Today I received an email from Pandora.com concerning a recent decision by the Copyright Royalty Board in Washington, DC to almost triple the licensing fees for Internet radio sites like Pandora. According to the email, “the new royalty rates are irrationally high, more than four times what satellite radio pays and broadcast radio doesn’t pay these at all”(emphasis added). The email then points out how these sharp increases in fees will effectively strangle Internet radio companies because it artificially inflates the cost of doing business to levels far above what such businesses can expect to afford.