Way back in 1995, the NAB and RIAA already began to realize that the Internet might be a threat to their established business. (Hey, they may be greedy, but they're not stupid!) So, they did what you might expect an established American business to do: they bought a law to protect themselves against competition, the DPRA (cool - another 4-letter acronym to hate!)
According the NAB's own words in the linked "summary" posting, p.4:
The impetus for the legislation was concerns of the recording industry that certain emerging businesses enabled by developing digital transmission technologies might provide music transmissions of such nature and quality as would displace record sales.
This little gem of a quote is part of the NAB's appeal document! The NAB/RIAA does not even attempt to hide the fact that the purpose of the DPRA was specifically to target select-and-download services and prop up "no-choice" broadcasting.
Unfortunately for them, the US Copyright Office refused to play along, and decided that all Internet streams would be charged similarly. So, they're understandably upset that the law they bought and paid for isn't protecting them as well as they'd like. (Some days, even a CongressCritter is a lousy investment...)
Unfortunately for the rest of us, the law was clearly intended to exempt them from royalties, so they'll probably get a "clarification" buried deep within the next huge steaming pile of legislation regarding the Office of Homeland Security or whatever.
As to those who have posted "hey, Congress won't do that -- it will make it way too obvious that they're supporting the fat cats in the RIAA!": what color is the sky in the world where you live (and how can I get there?)
