“Tim Westergren, founder of Pandora, says rising song fees could shut down his online music-mix service for computers and mobile devices like Apple, Inc.’s iPhone. The Copyright Royalty Board sets fees that vary by radio station type. The radio fees paid by Pandora and others are funneled to collection groups like SoundExchange,” Steve Bosak reports for CIO Today.

MacDailyNews Note: Pandora is an automated music recommendation and Internet radio service where users enter a song or artist and the service plays selections that are musically similar. Because of recent Copyright Royalty Board rulings that increased fees and ask for licensing guarantees, Pandora is no longer available outside the United States. More info via Pandora here. Pandora for iPhone and iPod touch via iTunes’ App Store here.

“In an interview published Saturday by The Washington Post, Pandora founder Tim Westergren said, ‘We’re reaching a pull-the-plug kind of decision. This is like a last stand for Webcasting,’” Bosak reports.

“At issue are the royalty fees paid by online, satellite and land radio stations… Westergren estimated before a Senate subcommittee last month that these fees will amount to 70 percent of Pandora’s revenue. And it’s about to get worse. Under the 2007 agreement, fees will nearly double by 2010. If that weren’t enough, hearings to begin soon will set royalty rates for 2011 and beyond, and many assume those rates will be even higher,” Bosak reports.

More details in the full article here.