New regulations forcing radio stations to pay for Web broadcasts went into effect this week, causing many college radio broadcasters to stop playing music over the Internet.
The rules from the Library of Congress' Copyright Office charge radio broadcasters $500 a year for each year they have been broadcasting over the Web since 1998.
The money will go to SoundExchange, a coalition of recording artists and record labels that seeks to collect royalties for copyrighted materials broadcast on the Web.
The Copyright Office regulations also charge Internet radio providers two cents for each 100 listeners to each song they broadcast and establish a minimum annual fee of $500, though compliance temporarily has been waived, pending Congressional action.
As a result of these regulations, 70 college radio stations have stopped broadcasting over the Internet, the New York Times reported this week.
The University's radio station, WTJU 91.1 FM, does not broadcast over the Internet.
The station's general manager, Charles Taylor III, said WTJU decided not to broadcast over the Internet because he anticipated this ruling.
"We had been waiting on this," Taylor said. "Some stations decided to risk it."
Recording industry officials had sought to broker a deal with radio stations to establish new broadcasting rules, a spokesperson for the Recording Industry Association of America said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"24-7 these negotiations were going on," the spokesperson said. "Concessions were made on both sides."
The two sides reached a deal, but Congress has not yet approved this agreement, which is why the regulations governing payments on future broadcasting have not yet gone into effect, the spokesperson said.
The House approved the measure, but the Senate has not yet acted on it.
The new charges for radio Web broadcasters come from a 1998 law known as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
After this law passed, the recording industry entered into arbitration hearings with the representatives of radio stations to determine the exact fees, Assoc. Law Prof. Thomas Nachbar said.
These arbitration hearings generated the new Copyright Office rules.
Taylor said he would like to broadcast over the Web, and that alumni have requested Web broadcasting, but that he will not immediately be able to do so because of the ruling.
"It's really not a financial issue," Taylor said. "It's a paperwork issue."
The task of maintaining lists of every song the station plays and how many people listen to each song on the Internet currently prevents WTJU from broadcasting over the Internet, he said.
Taylor said he sympathizes with the desire for artists to be paid for their work, but he does not think the current rules will achieve this goal because most of the benefits will go to record companies.
"I totally support paying royalties to musicians," he said. "This really feels more like people with a lot of money trying to get more."
The RIAA spokesperson disagreed, saying the money from the regulations will go to SoundExchange. "50 percent of SoundExchange's members are artists," the spokesperson said.
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