Long Live Internet Radio

I was never really too concerned about whether Internet radio – and particularly my favorites Pandora, Radio Paradise and Soma – would go away. I covered Congress for this publication for five years, which was long enough to know that in the end that irrational body will act rationally. It just takes them a long time to get there –note $700 billion bailout bill, which God willing will pass tonight.

Still, I breathed a sigh of relief today when I saw that the Senate had passed the Webcaster Settlement Act, which grants Webcasters, including radio stations that stream music over the Internet, the ability to negotiate new music streaming rates with independent royalty group SoundExchange. The House passed the bill on Saturday and now it goes to President Bush to be signed. Essentially, this assures that Internet radio will go on.

This is a much better solution than the previous one, which forced Webcasters to abide by an arbitrary rate conceived by a paid board of jurists gathered by the U.S. Copyright Office. Had Webcasters been forced to stick with that, they would have gone out of business because there was no way they could afford the rates that body had recommended.

I read on CNET that traditional broadcasters still tried to tank this bill – and of course they did – but in the end everyone managed to do the right thing.  I’m off to enjoy some Radio Paradise now.