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Discover New Music

  • Is This It

    • 10 out of 10
    • The Strokes
    • The Strokes set the music world on fire with this 2001 album, with headlines declaring that the New York band was here to save Rock and Roll. While the band hasn't made as much of a splash since t

  • Priest = Aura

    • 10 out of 10
    • The Church
    • Another of my all-time favorites, Priest = Aura is one of those rare albums where every song is simply fantastic, and a testament to how good pop-rock can be.

      Each song immediatel

  • How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb

    • 6 out of 10
    • U2
    • U2's latest entry is a mostly underwhelming collection of songs that does very little to sound any different from its equally pedestrian predecessor, 2000's "All That You Can't Leave Behind." While

  • Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

    • 8 out of 10
    • Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
    • When I first got hooked to Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, the only place I could get their debut album, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, was through the band's Web site. I listened to the two tracks a

  • Jagged Little Pill (Acoustic)

    • 6 out of 10
    • Alanis Morissette
    • Ten years after the original release, comes the traditional celebratory acoustic re-recording. The album has held up remarkably well. While it is not as meaningful to me as it was when I was sixteen,

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News

House of Rep. Passes Webcaster Settlement Act

After a furor of complaints from Pandora users and concession by the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), the U.S. House of Representatives has unanimously passed the Webcaster Settlement Act. It paves the way for private agreements with SoundExchange on music royalty rates and exemption from the Copyright Board mandatory rules that would have put many Internet radios stations, including Pandora, out of business.

No opposition is predicted in the Senate where the bill has now arrived.

The issue came to a head recently when Tim Westergren, Pandora’s founder, told his customers that he was close to pulling the plug on Pandora due to onerous royalty rates that would have been imposed by the U.S. Congress Copyright Board.

Internet radio stations had been paying $0.08 per song, but the Copyright Board had ordered that that amount rise to $0.19 by 2010. That would have put Pandora and others out of business.

The NAB has previously opposed the legislation, but relented after meeting with Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) that led to pushing back a deadline that would then allow the NAB organizations time to competitively reach similar royalty agreements.

"This is a truly historic moment for Internet radio and its listeners," said the bill’s author, Representative Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) of the Energy and Commerce Committee. "There may now be a light at the end of the tunnel in the fight over Internet radio royalties."

After the Senate passes the bill and signature by the president, private royalty negotiations can resume, and Pandora along with other Internet radio stations look to have a considerably brighter future.

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