Forget those tussles over royalties–Internet radio is sticking around, everybody! Yes, those stations that didn’t get a reprieve from paying what they saw as oppressive royalties for playing music back in February have reached an agreement with the Copyright Royalty Board, a federal agency that collects fees from broadcasters. And judging by the vaguely begrudging statements given by spokespeople from both sides of the table, this deal may close the book on the struggle between Webcasters and the CRB that’s been going on since 2007. The numbers: MORE »
Posts Tagged ‘Internet Radio’
Deals
Internet Radio Finally, Possibly, Maybe Saved
Internet Radio Gets Semi-Saved
A scan of the headlines today reveals a lot of contradictory front-lines on the subject of online radio: “Agreement reached on Internet music royalty rates,” “No Deal Reached For DIMA, SoundExchange,” “Deal Reached To Save Internet Radio-Except For Pandora.” It’s so confusing! That’s because there were actually multiple royalty-payment deals reached between various lobbying branches for Internet radio and SoundExchange, the company that collects about 95% of sound-recording royalties. What this means for you and your favorite source of online streaming music, after the jump. MORE »
Yahoo! and AOL may shut down their Internet-radio services, which have become a pricey proposition for the two online companies because of the 38% royalty increase mandated by SoundExchange. MORE »
Here We Go Again: Internet Radio Says “No, Really, Screw You” To SoundExchange
Yesterday’s deal between royalty-collection company SoundExchange and small Internet radio broadcasters has been met with scorn from a few prominent Webcasters, who say that a quirk in the deal means that they’ll still have to pay out more money than they can afford: MORE »
Small webcasters–those who make less than $1.25 million in annual revenue–have cut a deal with SoundExchange allowing them to pay only 10-12% of their annual income to the royalty-collecting agency. MORE »
DRM Company Says Lack Of DRM Is Killing Music
The remaining unresolved issue in the SoundExchange negotiations (i.e. the fight over netradio) is the industry’s contention that people are recording streams, breaking them up into songs, and converting them into MP3s. You know, that thing no one does. If only the industry had some sort of study proving the damage streams did! Well, their white knight has arrived, and it’s called Media Rights Technology. The company’s press release claims that streams are responsible for $50 billion in annual losses, which is pretty impressive given that Universal’s revenue in 2005 was a mere $5 billion. But MRT is a reasonable company; they want people to be able to stream music, they just don’t want them to be able to record it. What’s the solution? MORE »
SoundExchange, DiMA Continue Their Public Slap-Fight
When we last checked in on the Internet radio royalty debate, it looked like SoundExchange and the Digital Media Association (DiMA) were on the verge of coming to an understanding of sorts–last Thursday, SoundExchange said that as long as webcasters were better about reporting, and worked on a… MORE »
The fight to lower royalty payments for streaming radio stations isn’t over by a long shot, but SoundExchange has agreed to revisit the issue–and, more importantly, it won’t start enforcing the proposed higher royalties come Monday morning, so your favorite streaming station likely won’t go away. MORE »
The fight to lower royalty payments for streaming radio stations isn’t over by a long shot, but SoundExchange has agreed to revisit the issue–and, more importantly, it won’t start enforcing the proposed higher royalties come Monday morning, so your favorite streaming station likely won’t go away. MORE »
U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., denies Webcasters’ motion to delay the July 15 royalty-rate hike, putting the ball for saving most Internet radio stations’ streams in Congress’ court. MORE »
