Dicho wrote Avoiding all music not in the public domain, arrangements not covered by copyright, cd-tape-lp etc. not produced commercially, might let the webcaster get through without the levy. Doesn't leave much, does it?

Maybe I'm an optimist, but I think it leaves a heck of a lot.

I think one of the tragedies of the era of recorded music is that too often we value the 'perfection' of professionally recorded music over the flawed-but-real performance of music by ourselves. Few of us will ever play piano at concert level, but many of us can play a bit, rough-and-ready if you like, and that is, I submit, far better overall. Now, I don't expect many people in the US would particularly wish to hear my feeble attempts, but there are plenty of really good musicians who would not be offered contracts by EMI et al for commercial reasons. The whole underground music/indie bands/garage and so forth grew out of people who did not have commercial contracts or high quality recording studios. So I have hope!