Last-minute talks on fees keep online streaming alive, for now

If Mark Twain were a webcaster, he might have put it this way: Rumors of the death of Internet radio have been greatly exaggerated.

The demise of online streaming has been forecast since the US Copyright Royalty Board announced new fees and higher rates on March 2. But thanks to last-minute negotiations between webcasters and SoundExchange, the nonprofit corporation that collects royalties for artists and record labels, the anticipated Web silence expected to follow the July 15 rate changes has been at least postponed.

Several separate 11th-hour negotiations are responsible for these developments. Last Friday, for example, National Public Radio, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (representing public stations), and SoundExchange agreed to continue negotiations for at least another 90 days. The Digital Media Association, which represents such user-driven sites as Live365 and Pandora, has been trying to negotiate a compromise, as well, and on Friday, SoundExchange announced that it had agreed to put a cap on certain per-stream fees that would hit such sites particularly hard.

According to a report in the trade publication Radio and Internet Newsletter, SoundExchange executive director John Simson told a US House committee that small and noncommercial webcasters may continue streaming after July 15 without fear of punitive damages "as long as good-faith negotiations between the parties are continuing."

For the Boston area's small commercial webcasters, that means the streaming continues.

"We're staying on until it's resolved," said Brandon Casci, the managing partner and co founder of Loud City. The Somerville-based site acts as a Web-radio clearinghouse, allowing subscribers to create their own stations and giving listeners approximately 500 station options. Casci had previously told the Globe that the new rates would make his small start-up prohibitively expensive, raising his monthly expenses from approximately $2,000 to around $60,000.

"SoundExchange has said they're not pursuing royalties until this is resolved, and we're going to trust them on that," Casci says. "It's pretty clear that the numbers they were awarded aren't going to work for anybody."

Tessil J. Collins, owner of Dorchester's Sun-Music.net, also continues to stream. He sees the delay as common sense. SoundExchange, he says, "figured out that having webcasters turn off all across the country would hurt them more than it would help."

Thanks to the NPR deal, WGBH.org is also still online, offering several classical music streams. "I think that ultimately there will be a deal worked out," says Bob Lyons, WGBH's director of new media for radio and television. "Nobody wants to see public radio's music services curtailed."

That viewpoint seems to be shared nationally.

"Most of the webcasters who are part of the groups that are negotiating are taking a wait-and-see mode," says David Oxenford. A partner in the Washington law firm of Davis Wright Tremaine, Oxenford represents several small webcasters and writes about broadcast issues at broadcastlawblog.com. He expects to see a resolution within the next two months.

Until then, he says, "as long as there are conversations going on, I'd hope that all the parties would be reasonable."

Meanwhile, the uncertainty is having some unforeseen effects. At Loud City, for example, Casci says he's lost some customers, with approximately 50 client stations dropping out. "They're nervous about the fees," he says. However, the attention is doing some good. "We've had a slight increase in Web traffic," says Casci. "We keep being mentioned in the press."