An obscure backroom deal that took place in Washington DC last Fall - unreported by the specialist music press, then dismissed as insignificant after extensive coverage at The Register - could yet be the undoing of the Recording Industry Association of America.
At stake is the RIAA's right to set punitive royalty terms for webcasters - royalties that terrestrial analog radio stations don't have to pay. But lurking in the background is the RIAA's legitimacy to police copyright terms for online, digital music. In the closing stages of the Napster trial, even Judge Patel questioned whether the RIAA had a right to perpetuate its distribution monopoly into the digital age.
Being unable to pursue its valuable copyright claims on electronic music would reduce the RIAA from being one of the richest and most powerful lobby groups into a museum piece.
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