It actually isnt anything to do with needing a license to broadcast a radio station, its actually all to do with needing a license to broadcast music over the airwaves.

Specifically, the song writers licensing fees which, oddly enough () a lot of these web radio stations werent paying in the UK and, a whole lot more arent paying in the USA at the present time either.. They cost a lot of money!

To give you some idea of what it costs to legally license a song for broadcast, right now, in the UK costs somewhere between $50 and $350 to legally broadcast music, for every song broadcast, in the US, the last time i checked, it cost about the same.

In essence, most of these online radio stations are breaking copyright laws by playing tunes that havent been licensed.

Does kind of make you wonder though, if someone is willing to broadcast copyrighted materials over the web so far as 'music' goes, what else are they stealing the rights too?

In my eyes, broadcasting music without having a license, is no different than if i were to go to one of your websites, download every single image and movie you have on them and start offering that same content on one of my sites.. Theft is theft, no matter how you try to gloss it over.

Regards,

Lee