For Internet radio, a system out of whack

If any place on Earth insists on a variety of music and cultural fare, that place is Seattle, home of Bumbershoot, birthplace of grunge music, a place where great ideas often waft up from our soggy souls.

For that reason, an arcane but whopping fee increase for radio stations broadcasting over the Internet ought to give music lovers here and everywhere pause. And it ought to be tossed out in negotiations under way between the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which pays most public radio station royalties, and the group representing record labels and performers. The Copyright Royalty Board, an arm of the U.S. Library of Congress, announced last March an increase in royalties of 300 to 1,200 percent — fees Internet radio providers owe performers. What were they thinking?

Such figures could put high-quality Internet stations out of business. The losers would be the listeners who could no longer enjoy such wide variety of formats. What is more democratic than the ability to listen to new and different music over the Internet?

The other losers would be the performers who supposedly benefit from such high rates. Fewer stations playing the music means fewer royalties and less exposure for performers.

The fees have been put on hold; negotiations began in earnest to create a real rate structure. It will have to be dramatically lower.

U.S. Reps. Jay Inslee of Washington and Don Manzullo of Illinois, Democrat and Republican respectively, and Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Sam Brownback of Kansas, Democrat and Republican respectively, have strong bipartisan support in both chambers for legislation to force the board to dump the exorbitant rates.

Inslee et al are on the right track. When an entity blatantly overreaches, the logical response is a pushback to the starting line.

A textbook example of a well-loved station is Seattle's own KEXP — 90.3 on the FM dial and prominent on the Internet, with listeners on seven continents.

The station, along with many other, smaller Internet radio stations, does a great job bringing eclectic music to a broad, discerning audience. Paying some royalties is reasonable. Paying pie-in-the-sky rates is absurd.

KEXP's rates, currently paid by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, would soar from annual fees of from $3,000 to $4,000 now to $158,000 and considerably higher in subsequent years.

The public loses when royalties are so high that stations spend excessive amounts of air time raising money to pay the fees. Stations experimenting on the Internet should not be harassed out of business. And the outrageous fees could limit contributions to other public stations that cater to broad and diverse audiences.

Inslee's legislation is the proper course if the music industry continues to advocate rates so ridiculously out of line.