Last week, Congressmen Jay Inslee (D-WA) and Don Manzullo (R-IL) introduced a new bill, the Internet Radio Equality Act, that would roll back the Copyright Royalty Board’s recent decision to put small webcasters out of business by raising royalty rates far beyond what they can afford.

The main beneficiary of this ruling, SoundExchange, is already on the attack:

“The idea that this bill would help small webcasters or artists is ludicrous since less than two percent of all royalty payments in 2006 came from small webcasters,” said John Simson, Executive Director of SoundExchange.

Wait, let me get this straight, John. Independent webcasters make up less than 2% of the royalty market? And you want to support legislation that will decrease this number even further? In a world where any web radio broadcaster can reach the entire world by spending less than $100 / mo. on bandwidth, the major broadcasters should be the ones struggling to hold onto their minor market share, not the other way around.