by SHANE SINNOTT

After what in retrospect seemed to be a summer lull, the battle over Internet music royalties is heating up again, friends. To recap: about a year ago (or 1/20th of a “score ago,” if you’re interested in talking like Abe Lincoln), lobbyists for the major commercial radio interests—Clear Channel, we’re looking in your direction—got their wish when the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) instituted a lurid increase in royalty rates paid by online radio stations, increases so high that it was likely that most online radio stations would go under. At the time, grassroots counter-lobbying, mostly at savenetradio.org, led to a more reasonable piece of legislation that was introduced in May 2007, but it was never passed, leaving everybody in limbo.

Last week, things got a little closer to coming down in favour of the good guys. The Webcasters (think Pandora, www.pandora.com) had been negotiating with the dreaded RIAA, and were supposedly close to a more reasonable deal, with the deadline for reaching one fast approaching. Congressman Jay Inslee, man of the hour for Internet radio supporters, introduced a bill to give the negotiations more time, and was able to get it passed despite heavy lobbying from the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), who represent Clear Channel et al, to kill it. It passed on Sept. 30, has only to be signed by G.W., and is the first significant victory for Internet radio in its ongoing battle against these rates.

Apple, meanwhile, is celebrating a victory of its own over its iTunes music store royalty rates. The selfsame CRB from above just rejected a request from the National Music Publishers Association to increase the per-song royalty rate from online stores like iTunes to 15 cents from its current nine. Apple responded to the proposal by threatening to shut the entire iTunes store down, claiming they couldn’t afford a 66 per cent increase in their rates. The CRB, perhaps imagining the P.R. battle of taking on Apple, agreed, and committed to keep royalty rates static for the next five years.