Copyright Royalty Board upholds new rates
We’ve followed the news of the CRB’s recent copyright royalty decision very closely here on The Bluegrass Blog. You can read those posts in the related posts link section at the bottom of the post.
The new fee structure was opposed by most all webcasters and a petition was put before the board to reconsider the new rates. The CRB agreed to here the petition and many felt sure they would re-negotiate the rates. They didn’t.
[The Copyright Royalty Board] refused webcasters’ pleas for a rehearing today. Instead, the board decided — again — that the rates, which were proposed by the RIAA-affiliated SoundExchange, are fair. The judges also evidently felt they wouldn’t hear anything new during a rehearing.
The court also denied a request to stay the new rates until legal appeals could be pursued through other channels.
There is a lot of spin happening from both sides on this issue. Soundexchange is crowing about a victory in their press release.
[The CRB] upheld its earlier decision on fair royalty rates to be paid to musical artists and record labels for the use of their work on Internet radio.
The DiMA is portraying the news in a different way in their press release.
Without Congressional intervention, the decision – which is retroactive to January 2006 – will go into effect May 15, with royalty rate increases of 300 to 1200 percent for webcasters. It is expected that many of these webcasters will declare bankruptcy at that time.
My personal views are closer to those of the DiMA. An increase of this magnitude in operating expenses will force many of the webcasters out of business. Some people seem to be alright with that outcome. To be fair, Soundexchange has stated they plan to help
ensure a vibrant and thriving marketplace for Internet Radio and we intend to work with webcasters towards achieving that goal.
I’ll be interested to see just exactly how they accomplish this goal. Stay tuned, or maybe not…


With controversy and legal action still taking place over the rates set for internet radio, the Copyright Royalty Board has fixed new rates for satellite radio services. Since there are only two satellite providers in the US, Sirius and XM are the only companies affected by the ruling.
The two satellite...
The recent ruling by the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) to restructure the way royalties are calculated for internet broadcasters, has lead to heated discussion here on The Bluegrass Blog as well as in the halls of Congress. It appears as if Congress is not inclined to act at this point to overrule the...
If you've not yet tired of the discussion about the newly announced royalty rates for Internet radio (now apparently being reconsidred), you might be interested in this post from Wired magazine's blog.
It contains the full text of the testimony that Bob Kimball, Senior VP of RealNetworks, gave to...
The topic of the newly reconstituted royalty rates for cybercasting - Internet radio - has been covered here on The Bluegrass Blog a good bit, and generated some discussion in the reader comments to one of these posts as well.
For those with an interest in following this story, and what these new...
In the ongoing debate over the new CRB royalty rates, small webcasters were granted a reprieve yesterday when SoundExchange announced an offer for small webcasters. This offer extends the previous agreement, Small Webcaster Settlement Act, under which the small webcasters have operated since 2002, through...
Tomorrow, June 28, The Small Business Committee of the US House of Representatives will conduct a full committee hearing on the hotly contested new royalty rates proposed by the Copyright Royalty Board. The topic of the hearing is officially given as: Assessing the Impact of the Copyright Royalty Board...
Hal Ponder, the Legislative Director for the American Federation of Musicians (AFM), circulated a message by email yesterday to the union membership with regard to the brewing controversy over the recent Copyright Royalty Board rate structure.
It presents the union's take on the rate increase, which...




Leave a comment
Comments are open and unmoderated for our registered users, only your first comment will require approval before publication. Comments do not necessarily reflect the views of The Bluegrass Blog. Obscene, abusive, silly, or annoying remarks may be deleted, but the fact that particular comments remain on the site in no way constitutes an endorsement of their content by The Bluegrass Blog.
[...] keeping bluegrasscountry.org in business, but in the meantime, Internet Radio generally seems to be about to die. Who knows what the future holds, but it looks like a whole lot of traditional streaming may be [...]
I thought you might be interested in this, given your coverage of online radio.
The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) just released a report on Internet Radio and Copyright Royalties at an event on Capitol Hill on May 10. In the report, we describe problems with the current copyright royalty system for Internet Radio, and what steps Congress should take to reform this system. Specifically, we say that Congress should grant the same performance copyright to all broadcast technologies; modify the statutory license to allow copyright owners to specific separate rates for each sound recording; and allow copyright owners to assign separate rates to small and non-commercial webcasters.
The report is available on our website at – http://www.itif.org/files/InternetRadio.pdf
You must