Earlier this week, details emerged of the PERFORM Act backed by Senators Feinstein, Frist and Graham that attempts to ensure platform equality for the distribution of music by ensuring royalty rate parity and content protection.  The Senate Judiciary Committee had a number of people testify on the matter including Edgar Bronfman, Anita Baker, Gary Parsons (Chairman of XM) and Mark Lam, the CEO of Live365.

I haven't followed this matter very closely but I think attempts to level the playing field for various radio platforms is a good thing.  I've not been against the idea of paying a fair royalty rate to artists (both songwriters and performers), but rather paying vastly different rates for the use of the same music as is currently the case with terrestrial radio broadcasters not paying anything to sound recording owners, satellite radio companies paying mid to high single digital percentage of revenue, and internet radio companies paying up to 33% of revenue, and yet internet radio companies have to heed the song complement restrictions of the DMCA unlike others.  It seems that the PERFORM Act would not bring terrestrial broadcast into parity, although at least bringing the digital radio services into parity would be a great start.

The Act would also mandate content protections for digital radio companies.  This could result in webcasters needing to stream in a protected in a DRM'd format.  I haven't read the actual Act so can't comment too broadly on this except to say that Congress should be very careful in legislating content protection and of unintended consequences. 

There's a good overview on the bill from Sen. Feinstein's office. 

[Note: The views above reflect my personal views and not that of any company or association that I may nor or have been affiliated with]