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| monkey_man |
Hey RO music fans,
I have a friend that has a very successful internet radio station who is going to be put out of business by a substantial increase in the royalty fees he pays to play music (all internet radio stations will be put out of business by the fee increase). I don't know how you folks find new music but this is my primary way of checking out new music. Trying to find new music on terrestial radio is futile, unless you like hearing the same 20 songs over and over again. Please take a closer look and consider signing a the petition thru the link at the bottom.
Thanks,
MM
"The Copyright Royalty Board just substantially increased the fees internet radio sites must pay to record labels -- fees not paid by traditional radio stations -- a move that will kill off every last independent online radio station and websites like Pandora. Once these new rates kick in the wealth of programming available during what will be remembered as the Golden Age of Internet Radio will disappear almost overnight. All that will remain will be the stations and sites funded by the biggest of the big money corporations. You know, the nice folks who currently filter out all of the good music and play the same 40 songs by major label artists over and over again.
SoundExchange, arguing for the rate increase, says that internet radio provides no promotional benefit to arists. SoundExchange is made up of record label executives.
One industry hand clearly doesn't know what the other is doing, and despite this obvious inconsistency, a government entity called the Copyright Royalty Board adopted the rates and payment structure recommended by SoundExchange...almost to the letter.
Keep in mind that legal internet broadcasters presently pay sizeable annual fees to ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, and SoundExchange. The fee structure already in place makes it so difficult to stay afloat that last year even WOXY.com, one of the most popular and most respected internet radio stations ever, was forced into financial ruin and had to cease operations (until being bailed out by the kind folks at LaLa.com)."
http://www.petitiononline.com/SIR2007r/petition.html |
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| monkey_man |
More info for thems that are interested:
http://www.broadcastlawblog.com/archives/internet-radio-copyright-royalty-board-releases-decision-rates-are-going-up-significantly.html?amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;c=895989
Copyright Royalty Board Releases Decision - Rates are Going Up Significantly
The Copyright Royalty Board decision on the royalties for to be paid by Internet Radio stations for streaming music during the years 2006-2010 was released to the participants in the proceeding today. And the rates are going up significantly over the next few years. More importantly, especially for smaller entities, there are no royalty rates based on a percentage of revenue as were in effect for small webcasters under the Small Webcasters Settlement Act. Instead, all royalties are given as a per performance number, i.e. a payment for each song every time a listener hears that song
In a 100 page decision, the Board essentially adopted the royalty rate advanced by SoundExchange (the collective that receives the royalties and distributes the money to copyright holders and performers) in the litigation. It denied all proposals for a percentage of revenue royalty (including a proposal that SoundExchange itself advanced). The Board also rejected any premium for streams received by a wireless service, as SoundExchange had suggested.
The rates set by the Board for commercial webcasters, including broadcasters retransmitting their over-the-air signals on the Internet, are as follows:
2006 - $.0008 per performance
2007 - $.0011 per performance
2008 - $.0014 per performance
2009 - $.0018 per performance
2010 - $.0019 per performance
The minimum fee is $500 per channel per year. There is no clear definition of what a "channel" is for services that make up individualized playlists for listeners.
For noncommercial webcasters, the fee will be $500 per channel, for up to 159,140 Aggregate Tuning Hours (one listener listening for an hour) per month. Noncommercial webcasters who exceed that level pay at the commercial rate for all listening in excess of that limit.
The decision is subject to Motions that confidential information be redacted to the public, so it is not yet released for public review. A request for rehearing of this decision can be made by any party to the case within 15 days. The Board can also make technical corrections to the decision (not affecting the rate). The decision is to be published in the Federal Register within 60 days. Appeals may be filed with the US Court of AppeaIs in Washington, DC within 30 days of Federal Register publication. As this decision may well significantly impact webcasters, large and small, there is no doubt that more will be heard on this decision in coming months. We'll have more details on this decision in coming days.
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| VoodooChileInWOnderl |
Signed, the fees are not that high anyway |
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| VoodooChileInWOnderl |
BTW, please give us the link to the webradio station of your friend |
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| glencar |
I will sign too! My fave station is WFUV in NYC. I'll link it in the near future... |
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| glencar |
13,757 so far... |
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| glencar |
http://wfuv.org/ |
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| monkey_man |
quote:
VoodooChileInWOnderl wrote:
Signed, the fees are not that high anyway
The fees are per listener and per song. . . way more than terrestrial radio pays. My friend's radio station is at www.bagelradio.com. |
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| Coming Down Again |
Let's not forget about campus stations (most of which broadcast on the internet now) that won't be affected by this increase as we don't pay anything.
I have a show which you can check out at www.myspace.com/rockateria.
You can check out my station at www.chrwradio.com.
Other shows I recommend include In the Red (Wednesday 3:30pm - 6pm), and Radio What Wave (Thursdays at 7).
You can listen to these shows all week long by going into the archive. Of course, you can listen live as well.
ROCK ON, ETC!! |
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| TommyHawk |
quote:
Coming Down Again wrote:
Let's not forget about campus stations (most of which broadcast on the internet now) that won't be affected by this increase as we don't pay anything.
How can you legally get away with that? |
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