Just as Music Towers gets to grip with online radio (offline at the moment while we wait for a spare machine)... I read about the sector like a nasty rash, over independent music sites/forums and Digg.

The RIAA, the US Record Institute of something, has ruled through the American courts that EACH time a listener hears a song they must pay 0.008 cents (or about 0.005 pence). Rising to 0.19 cents by 2010. Not only this they must also pay for ALL their listeners in 2006. And also pay a minimum fee of $500 dollars for each web channel.

Just doing some number crunching on this:

If we play 18 tracks an hour for 24 hours it is 432 tracks... So for 365 days is 157680 songs being played. To 300 people this is 47,304,000 listens over the course of the year - Being charged at 0.008 cents a time. This is $378,432 dollars.

Hold on... Being charged over £150k for playing to 300 people all year???? It is cheaper to hire the Fun Lovin' Criminals to play at each one of those guys houses in person.

Basically the States just killed a little bit of it's independence. Or drove it all to Russia.