ARSTECHNICA - It's not all bailout negotiations, partisan recriminations, and White House meetings this week in Congress—our elected officials also found some time to pass the Webcaster Settlement Act of 2008. Its name might suggest that the bill "settles" something, but it does not. Instead, it gives the webcasters and the music labels still more time to hammer out a royalty compromise acceptable to all sides before a crippling new rate kicks in.
Still going...
Remember all that heat and smoke from last year's webcaster royalty inferno? Remember how even Congress got fitfully involved, threatening to pass some legislation to overturn the outrageous fees webcasters would have to pay? Remember how you thought that it was all some arcane dispute that would burn itself out soon and that couldn't possibly keep going for a year and a half? Well... it could. And it did.
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