US webcasters will face sharp rises in royalty fees that could be “fatal” to the nascent industry, a coalition of web broadcasters has predicted. The increases will begin on May 15th and will eventually charge royalties every time an online listener hears a song. The decision to instell these fees was made by a panel of judges who threw out requests to overturn an earlier ruling.
Public and commercial broadcasters claim it will force cuts to services used by an estimated 50 million people. “If these rates stand. I believe we’ll see a virtual shutdown all of US webcasting,” wrote Kurt Hanson, CEO of AccuRadio, on the SaveInternetRadio.org blog. “That will be bad for listeners, webcasters, musicians, and the record industry alike.”
It is now made apparent to us why iTunes sales numbers have plummeted to a low 65% since January of this year: Forrester Research was not counting Christmas Day, when everyone on earth who just got an iTunes gift card or a brand new iPod decided to download their favorite songs and videos at exactly the same time.
Microsoft ships its Zune digital media player to U.S. store shelves. At the price of $249.99, the Zune device is available at nearly 30.000 U.S. retailers now — more outlets than any other Microsoft product. Available in black, brown and white, the 30GB Zune digital media player will come equipped with wireless functionality for Zune-to-Zune sharing of select music, pictures and home recordings; a bright, 3-inch LCD video screen that works in portrait or landscape mode to display pictures and videos; and a built-in FM tuner.