Webcasters face doubling of royalties

Found on The Register on Sunday, 04 March 2007
Browse Internet

The Library of Congress' copyright board, which sets the royalty rates for statutory licenses, proposes doubling the amount webcasters pay for their statutory license in the next the few years.

Partial details, first reported on Kurt Hanson's RAIN newsletter, see the current rate of .0762 cents of per song per listener rising retroactively to 0.08 cents for 2006, 0.11 cents in 2007, and 0.14 cents, 0.18 cents and 0.19 cents by 2010.

The details leaked so far give little idea of the final picture - many commercial broadcasters opt for the aggregate tuning hour schedule - except that royalties are set to rise steeply. Hanson described this as "undeniably a huge victory for the legal departments of record labels", represented by the Recording Industry Ass. of America, the RIAA.

They refuse to understand anything. The Internet isn't their little world where the outdated tactics work. Go on, force up your prices and look what will happen. Broadcasting will move to other countries, radio stations begin to drop licensed music and favor indie and freely usable releases instead.