In another mind-numbing move that exemplifies the stupidity that drives modern music, the Recording Industry Association of America has helped push forward a bill in the United States Congress that would create a complex and incredibly idiotic fee structure for internet radio stations, where in most cases the fees would run more than the actual income of these stations.

GigaOm has more details:

Till recently, the royalty rate was about 7/100th of a penny per performance, allowing many small webcasters to thrive and build sizeable audiences. At 14-15 songs per hour, it worked out to about penny an hour – one of the main reasons why Yahoo could offer music-streaming services at affordable prices.

However, now the equation has changed – the royalty rates will increase every year through 2010 when it is going to cost about $0.0019 per performance. While not much when taken as a single performance, the amount does add up if you are a company that streams millions of performances per day.

THIS IS INSANE. Add up all the money, do the math, calculate in some ad sales, and by 2010 you will be lucky to break even.

RIAA, if you don’t want people listening to your music, STOP SELLING IT!

Excuse my caps-lock, but seriously folks, the Recording Industry Association of America is pretty stupid. This isn’t a case of piracy and illegal downloading, this is a case where webcasters are already paying their fees! The RIAA just isn’t happy with what they’re getting.

Cry me a river.

The RIAA needs to take a serious look at themselves and decide what they want to be over the next few years. Do they want to be a legal entourage for greedy executives or do they want to serve as a group that promotes music and musical culture? I hope they move toward the latter, but for now, all roads point to evil.