What is the deal with the Internet Radio situation?!
Question:
What is the deal with the Internet Radio situation?
Answers:
On march 2nd The copy royalty board (CRB) made a decision to raise the royalty rates paid to soundexchange . While we all expected a slight increase, we didnt expect how high they were.
Turns out that the new rates, Retroactive to January 1, 2006, are asking upwards of 300% of revenues.
Internet radio stations pay on a "per performance" base model, IE, if one person hears a song thats one performance, if 100 people hear it thats 100 performances. Now, the new rates are still thousandths of a cent however, when you get thousands of listeners, it adds up quick. (last estimate i saw about 34 million americans tune into online radio)
soundexchange is saying the rates are fair, I guess if bankrupting and entire industry in its youth is fair, then go for it.