Once the refuge of many consumers who are trying to tackle and kill the scourge that is the RIAA, the organization has recently been given authority by the US Copyright Office to collect royalties for music made by labels and artists who are not part of their network when played on internet radio stations. With the recently enacted hike in royalty rates related to all radio airplay, this announcement will kill the one hope still keeping internet radio alive: non-RIAA music sources.

I don't know if there's any appeals process for this, so it will more than likely result in independent labels and musicians having their airplay royalties--which are rightly theirs--outright stolen from them. Because who trusts the RIAA to fairly distribute royalties? We already know they can't handle even the most basic legal proceedings without botching everything.

As though we didn't already know it, the RIAA has become too powerful. They're one of the primary agencies who are helping chip away at our basic civil liberties. They must be destroyed, but now one of our most powerful weapons against them is gone.