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Net Radio Wins Partial Reprieve
Joren writes "Just a few hours after our last discussion on this topic, Wired News is reporting that Internet radio broadcasters have won a temporary reprieve from the new rates. Apparently the details are still being worked out. 'A coalition of webcasters have worked out a deal with the recording industry that could temporarily stave off a portion of crippling net radio royalties set to take effect Sunday, according to people familiar with the negotiations ... For now, the parties involved in what's described as ongoing negotiations have agreed to waive at least temporarily the minimum charge of $6,000 per channel required under a scheme created by the Copyright Royalty Board, or CRB. The deal, brokered late Thursday, is not final and could change. One person involved in the talks described the situation as a reprieve, and said that internet radio won't be saved until a workable royalty rate is set.'"
Correct me if I'm wrong but it doesn't look like there is a lot of money in Internet Radio. So stations couldn't pay if they wanted to and if internet radio is effectively shutdown it would be a net loss for everyone artists, distributors, stations and listeners. So to me it looks like the only alternative is for internet radio to become very similar to FM radio (lots of ads) and fees paid.
Always be polite.
Free to you maybe, but the internet radio stations have always payed a licensing fee. The big change here is that in the past internet radio had the same basic fee structure as a traditional broadcast radio station, in which the station paid a flat rate for a blanket license to play music from the RIAA's catalog (don't remember, but I think it may have been a small per song charge). The change is that they want to go to a payment system that charges not only per song, but per listener, which will grossly inflate the fees these stations will need to pay. Never mind the technical feasibility of tracking the number of unique listeners to any given station, but simply multiplying the .8 cent fee per song by even a thousand listeners brings the cost per song to 8 dollars, and there's no way these small broadcasters can recoup that cost in advertising fees. The RIAA actually knows this, but they don't care, they want control of the whole thing, so they've set it up where only a few companies can actually afford to provide internet radio, and they're just fine with that, less chance for anyone not already under the RIAA's thumb to get any sort of air time.
Curiosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.
Because what Congress and the CRB (Copyright Royalty Board) set up was a compulsory license, which means that SoundExchange represents and collects money for ALL artists/labels, regardless.
You have to pay SoundExchange a yearly membership as an artist/label to receive money they do collect and they don't say what they do with the money they collect for artists that have no label and dont sign up for membership, apparently this is free money for their coffers.