Last week , we looked at keeping your websites fresh with Preppermint . This week, I had planned on continuing with ways to make your website easier to maintain, but the news regarding internet royalties has taken precedence. As you've hopefully read in some of my The Net Untangled Daily Tips or the front page of AllAccess , or even in the mainstream media , the Copyright Royalty Board has created a new rate schedule for digital audio streaming.

This has put the internet streaming community up in arms. Many if not almost all streaming outfits will have to close their doors because their rates have been set so high. However, terrestrial radio to this point has remained unscathed. While internet simulcasts of terrestrial stations are going to be hit by the high rates, some in the radio industry may consider it a small price to pay to cut off the nascent but growing internet radio industry at its knees. From a purely capitalist perspective, if someone is willing to destroy your competitors, it's a win for you. However, these high rates may soon be applied to terrestrial radio as well.

First, a little explanation

The issue is a little complicated, and you can read more in-depth descriptions about it - but this will have to do for now: terrestrial stations have to pay royalty fees to songwriters, and other digital services have to pay those royalties AND performance royalties to be split between the copyright holders and performers. This means additional fees for internet web-casters.

Radio has always paid fees to ASCAP, BMI, et al. for broadcast royalties to songwriters, but the idea of performance royalties is somewhat new. In the UK, a change in performance royalties led to the kids who sung in Pink Floyd's "The Wall" suing for back-payment. Even newer and yet more awesome is the idea of retroactively charging webcasters much higher rates for music they played last year. Yes, when the CRB announced new rates, they were retroactive to 2006.

The CRB is the Copyright Royalty Board - and they decided on the rates that digital music providers pay to the performers and copyright holders through Sound Exchange. Sound Exchange serves as a clearing house, like ASCAP, that collects and then distributes these fees to the labels and artists, when they can be found. Visit here to see the artists that haven't been found, like some members of The Smiths, Bel Biv Devoe and The Waitresses (Christmas Wrapping is such a great Christmas song).

On a decision announced on March 2nd, the CRB hiked fees for digital performances a great deal - to .08 cents per song per listener in 2006 (remember, this fee was instituted after 2006 had passed and businesses could make a decision if webcasting was financially in their interest.), .11 cents in 2007 and it will climb to .19 cents per listener hour in 2010. For the math-challenged - if you have 1000 listeners, and play 10 songs an hour - that's $11/hour for 2007 rates - or about equal to or greater than what many stations pay part-timers. So if your station is saving money by automating overnights (and most are), imagine having to pay someone to sit there 24 hours a day and do nothing. Except that the "employee" will be making $19/hour in 2010.

By 2010, a stream with 1000 listeners will be paying over $165,000 a year just for performance rates. Streams with 10,000 will have to pay over $1.65 million. That's a lot. Ca your station afford to pay an additional $165,000 for every 1000 listeners? Well, thankfully, terrestrial radio stations don't have to pay those fees. Yet.