A few years back, when this whole mess started, I was working as a program director of a small college radio station. At the time we were broadcasting with only a few mile radius, so our online streaming was really a main distribution for the station. Because of these royalty issues, we were forced to pull our online programs since we worked on a limited budget and most of our advertising earnings really just kept us in functional equipment and basic licensing services! This is really a sad state of our country when even non-profit/college stations suffer due to corporate greed.

Regardless what they try to say.... the artists (or performers... true artists would not care about money)get very little if any more of this. They will continue to be just as screwed.

anrcox is right, no artist makes money off of record sales, it all goes to producers and managers and the heads, artists typically get .02-.04 cents to the dollar. Touring is where most of the profit is, or making it big then giving the industry the boot up its ass and taking your fans with you.

The RIAA runs like the mafia, and the only way your going to change that is to prevent them from being able to give government officials "benefits"

This ruling basically killed internet radio and has now made it a pirate organization.

People, RIAA is the Taliban's operation here in the US. They're trying to make it impossible for us Freedom loving people to peacefully enjoy listening to music. I'm telling you man, these bastards just have to be stopped before they completely fuck everything up. When is Washington ever going to wake up? Or are they in on this too? I wish I could just report the RIAA to Homeland Security and get them to stop these fucking terrorists! God I hate those f.cking bastards! Sorry for the cursing but I just don't know how else to express my the frustration I feel whenever I see stuff like this.

Hmmm....I better get back to work on my P2P internet radio streaming application.

When the RIAA decides to take absurd measures to keep us from listening to the music we enjoy, we usually find a way to circumvent those measures, usually, anonymously..

MAFIA

Congratulations on likely destroying one of my last ways of finding new music.

@Thrasher: they dont want you to find new music, they want you to listen to their music.

The only way your going to listen to new music now is to listen to the bands in your hometown and support them.

so what does this mean for Last.fm?

will they up their subscription fee, will they still have free streaming? can they even afford it anymore?

I thought we'd already been through this 4 years ago.

Folks, it's time to vent where we can be heard: http://www.loc.gov/crb/contact/. FLAME ON!!

@Falconfire: Unfortunately I need to move to a city with a better local music seen first. :(
(But hopefully I can get the hell out of the midwest this year.)

come to san antonio

How dare you liken Mafia, one of the greatest PC games of all time, to the RIAA. Shame on you.

http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/mafia

As for the whole internet radio thing... talk about snuffing out the little guy. Internet radio is the icon of what the music industry SHOULD be. Great music, unlimited section, and as free as possible.

So in per stream per listener... Hummm...

So if you are a good station with a lot of listeners you are screwed!.
Airwave stations just play a song a pay a fee regardless of how many listeners they have.
(in reality they cannot tell how many listeners are tunning in at any given moment).

Way to go RIAA !...
Why just not tax the whole internet because "packets" containing miliseconds of a stream are floating in cyberspace?
Good heavens someone might just download one...

Boys, girls, let's continue with the Boycott not for 30 days like the GIZ suggests but for 120 days like my first suggestion.

Once their coffers have dried up, they will quickly change their tune. (pun intended!)

I really hope this doesn't apply to pandora. If pandora were to shut down or start costing money I would be forced to start mailing bombs to these RIAA bastards.

BombrMan: This applies to Pandora as much as any other internet channel.

I've been listening to soma.fm for many many years, it upsets me beyond words that they'll probably be forced off the net now. Likewise for digitally imported, xtc, sleepbot, ...

Pandora and similar will just move countries and cease being American.
Thats the way these larger things will continue to work.

Other larger internet radio stations probably have the option of doing the same.
The same is not to be said about smaller stations. So once again (as already said - the little guy loses)

I'm also curious about myspace and artists replaying their own material on that or their own website or similar...

The RIAA is just grasping at the last straws of it's dying empire. In 5 years it's minions probably won't even be able to pay for their liquid lunches anymore.

The Democrats are coming back kids! That means down with corporate greed and up with liberal need!

Sooner or later bands are going to figure out that they don't need the record producers and distributors to get paid for making music. They'll just make it. Put it on line and charge advertisers for space on their web sites. The other neat things that will be going down will be things like you'll be able to get a video of the concert you went to, or see the band in their studio, or talk to the musicians on chat. the possibilities are endless. The musicians just have to break away from the RIAA institutionalized slavery format and discover the web! Give it time. No one will even know what the RIAA is in 10 years. Tick Tock Tick Tock ....Those boys at RIAA are running scared!

Soma fm is my alltime fav!!

o, and down with the RIAA!! \m/

@GollyGee
That's not going to get you anywhere. It's the library of CONGRESS, who passed the DMCA, and who is firmly in the pocket of the RIAA and MPAA.

Our only hope is to contribute to a lobbying organization as a group. Contributing $10 to the EFF will do vastly more than any letter that you can write.

Just a thought, but, does anyone think terrestrial radio (clear channel, et al) might have played a large part in this? The way I understand it, their royalty payments don't go up but their competition's do. What better way to kill some of your competition.

If you are running an internet stream, This is a another call to arms.. Delete your play list! Rebuild it from selections at podshow.com and myspace or archive.org all these pigs have to offer is homogenized crap anyway. Get you content from the source (The artists) and let's hurry the RIAA along their way to their rightful place in the fiery pits of hell. BURN BURN BWAHAHAHAHAA!!!