A while ago the RIAA asked to be awarded royalties from Internet Radio providers such as Pandora and Live365 that was totally disproportionate to their income and not in line with what traditional or satellite radio are being charged.

The first appeal against the ruling has failed.

This gouging is apparently intended to protect the artists, when in fact it looks like it will drive many of the US based Internet Radio providers to the wall. This is not good for anyone actually creating music.

The upshot is a lot of this artist revenue will either go away, or move offshore to less well regulated environments... and the only people who suffer will be the artists (I can't find it in my heart to care about the folks from the RIAA!)

Luckily you can help. There is a letter-writing campaign underway so you can let your Representatives know this is going on (email and fax work as well), and you can write to the media and spread the word on and off-line.

Let's not let short-sighted greed destroy a nascent industry that has the potential to reverse the record labels push to lowest common denominator mediocrity in mainstream music.

Reading about the RIAA and the latest DRM snafus, it makes you wonder why people are returning to DRM free vinyl...