Washington - At a hearing in Washington on Wednesday, Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) came to the aid of Web radio broadcasters who say they'll likely be forced offline if new royalty rates approved by the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) are enacted, CNET News.com reported.

"This represents a body blow to many nascent Internet radio broadcasters and further exacerbates the marketplace imbalance between what different industries pay," Markey said before the House panel on telecommunications and the Internet, of which he is the chairman.

"It makes little sense to me for the smallest players to pay proportionately the largest royalty fee."

According to estimates from the Radio and Internet Newsletter (RAIN), the new royalty rates were set so high that they may eclipse the total advertising revenue generated by many Web radio broadcasters.

Robert Kimball, general counsel at large webcaster RealNetworks, testified before the panel that if the CRB's rates are enacted, "one can easily imagine Web radio looking more and more homogenized."

Related Links:
http://tinyurl.com/32q94c (CNET)

http://www.kurthanson.com/archive/news/030807/index.shtml

http://www.loc.gov/crb