New Net Radio Royalty Compromise Sorta Finished, Sorta Sucks

After being saved by a near-miraculous act of Congress, net radio operators are busy negotiating new rates with royalty-collection mobsters SoundExchange that hopefully won't put them out of business. Pandora CEO Tim Westergren says that while the final deal isn't expected until next year, “the hard stuff has been done.” He won't say what the new rates are, just that they're still “tremendously unfair." Good to know some things are still the same. [All Things D]

Attention DC-Area Giz Readers: SaveNetRadio Rally Tonight

Bored on a Monday night in our nation's capital? Tonight you can stop on by Upper Senate Park at Constitution and Delaware Avenues at around 6:30pm for a rally to save Internet radio from destitution at the hands of the money-hungry Copyright Royalty Board. If you haven't kept up with the controversy but you do desperately feel the need to get in good with the technohippie set, you can brush up on it with our backlinks. Just be sure to memorize the rallying song: "All we are saying, is give House Resolution 2060 and Senate Bill 1353 calling for a 2006-2010 royalty rate similar to that paid by satellite radio (7.5% of revenue) a chance." – Wilson Rothman More »

Every Song You Own, Available Online Wherever You Are For Free, Promises Lala.com

In its first incarnation, Lala.com focused on helping people trade and buy CDs cheaply, all the while building a community of music listeners and a catalog of preferences. Today, newly revamped Lala is launching a free service that scans your digital tracks—everything you own from ripped CDs, iTunes downloads or any other means—and then lets you log into the website anywhere to access that music. You can even sideload tracks to your iPod when you're far away from home. More »

Pandora Hits Sprint Phones and Sonos Remotes

Right at this moment, a bunch of music fans are sitting in rows at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art's Wattis Theater, eagerly awaiting the fate of Pandora, the cult-hit semi-customizable Internet radio service. What are they about to hear? That Pandora is teaming up with Sprint and Sonos to get into mobile and household gadgets, and is also introducing a new online interface for the free service. Why should you care? Mobile Net radio has been in the non-existent to sucky range, and a lot of people enjoy Pandora in Web form. At least until Slacker's many promises are realized, this is the biggest step in mobilizing Net radio to date. More »

Senate Introduces Net-Radio Bill; Pandora Asks Giz Readers to Keep Bugging Congress

The Senate today introduced a bill to prevent outlandish increases in net-radio royalties, a companion to the bill proposed by the House of Representatives last month. I decided to check in with Pandora's founder Tim Westergren again to see how he and his fellow webcasters got such sudden political clout. More »