Small Internet radio operators might be forced to pull the plug on their Webcasts, pending a May 21 federal ruling on royalty fees to the recording industry.

For Northwestern’s campus radio station, WNUR, the additional fees would limit the number of online music streams it plays. In addition to its live broadcast, WNUR runs three music streams: rock, jazz and street beat.

Station operators said WNUR will wait for the decision before changing its line-up.

Under the proposal, noncommercial stations, including college radio stations, with real-time Internet transmission would have to pay 2 cents per 100 listeners for every song played.

Commercial stations with simultaneous transmission would pay 7 cents per 100 listeners. And stations that broadcast only online would pay 14 cents per 100 listeners.

Webcasts have allowed niche radio stations to build audiences extending beyond geographic range, WNUR general manager Marc Flury said.

“We have an audience that’s worldwide because we have a webcast,” said Flury, a McCormick junior.

If the proposal passes, the station would continue Webcasting three streams, Morris said.

The station’s Web site draws 1 million hits each year, including 4,000 weekly webcast listeners, WNUR adviser Rick Morris said.

On May 1, more than 50 campus radio stations took part in a “Day of Silence” to protest the royalty ruling.

While WNUR did not cut its Internet transmission, the station added a link to www.saveinternetradio.org.

“It’s really frustrating because Internet radio has only been around for a couple of years,” Jeff Seelbach, a Speech senior and WNUR’s rock director. “The recording industry has made no attempt to embrace how the technology is moving.”

All stations with online transmission would owe royalties to the recording industry dating back to October 1998.

The U.S. Copyright Office appointed a three-person panel to set the royalty fee, balancing the record industry’s request of 15 percent of stations’ revenues with the current 3 percent composer royalty fee. It must approve or revise the proposal by May 21.

“The only losers are going to be the small, independent, noncommercial radio stations … who don’t have budgets for stuff like that,” Seelbach said. “We’re going to be OK.”

In 1998, Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, allowing record companies and artists to collect royalties when their songs are played on the Internet.

WNUR currently pays thousands of dollars in composer royalty fees, Morris said. Stations pay about 3 percent of their revenue to composers – not to record companies or artists.

“We’re happy to pay them,” said Morris, a radio-TV-film professor. “They are modest. They are what the record industry has wanted for 60 years.”

But while artists deserve to be paid for their work, the additional royalty fees would be unreasonable, Morris said.

“This double billing for the webcasting … might be counterproductive because the transition of music is a way for more music to be sold,” he said.