Senate give extension for webcaster royalty negotiations

The US Senate followed the lead of the country's House Of Representatives and yesterday passed a bill to give the net radio companies and US online music rights group SoundExchange more time to reach a voluntary deal regarding the royalties online music services, including webcasters, should pay to the content owners. Both sides say negotiations are going well, but that they needed more time that the US Congress had originally allowed them to reach a voluntary deal. If the deadline for a deal had not been put back the Copyright Board would have put in place a statutory royalty rate that webcasters say would put them out of business. The net and music firms now have until next February to do a deal, while the rest of America's political types get sidetracked with the old Presidential election.