On Friday, Nancy Scola and I had an opportunity to interview the creator of Pandora, Tim Westergren about the impending demise of internet radio, the congressional legislation which may save it, and a bit more about the fascinating experiment that is the music genome project.

The full audio of that interview is available below despite some technical difficulties we had (the content below is slightly edited to remove some dead air as a result of those issues):

I met Tim last week at an event in DC, a townhall where several dozen folks turned out to learn more about the rate change, question him about the legislation, and praise Pandora (here's a little background on Tim):

Tim now spends most of his time as Pandora's chief evangelist - traveling the country to meet with listeners to collect feedback, research local music, and spread the word of the Music Genome Project.

Nancy wrote a great post yesterday explaining a bit more about the technology behind the Music Genome Project itself, which was a fascinating look inside how Pandora suggests music it think you will like (but does not explain why I love Journey so much. Answer: Because Journey rules).

Before the interview I spoke with someone from Congressman Jay Inslee's office in DC, who filled me in on some of the details about the legislation that his boss had introduced to help save internet radio, The Internet Radio Equality Act.

He noted that the biggest development was that when the Copyright Royalty Board introduced their rate increase into the Federal Register, the date the rate increase went into effect was not the May 15th originally expected but July 15. He seemed to think that this was a good sign that the grassroots pressure was having an effect. He also noted that the Inslee-Manzullo Internet Radio Equality Act, H.R. 2060, now has 42 co-sponsors, Democrats and Republicans, and that the Senate might have a similar bill introduced as early as next week.

I think its really important to note that this rate change will effect all internet radio broadcasters, from the biggest broadcasters to the smallest one. And its not as if these enterprises are cash cows, Pandora is the third-largest and its technology is used by Microsoft, and yet they're still not yet a profitable company. This rate increase would be the end of them. And the internet radio broadcasters aren't arguing that they shouldn't pay the fees, they're just arguing that they shouldn't be subject to fees that triple the cost of their broadcasts and will bankrupt and entire fledgling industry. As Tim said when we asked him about the rate increase and its potential impact:

This ruling is really dire and it does threaten an entire industry, its not hyperbole to say that this will wipe out an entire industry...out of that cloud we have to really focus and be very specific about our message and our solution for it in the near term...I do think that what were witnessing is also happening in other spheres. Its happening with video, its happening with news, with you guys as podcasters, as part of a similar growing class of people that i think over time are going to challenge the preexisting broadcast structure, and so i think there's a bit of a tug of war right now to try and control this new medium.

Ultimately, this interview and the posts that Nancy and I have been writing over the last few weeks are an attempt to bring attention to and galvanize action on this important issue. It's also an attempt to cast this in the grander scheme of things.

Pandora and internet radio are prime examples, symbols, of a new world where millions of users, of consumers, are able to be to what they might enjoy, and not just want record company executives want them to enjoy. In the past this system existed because they controlled the bottleneck (they = record companies, media, etc.) and that bottleneck used to be logistical in nature but now, thanks to technology, we don't just have access to what we know we like. We can discover that which we may actually enjoy, even its for reasons that we may not completely understand..

The Long Tail fully thrives in the world of internet radio, where all music can be treated equally in the eyes of the computer, and we have the ability to truly discover (even if we all we end up coming back to Journey).

The genie is out of the bottle, so to speak, and now that the world has experienced it, no one wants to let go. Now that we've seen the consumer side of the long tail, we're also beginning to see the grassroots side of the long tail discover its power.

Help save internet radio by contacting your representatives and telling them support the Internet Radio Equality Act. On the net - SaveNetRadio.org.