Last June, the US Copyright Office established that webcasting should be subject to a royalty of 0.07 cents per listener per song. Radio stations and webcasters objected strongly to the decision, which meant that the would have to pay 70 cents for each song played to an audience of 1,000 listeners.
Under US law, radio stations have historically had to pay royalties only to songwriters and not to artists and other owners of the sound-recording copyright. Legislative reforms in 1995 and 1998 gave sound-recording owners the right to be paid for internet transmission of music.
In their appeal, the broadcasters claim that the law was intended to apply only to services that allow the downloading of songs, and not to on-line radio broadcasts.