[funkwyrm]

This particular misconception has been wandering around for a while:

"Simple ecosystems are the goal of proceedings like CARP, the panel that set out the ruinously high royalties for webcasters. The recording industry set the rates as high as they did so that the teeming millions of webcasters would be rendered economically extinct, leaving behind a tiny handful of giant companies that could be negotiated with around a board room table, rather than dealt with by blanket legislation."

The recording industry specifically backed a percentage-of-revenue legislation, and lawmakers took it upon themselves to enact something much more crippling than even what the RIAA had proposed. Why they did that remains a mystery; but it was the actions of either corrupt or ignorant lawmakers, not the "recording industry" that destroyed internet radio.