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May 22, 2007 1:18 PM PDT
Music industry offers deal to small Webcasters
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"The net result of this proposal is that small Webcasters would be guaranteed no increase in royalty payments for 13 years, from 1998 to 2010," SoundExchange general counsel Michael Huppe said in a statement.
Webcasters that fall in the "small" category would be required to pay 10 percent of all gross revenue up to $250,000 and 12 percent for all gross revenue above that amount. Those rates would hold until 2010 and be retroactive to 2006, SoundExchange said.
It was not immediately clear what the revenue cutoff would be in determining which businesses qualify as small, and SoundExchange representatives did not immediately respond to requests for clarification.
Either way, a coalition called
"Under government-set revenue caps, Webcasters will invest less, innovate less and promote less," SaveNetRadio spokesman Jake Ward said in a statement. "Under this proposal, Internet radio would become a lousy long-term business, unable to compete effectively against big broadcast and big satellite radio--artists, Webcasters and listeners be damned."
SaveNetRadio's members include Yahoo, RealNetworks, Live365, Pandora, SomaFM, the Small Webcasters Community Initiative and 5,800 artists.
Popular Net radio
The move comes as Internet radio operators, ranging from small commercial Webcasters to National Public Radio to Clear Channel, have been battling a
The new rules, which are
Those increases may not sound like much, and SoundExchange maintains that the board's decision is a fair and reasonable way to ensure that artists are properly compensated. But opponents of the new rules say they would result in payment increases of 300 percent to 1,200 percent, which they argued could cripple smaller Webcasters.
The
SoundExchange, for its part, said its offering came at the urging of a letter on Friday from Reps. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) and Howard Coble (R-N.C.), the leaders of a key House panel that deals with intellectual-property issues.
Berman, a veteran congressman whose district includes Hollywood, has established himself as an advocate for more stringent copyright laws over the years, most recently
SoundExchange executive director John Simson said he remained concerned that the small Webcasters that have protested the most loudly against the new royalty rates have not been complying even with the existing payment requirements.
"The artists and labels are acting in good faith today, giving small Webcasters a break," he said in a statement. "In return, they expect the integrity of their music and their copyrights to be respected."
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Sounds more like 2.5 years to me. And retroactive assessments of fees are BS. How could a web radio operator make a decision on whether they can afford to operate under an unknown rate increase applied to today if they won't be told about it for 2 years?
Would anyone buy any service if they were told the seller could come back in 2 years and charge them more if they wanted? Since the buyer would have already used the service they would have no choice but to pay or go bankrupt. Sounds like extortion.
Most if not all of my recordings are by artists long since gone, from us.
how will the leeches disrute the royalties to these artists?
It gets stupider all the time!
How do I pay royalties when I don't have anyway to know if any one heard my podcast anyway?
How unfair that an internet radio could be charged for the listeners it has, when we hear jukeboxes blasting out everywhere. How are their listeners counted?
Most if not all of my recordings are by artists long since gone, from us.
How will the leeches disribute the royalties to these artists?
It gets stupider all the time!
How do I pay royalties when I don't have any way to know if any one heard my podcast anyway?
How unfair that an internet radio could be charged for the listeners it has, when we hear jukeboxes blasting out everywhere. How are their listeners counted?