...a flat 15 percent of all revenue generated by the playing of copyrighted material [or] a per-song, per-listener fee of $0.004. That's some 30 times as much as webcasters are hoping to pay.
APRA is looking at doing a very similar thing in Australia. I have a lot of big problems with bringing in such a law.
On one hand you could argue that it would help artists as they'd be paid for the streams, but anyone who has been watching internet radio lately would have seen hundreds of 100% internet radio stations come and go, loosing millions. The only stations that are still going are commercial stations that are simply streaming their existing station, and I have a big problem with radio stations having to pay twice for the stream and for the airwaves broadcast.
And if MP3.com.au or Tranzfusion.net had to start paying their artists for streaming, they'd go out of business. It wouldn't matter how much the fee was, they'd go out of business. Simple as that.
Obviously the artists would prefer the chances of promotion through MP3.com.au than get a few cents from the streams they've had.
Most interesting for me is the fact that I get to hear the production/recording process of some of my favourite bands. I especially enjoyed listening to Powderfinger' "The Metre", not for the songs value, but to be able to hear just the acoustic track, or just the vocal track etc. is excellent. It's also great to hear that these tracks arn't quite perfect. One of the biggest frustrations when recording is trying to get a track perfect, but listening to the Powderfinger track, the confidence is massively boosted... no offence PF ;p