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Wait, so the record companies pay radio stations to play records (payola). Payola is deemed illegal (circa mid-1950's if I'm remembering correctly). Now with the popularity of internet streaming radio stations, the radio station has to start paying back the record company?

Puh-leez. What about radio stations such as WFMU (91.1 FM for NYC-area listeners) which are non-commercial yet stream their content on the internet? What about the fact that they sometimes play records that are not only obscure but possibly over 60 years old? Or does this only apply to popular commercial music?

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I love WFMU. Even though I live in Manhattan, I just can't get it over the air in my particular apartment. Their website has some interesting hints about how they've been getting jacked around with this... without naming names or making any accusations, of course.

WFMU may not be big enough to have clout, but sooner or later the content producers are going to get wise to how the folks at Yahoo! and RBN and Broadcast etc. use the format wars to jerk them around as well... With any luck, this will result in a universal client and a quality open source server than can play to it... Then, and only then, will streaming media have the universality necessary to break out bigtime.