Washington - A group of more than 70 webcasters, artists and labels met with nearly 100 members of Congress yesterday to seek support for the Internet Radio Equality Act, a recently introduced bill that would largely unburden webcasters from new royalty rates that many say will drive them out of business.

The event was organized by the SaveNetRadio coalition, a group set up by the Digital Media Association, which represents webcasters including AOL, Yahoo, Pandora and Live365.

"We feel strongly that Congress could not possibly have intended a structure whereby Internet radio services pay 60% to 300% of their revenue in royalties, satellite radio pays 5-7% and broadcasters pay zero, and we urge them to support H.R. 2060, The Internet Radio Equality Act," SaveNetRadio said in a statement.

The group added that it will benefit from some unexpected extra lobbying time before the Copyright Royalty Board's (CRB) new rates go into effect; while initial payments were first to be due on May 15, the CRB's "final determination" set the due date instead for July 15, 2007.

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