New rates from Copyright Royalty Board, if unchallenged, would shut down great Internet radio stations like Accuradio and Pandora. According to this Wired News article, the new fees are a flat “$0.0011 per song per listener,” increasing to $0.0019 by 2010, and they are retroactive to 2006, at a rate of $0.0008.

Kurt Hanson of Accuradio and “Radio and Internet Newsletter” has a breakdown. “That math suggests that the royalty rate decision — for the performance alone, not even including composers’ royalties! — is in the in the ballpark of 100% or more of total revenues.” Meaning, it would cost webcasters more to operate than they can make from it.

Hanson told Wired News that “he doesn’t ‘think the people actually running the record labels want to see internet radio shut down,’ but that SoundExchange’s lawyers had planned ‘an aggressive, win-all-you-can battle in Washington. I think they were more successful than they expected to be.'”

If the lawyers didn’t intend to gain this much ground, I hope they back off when the rate change goes to congress. Speaking of congress, when is Mrs. Clinton going to decry the evil music industry for their corporate malpractice at the people’s expense?

Tags: internet radio, webcasting, congress