July 15th 2007: Disaster or Opportunity?

[Jim Nye]

What will the new royalty rates mean to music podcasters? Do those playing "podsafe music stand to gain? This could mean a sea change for providers of royalty free content on the Internet, both musicians and podcasters. Any thoughts?

Under a Copyright Royalty Board ruling in March, Webcasters will pay a performance royalty of $0.0008 for each listener of each song in 2006, rising to $0.0019 in 2010. The first payment, backdated to January 1, 2006, is due on July 15.

The new ruling means the six biggest Internet radio stations -- Pandora, Yahoo, Live365, RealNetworks Inc, AOL and MTV Online -- will pay 47 percent of their anticipated 2006 combined revenue of $37.5 million in performance royalties, said SaveNetRadio.

"The industry will be decimated by these new rates," said Jake Ward, spokesman for the Washington-based group that seeks lower royalty rates for Webcasters. "We're paying more than our fair share as is and they want to give us a rate hike."

[Yotto]

If just one net radio station switches to all indie music to avoid this rate hike, I call it a win.

I feel bad for them, but sleep with dogs...

[guscave]

I can't say I feel too sorry for them. Everyone knows that no matter how you play music protected thru RIAA, at some point or another you're gonna have to pay thru the nose. Even though my podcast is not about music, I have no problem finding great podsafe indie music to play on my show.

IMHO, I'll leave the RIAA songs to terrestrial radio and do what I can to promote Artists who are providing free music to new media. Including established Artists (ex: Panic at the Disco, Howard Jones etc.) who are embracing this new method of promoting their music.

[Jim Nye]

Congress weighed in at the last minute to break the logjam in royalty rate negotiations and successfully pressured SoundExchange to give webcasters more time to negotiate.

SoundExchange promised Congress that it would not initiate enforcement actions on July 15th provided that webcasters continued good faith negotiations.

It appears the big dogs will be able to negotiate a reduced royalty rate while the hundreds of smaller webradio stations will be unable to meet the new demands.

More later.

[X Pat Radio]

I don't listen to net radio other than pubic radios live feed.

[Rasheed]

I don't listen to net radio other than pubic radios live feed.
I even don't do that anymore. Listening to podcasts is much more fun, and I get my news fix from tv.

[Jim Nye]

I would listen to more web radio if I could save it to play while on my morning walks. That, to me, is the single biggest drawback to streaming only.

I am fortunate to have hours and hours of independent music that was either sent to me or discovered on all the netlabels out there. Happily, there are a dozen or so podcasts I subscribe to that fill the gap nicely.

Jim

[X Pat Radio]

I even don't do that anymore. Listening to podcasts is much more fun, and I get my news fix from tv.

I would prefer to listen to all podcasts, but the local public radio has some good programing.

[EclecticMix]

Can't say that I've listened to Internet radio ever since they shut down Live365.com (which is back, but has nothing to do with the way it used to be).

The bottom line is that whenever you depend upon the music industry for anything, you have to realize that they can do to you whatever they wish. So although what they're doing is benieth contempt, it isn't exactly unexpected.

Cheers -

george

[insectapod]

There is more independently released music available these days than ever before, and most of those small bands would rather have exposure through more plays than squeeze fellow indie's like podcasters for a fraction of cent.

Anybody who wants to play music has the opportunity to do so without infringing on rights. The only reason to play popular music is to gain recognition, and that's recognition that has been earned through the record companies' marketing efforts, so it's fair for them to demand money.

If we don't like it, we can tap the derth of music that local artists are creating and internet users are retooling on ccmixter.