"Will Internet radio exist one way or another? Yes, probably," said John Jeffrey, executive vice president of Live 365, a network of 47,000 radio stations. "It's the opportunity for anyone to create businesses outside of the few companies who already control the copyrights that is really at risk with this rate-setting."
But Marks of the recording industry association said consumers would be better off with Internet radio companies that could support themselves. "Is it better for them to be in business and pay nothing?" he said.
"I don't think artists and record companies would agree with that. They're not in the business of subsidizing people who want to use their music. They want to survive."
For Deborah Milliken of Newburgh, New York, that will almost certainly mean abandoning her DJ identity -- Java Jane -- and the 1,000 listeners a day she has attracted over the last year to her station, Generation 80s Retro Radio. Milliken, a mother of two, estimates that the royalty fees, if approved, will cost US$200,000 a year.
"I love my hobby," she wrote in an e-mail message, referring to bands like Bauhaus, the Alarm and Bronski Beat. "This music cannot be found compiled anywhere else except on the Web. There are no terrestrial stations playing this sort of music at all."
The prospect of the fees and the reporting requirements that would come with them has already caused some Webcasters to remove their streams from the Web. Jack Daray, a jazz buff in Olympia, Washington, who says his local jazz station is too predictable, recently discovered that the college radio station in San Diego he had been depending on for new music had been removed from the Web.
"Webcast Down!" a message on the KSDS-FM site reads. ``Although the music of Jazz88 was enjoyed and highly regarded beyond our broadcast range, larger forces are exerting their influence."
"It's really disappointing," Daray said. "You sort of feel like somebody shut down the library on you."
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