…Webcasters blew a golden opportunity to reach an accord that would have given them much of what they asked for. [MORE]

Source: cnet

February 16, 2009: The NAB and SoundExchange have come to an agreement on Internet streaming rates for local radio stations that simulcast their programming online or create new Internet-only stations. [MORE]

Source: Radio Ink

The high royalty costs associated with streaming licensed songs seem to have finally caught up to the service, which until now has primarily used image-based advertising. [MORE]

Source: TechCrunch

The Copyright Royalty Board on Thursday froze the rate that digital-music stores, such as iTunes and RealNetworks’ Rhapsody, must pay music publishers. [MORE]

Source: CNET

Apple has threatened to shut down the iTunes music store if an obscure three-person board appointed by the Librarian of Congress increase the royalties paid to publishers and songwriters by six cents per song. [MORE]

Source: Wired

Last night the House passed a bill that essentially gives Pandora and other Webcasters the ability to negotiate with the music business over royalty rates. [MORE]

Source: Silicon Alley Insider

With Congress due to adjourn Friday, lawmakers worked late Thursday evening to resolve a couple of high profile digital-entertainment issues. [MORE]

Source: CNET

On the streaming-music front in particular, the sad reality is that advertising revenue isn’t, and may never be, there to fully support the music industry’s wishful-thinking profit margins. [MORE]

Source: AdvertisingAge

BMI’s revenues topped $901 million last year and $224 million of it came from radio. Total revenues were up 7% last year, allowing the music performing rights company to distribute a record $786 million to songwriters and composers. Can radio afford to pay more? The record labels are pushing to get Congress to undo radio’s exemption from a performance-based royalty that could add from $2 to $7 billion in new fees.

Source: Inside Radio

SoundExchange head Jon Simson is the last person on the planet we expected to hear talking about how great Pandora’s streaming radio service is. After all, his organization proposed the very same royalty rates enacted by the US Copyright Royalty Board that threaten to put Pandora out of business. [MORE]

Source: Wired