Many stations quit streaming, and instead post a message like this:
"Due to a recent Federal Court ruling, streaming of this service over the Internet is no longer considered to be a simultaneous transmission of our radio broadcast.

As a consequence, there are now music licensing issues that prevent us from continuing to provide this stream"

4KQ still streams.

There would be some instances of where this is true in a technical sense although there is probably just some pressure from record companies to obstruct the online feeds as the sound can be captured on digital radios and recorded to a hard disc without any losses, making such recordings available for duplication and distribution illegally. It's what happens when the hundreds of music labels around the world become two or three giants - cartels are easier to form.

Some of the Sydney stations that offer online listening (listed by callsign) are: 2UE, 2GB, 2CH, 2BL, 2RN, 2PB, 2SM, 2KY, 2DAY, 2MMM, 2JJJ, 2UUS (2WS) and 2WFM (Mix 106.5). I haven't checked the feeds themselves though all the websites have a Listen Live link.

It's about licence definition and royalty payments:

In February, the High Court ruled that internet simulcasts did not meet the definition of a “broadcast” under the Copyright Act, and therefore not covered by the existing licences by radio stations across the country. An appeal by Commercial Radio Australia failed in August.

This meant that radio stations will need to have a separate licence in order to play music on any internet simulcast, and at market rates. Previously, radio broadcasters were able to use the “one percent cap” in the Copyright Act to minimise their royalty payments to just one percent of gross income.

“It confirms radio stations must pay a licence fee for streamed music and we hope to move quickly to work out a fair and proper licensing deal. We look forward to working with radio to establish equitable arrangements,” Dan Rosen, the head of the PPCA – the non-profit organisation tasked to collect royalties for artists – said when the appeal was rejected.

However, Grant Broadcasters took issue with the rates provided by PPCA – saying that they wanted regional broadcasters to pay the same rates as their metro counterparts.

“When we were presented with the licence for PPCA requirements, the rates and scales for stations operating in regional markets were exactly the same as those for metros,” Group Director of Programming and Content David Rodgerson told Radio Today.

“As a regional operator, Grant Broadcasters made the decision that it is beyond our market’s financial capacity to support and pay for the service.”

http://techgeek.com.au/2013/09/30/regional-radio-network-grant-broadcasters-axes-online-simulcasts-high-court-fee-ruling/

It seems like a situation that will be of benefit to stations like 2GB and 2UE as their programming is mainly talk-back and thus they are generating their own content. At the same time, by the High Court's ruling, would stations like these enforce the distinction of copyright on online audio feeds on their regional affiliates or just let it go?

I guess time will tell.

My definition of a broadcast is a transmission freely available to lots of people, as opposed to a subscription service being referred to as narrowcast like Foxtel and Optus pay TV services. With this it looks like barristers and judges see it differently.

A "narrowcast" is defined in Australian law as needing a contract for service between narrowcaster and customer. There used to be a special category called "open narrowcast" for free services, such as those provided by non-profits. It was always a legal bunfight as to which category should apply and who needed what kind of licence.

The legal arguments about "simulcast" have revolved around the issues of storage and caching. Networks such as ABC and Fairfax routinely delay syndicated broadcasts for different timezones, and this is not considered "simulcast" under the law.

It's all a bit precious, since any digitised broadcast signal is going to be delayed by some period of time for caching in the AD-DA converters - DAB runs several seconds behind live AM/FM radio out of the same studio.

It's never the artists who push for royalties, because they know very well they won't get any better career publicity than broadcasting. It's the publishers, who usually start by screwing the artists, then turn their attention to screwing anybody else with music-related cash flow. There are some internet-only music subscription services now that do global deals with the music cartels, have no licence service obligations, and they are happy to see anything that makes life harder for the free-to-air broadcasters. You have to wonder if free music broadcasting has much of a future.

Maven

It's the publishers, who usually start by screwing the artists...

Yep, exactly.

Cable pay TV is quite a few seconds behind Satellite TV
offered by the same provider too, because the cable head
end gets it's signal from the same Satellite that the direct to
home sat boxes do, but the Cable head end has to retransmit
the signal to cable decoders in the home.