I don't understand

I listen to Pandora at work and enjoy it so when I saw a headline about it I took a moment to read this:

Pandora to Congress: Vote now, we're running out of time

The congressional vote regarding royalty fees for Internet radio has been moved at the last minute to 11 a.m. EDT Saturday, according to Pandora, one of the start-ups that has been pushing for this vote in the wake of pressure from the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB).

"It has to happen tomorrow," Pandora chief technology officer Tom Conrad said in an interview with CNET News on Friday night. The start-up has put up a blog post encouraging fans and users to call their congressional representatives through the night to support the cause. "The timing issue that's critical here is that many of the Internet radio providers, Pandora included, for financial reasons really need to have this issue resolved before 2009." Additionally, members of Congress will soon be on the campaign trail for their own re-elections and are already occupied by the Wall Street crisis.

To put it more bluntly, the Internet radio services could run out of money before a resolution is reached.

Now, after reading that, I don't know what the issue is. I just know someone wants it resolved before 2009. If I was a reporter and I was doing this story, I would explain who has to pay the royalty fees and who gets the royalty fees and what the vote is going to change about that.

Maybe I am just a moron. But I see stories all over like this where I have to have some background before I can understand.