UB's student-run radio station, WRUB, was recently forced to halt streaming transmission via the Internet due to upcoming royalty fees that will be imposed by the Recording Industry Association of America.
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, passed in 1998, requires all Internet radio stations to pay royalties to the recording industry, beginning Oct. 20. As a result of the rates, independent radio stations across the United States continuing to stream music over the Internet will be obligated to foot a hefty bill. Most of the stations, including WRUB, will be held accountable for any fees accrued over the last few years as well.
WRUB made the decision to discontinue Internet broadcasting before the deadline to avoid accumulating additional fees.
Daniel Leung, general manager of WRUB, does not believe the termination of streaming music on the Internet will cripple the station, and hopes WRUB will continue to function as well as it has in the past.
"We'll just continue going on as normal," Leung said. "We'll just look for different ways to broadcast, which is what we're about; finding alternative ways to broadcast other than AM and FM."
Due to Buffalo's close proximity to Canada, it is difficult to obtain an AM or FM frequency, hampering the station's ability to reach its off-campus listeners. WRUB applied for FM status last year but was denied.
Live streaming radio temporarily solved this predicament.
"With the Internet, we had the potential to reach millions of listeners, and now we're only limited to the campus population," said Leung. "We definitely had some listeners that tuned in from weird, crazy places like Australia, and like China . but unfortunately, we won't be able to offer our brand of music out to them anymore."
The issue of music on the Internet has been debated since the late 1990s with the popularization of music- and file-sharing programs. The recording industry claims to lose a percentage of profit for every song that is downloaded or streamed using the Internet.
Leung encourages listeners who wish to support the station to communicate with congress members and to support the recently introduced Internet Radio Fairness Act.
The act was proposed in July by Reps. Jay Inslee, D-Wash.; George Nethercutt, R-Wash.; and Rick Boucher, D-Va., in order to, according to the act, "make the copyright royalty arbitration process more fair for smaller entities."
"It voids out the royalty rates if you're a Web broadcaster with 500 or less employees," said Leung. "It's like a little life preserver for us."
But approval for the act may not come in time to save small stations like WRUB from making reparations to the recording industry. When the Oct. 20 deadline hits, Sound Exchange, a company created by the recording industry that is responsible for the licensing and facilitation of music on the web, will begin to collect fees from Internet radio stations and distribute the money to recording artists as they see fit.
WRUB will continue to broadcast on channel seven of the Campus Television Cable Network.
