On Monday, we promised readers a week full of blog posts about Clear Channel forcing local and indie artists to give up performance royalties in order to be considered for airplay on their stations.

Each day we’ve written about Clear Channel’s actions and why — contrary to their claims — they are not on the side of artists. If you’re new to the posts, please scroll down to have a look at what we’ve written.

You’ll also remember we promised you (and Clear Channel) a special surprise at the end of the week. Here it is: read more

As we wrote about yesterday and in previous weeks, Clear Channel is attempting to strip indie artists of performance royalties in order to be considered for airplay on its stations.

As part of a settlement with the FCC following an investigation into payola allegations, Clear Channel and other major broadcasters agreed to air 4,200 hours of local and indie programming. Clear Channel set up a page on its station’s web sites that allowed indie artists to submit their music for airplay, but required them to check a licensing agreement that waives the artists’ performance rights. read more

That’s the question some in the music industry are pondering after the Copyright Royalty Board denied a motion by webcasters’ yesterday to rehear the new, higher royalty rates the board set for webcasting in March. The three judge panel denied the rehearing on procedural grounds saying the webcasters didn’t present any new evidence that would warrant a new hearing.

Small webcasters have bitterly objected to the new rates saying they would put them out of business. Small webcasters will now have to look to the courts or Congress for relief. In an e-mail message yesterday, Tim Westergren, the founder of Pandora, summed up the situation this way: read more