Music industry gains victory against webcasters

On march 6th the copyright royality board voted to raise the rates that internet webcasters pay to record labels and artists. The standard rate used to be about 12% of revenue but the new changes charge on a per song basis. They changed the rate to .08 cents per song for every song played last year, .11 cents for every song played in 2007 and .19 cents for every song played in 2010. This rate doesn't take into account advertising fees that companies get, which will make it very hard for smaller startup companies who do have advertising on their sites to stay in business. There are roughly 50 sites that pay fees. Kurt Hansen owns one of these sites and testified infront of the copyright royality board that the fees would raise his royalty bill from 48,000 to around 600,000 per year.