Elsewhere on the Web • R.A.I.N.

According to R.A.I.N., Radio And Internet Newsletter, HR 5469, "...the proposed measure to temporarily relieve webcasters of their royalty obligations, scheduled for a House vote today, has been pulled from the schedule."

Apparently, webcasters and record industry reps are going to try and go back to negotiating so that they can come up with a compromise by this Friday, which reportedly is aiming toward letting webcaster's pay royalties based on a percentage of their revenue as opposed to a flat rate which the Librarian of Congress originally deemed appropriate. R.A.I.N. reports its sources say an agreement would be "accepted by Congress as law for the industries."

Personally, I'm keeping my fingers crossed and praying for this revenue comprise. To me, it is not only a matter of fairness to webcasters but I consider it essential to the continuing health of our First Amendment rights. Over the past decade, Congress and the Federal Communications Commission have done the American public a great disservice by deregulating commercial radio. And even though both bodies - by legislated law - had and still has a fidiciary duty to insure that the public airwaves serve the PUBLIC interest, they have sorely abandoned their responsibilities while on their watch.

Fidiciary relates to the relationship between a trustee and the person or body for whom the trustee acts. In this case, Congress and the F.C.C. are trustees of the airwaves on behalf of the American people. Yet, both have allowed a handful of broadcast companies to gobble of thousands of radio stations, creating large chains of vanilla-wrapped operations that sound the same and limit variety, competition and opportunity.

Webcasting offers anybody, with just small resources, a voice with global distribution that puts them on the par with large operations. We need the small voices, the unpopular ones, the odd programming, the iconoclastic broadcast forums, the music record companies won't sell and everything else individual webcasting offers.

The continuing battle over how much royalties webcasters should have to pay must be resolved so that musicians and artists are fairly compensated based on an equitable revenue model that allows webcasters to continue to provide alternative voices in what has become a bland broadcast environment. Musicians and artists deserve to be compensated for their work.

The revenue sharing model is fair and equitable.

All Americans have the right to shout their thoughts as loud as they can be heard and Webcasting is everyman's radio tower.

Fair payment, Free speech.

We need them both.

- Corey Deitz

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