Local non-profit radio stations at colleges and the like are breathing a sigh of relief if they either have or want to provide web simulcast. According to an article from Wired, the RIAA reached an agreement with the stations this weekend that will allow them to broadcast an average of 200 streams to simultaneous listeners.

However, if that number is exceeded, the stations will pay .251 cents/listener/hour for additional listener-hours.

Furthermore, the stations are prohibited from playing music from the same artist back-to-back, or three songs from the same album or four from the same artist in a three hour period.

At $21/listener-year, that's still a pretty expensive proposition in the end for the non-commercials (or even commercial broadcasters). As an example, the article states that most stations pay only 700-800/year for their on-air licenses to music. This would mean only an additional 20 full-time listeners could be added to the system before the online costs outstrip the broadcast costs.