Net radio bill passes House
Update at 7:28 p.m. PDT: Quotes have been added from National Association of Broadcasters on why it no longer opposes the bill. — Web radio stations live to fight another day. — The House of Representatives has unanimously passed a bill that Web radio stations …
Context & Ripple Effects
This vote closes a chapter that opened in 2007, when a Copyright Royalty Board rate hike threatened to bankrupt small webcasters. The industry got temporary breathing room through SoundExchange's decision not to enforce the new rates and delayed fee collections, but those were stopgaps — only legislation could fix the underlying rate structure. The Senate had already acted days earlier, passing the RIAA-backed bill unanimously, so House passage sends it to the President with rare bipartisan momentum. The notable shift: the National Association of Broadcasters, long an adversary of web radio on royalty questions, dropped its opposition.
First-order effects
- Web radio stations get statutory relief from the 2007 CRB royalty rates that would have forced many small webcasters off the air; SoundExchange's collection schedule is rewritten by law rather than by temporary forbearance.
- The NAB's withdrawal of opposition removes the last major lobbying roadblock, clearing the bill for enactment after unanimous votes in both chambers.
Second-order effects
- Small webcasters gain cost certainty to invest in programming and audience growth, while terrestrial broadcasters — now neutral rather than hostile — may see web radio as a complementary channel instead of a royalty battleground.
- The RIAA's willingness to back a compromise bill signals that labels prefer guaranteed revenue from a surviving webcasting sector over rates that would have produced defaults and litigation.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, internet-era royalty disputes increasingly get resolved through negotiated legislative settlements rather than rate-court brinkmanship — a template that could shape future fights over streaming music licensing.
- Congress demonstrated it will intervene when copyright-rate decisions threaten to kill an entire distribution medium, raising the odds that future CRB determinations face political as well as judicial review.
The trend: This is one data point in the longer arc of Congress stepping in to reconcile legacy music-licensing structures with internet distribution, trading headline royalty rates for the survival of new platforms.