As someone who just discovered Pandora, I find all of this deeply disappointing. Pandora is a fantastic service, especially for people like me who live in smaller markets with little or no radio station variety. I don’t understand why webcasters like Pandora have to pay more than their satellite or terrestrial radio brethren. No one is arguing that they shouldn’t be paying anything, but to put them in a higher royalty bracket just because the Internet is their broadcast medium is absurd.

Hopefully a compromise can be reached so that Internet radio doesn’t have to fall silent.