According to the Associated Press, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan has come to a decision that should please fans of Internet radio services. The court presided over a case in which several subsidiaries of Sony Music Entertainment sued Launch Media Inc., a company that created a personalized Internet radio service called LAUNCHcast.

At stake were millions of dollars in royalty fees. You see, in the United States, radio stations don’t have to pay artists to play their songs. Instead, radio stations pay a quarterly royalty fee in bulk to performance rights organizations, which, in turn, pay the artist. The way they figure it out is a little complicated — if you really want to know the methodology I suggest checking out How Music Royalties Work.

But Internet radio services don’t follow the same rules as traditional radio. Any interactive music service has to pay individual royalties to artists every time they play the artists’ songs. If the Internet radio service isn’t interactive, then it has to pay a lower rate set by the Copyright Royalty Board.