The last time the story of the Copyright Royalty Boards efforts to extract more money from music purveyors hit the news, it was under the rumors that AOL and Yahoo Radio divisions were shutting down. While the headlines may have been a bit exaggerated, the threat to Internet radio as a US-based business is real. While the hobby broadcasters can easily pick up their stations and move them offshore, and therefore outside the jurisdiction of the CRB, outfits like Yahoo and AOL don't have that option.
The crux of the debate is the amount of the royalty per song. The CRB has ordered the royalties raised to 11 cents for each song, up from a previous rate of 8 cents per song, and scheduled to reach 19 cents per in 2010.
Here's the kicker, though. Instead of maintaining an untenable position and looking for a minor to sue, the RIAA has said, according to the Hollywood Reporter today, that "the rate is out of whack with the rest of the world and historical context." Someone, somewhere, has kicked some sense into the RIAA, because they now see streaming radio as 'the golden egg' and don't want to kill the goose that laid it with unreasonable royalty payments.