Thankfully, internet webcasters have banded together to fight off SoundExchange and the CRB rates. Recently, NAB has joined them as well. The House of Representatives has introduced the Internet Radio Equality Act of 2007. As of May 10th, it has 64 members of the House from both parties co-sponsoring the bill and it appears to be gaining momentum. You can view the list of co-sponsors to see if your representative has signed on.

This bill does a few things. They include returning the standard for setting rates to the lower one that satellite radio uses. It also allows streamers to pay a flat rate of 7.5% of revenues through 2010 - which would allow internet radio stations of all sizes to exist.

The bill was also introduced in the Senate last week by Democratic Senator Ron Wyden and Republican Senator and Presidential Candidate Sam Brownback. The two versions are the same except for that the Senate version goes a small step further. In the event that the bill does not get passed before the July 15th deadline, when the new rates go into effect, but it does get passed later, the Senate version will require SoundExchange to pay back the difference, even if it has already collected that money.

While things looked bleak for a time, now there appears to be a chance that the CRB's ruling will be overturned, at least by Congress. However, SoundExchange and its director, John Simson, will not go down without a fight. He brings forth his latest argument in Business Week.

His argument in that editorial is weak at best. First he argues that since Congress set up the Copyright Royalty Board and the process that led to the current battle, Congress should not change the process - which is an odd, circular argument. If Congress created the process and is unhappy with it (64 members of the House were unhappy with it as of last week) - shouldn't they be allowed to modify it? Simson then says that the rates set by the CRB are less than the rates charged by many subscription-based services. Of course, he fails to mention that the vast majority of online audio streams are not subscription based.

Finally, Simson attempts to make a distinction between "small webcasters" and "large corporations", indicating that the proposed bill would lead to a windfall for corporate giants like Microsoft, Time Warner AOL, Yahoo!, and Clear Channel. This appears to be an attempt to appeal to the anti-corporate zest of many small webcasters. Unfortunately for him, he works for a company that represents the interests of and was spawned from the RIAA. As much as he may hope people hate the large corporations he named, he underestimates the seething hatred people have for 2007's Worst Company in America. Yes, the RIAA beat out Exxon and Halliburton to take that esteemed title. You can read a much more in-depth response by Kurt Hanson.

So, where are we now? July 15th is approaching and thats when the new rates go into effect (retroactive to 2006, of course). Congress may wish to act on the issue, but everything on Capitol Hill takes time, so who knows if it will get done by then. Until then, the best we can do is to contact our Senators and Representatives and ask that they support the bill.

As always, AllAccess has my “The Net Untangled Tip of the Day” each weekday and a column on Website Wednesdays. So check back and together we’ll get our internet presence focused on keeping radio strong in this world of increasing competition.

Do you agree with me? Or am I full of hot air? If you have comments or any questions about radio websites – either general questions relating to the industry or the web or even specific (HTML, PHP, .NET, Javascript, etc.) questions, send me an email through http://Preppermint.net/contact . I’ll answer your question quickly and maybe even use it for a future column.