New Royalty Rates Could Kill Internet Radio

FlatCatInASlatVat writes "Kurt Hanson's Radio Internet Newsletter has an analysis of the new royalty rates for Internet Radio announced by the US Copyright Office. The decision is likely to put most internet radio stations out of business by making the cost of broadcasting much higher than revenues. From the article: 'The Copyright Royalty Board is rejecting all of the arguments made by Webcasters and instead adopting the "per play" rate proposal put forth by SoundExchange (a digital music fee collection body created by the RIAA)...[The] math suggests that the royalty rate decision — for the performance alone, not even including composers' royalties! — is in the in the ballpark of 100% or more of total revenues.'"

Comments

Re:surprised??? never...

[gerrysteele]

The only reason the RIAA keeps getting away with this shit is because nobody is willing to stand up to them.

Screw them. If they are going to do stuff like this, there is only one inevitable consequence, music piracy will go through the roof. In turn this will hurt them. It may take a few years, but i'm guessing we won't need to do anything to bring the RIAA cartel down. The market will do it for them. When they fail their mandate to protect their member's sales (Sony, Warner etc.) and instead hurt them, it will all level out.

the difference between conventional radio and net

[rustman]

The difference is that over the air traditional radio doesn't have to pay these fees at all. They are granted an exemption under federal copyright law. Only digital/internet radio stations have to pay this fee, as set forth by the DRPA and DMCA. Not fair that mega corps like Clear Channel and CBS don't have to pay these fees for their over the air broadcasts which reach way more listeners, and only internet radio stations do, is it?