As noted on Epicenter, Bloomberg reported that Yahoo and AOL are both considering shuttering their music webcasting services in response to the high royalty rates asked for by SoundExchange and enacted by the Copyright Royalty Board.
Their story centers on a comment from Yahoo Music director Ian Rogers, who told the agency, "we're not going to stay in the business if cost is morethan we make long term." SoundExchange has offered to make deals with smaller webcasters for lower rates, so large webcasters are expected to bear the brunt of the new rates.
SaveNetRadio has been conducting a campaign designed to get fans of online music webcasts to ask their Congressional representatives to intervene and set new rates; in addition, an appeals process starts in February.
The campaign has attracted a lot of attention, and webcasters of allsizes have spent time in Washington talking to Congress. Nonetheless, webcasterslikely feel that unless they keep the issue in the forefront ofeveryone's minds, concern will dissipate before Congress acts or theappeal process starts, and they're probably right. Listening Post agrees with Epicenter that thatcould have been the motivation for Rogers' comment.
The fact remains that unless the rates are overturned, there will be far fewer legal places to access music online.
