple: once again they’re showing their belief that anyone using the Internet is up to no good and must be punished.
I wonder if they know our own president has a homepage at whitehouse.gov. Maybe we should e-mail Washington DC and provide this URL. The paradox would short circuit their brains, and we could finally get some peace and quiet around here.
By the way, please join the Electronic Frontier Foundation. [1:10 PM]
Update: Here’s an even greater irony. The Library of Congress has its own webcasts. [6:18 PM]
Update: One Internet radio station, recently forced to shutdown, has a good explanation of what’s going on. [6:51 PM]
