Ron Wyden: “today, I come back to the floor to introduce legislation to keep the Internet free of discrimination. For over a decade…”

“today, I come back to the floor to introduce legislation to keep the Internet free of discrimination. For over a decade, people have tried to get their grubby hands all over the Internet and I have sprung into action to stop them. I have fought hard to prevent discrimination in the taxation of Internet commerce. I have fought hard to prevent discrimination on the content and applications layer of the Internet. Now, I am back here one more time, to prevent discriminatory treatment against Internet radio companies and consumers of their product in how copyright royalties are collected. Make no bones about it, the recent decision on copyright royalty fees by the Copyright Royalty Board is discrimination. The fees that webcasters will have to pay will discriminate in favor of traditional radio broadcasting and satellite radio broadcasting, which pay a much lower percentage of their revenues in royalties. The decision of the Copyright Royalty Board would increase royalties on webcasters to levels between 300 and 1200 percent of their current royalty fees. For most webcasters, the royalties will exceed their gross revenues. There are not many people who are going to stay in business long when their costs exceed their revenues. This is certainly the case for webcasters. That is why I am introducing the Internet Radio Equality Act today.”