Packy Malley's Wedding DJsThe Plain Dealer's Tom Feran did a short piece on the internet radio royalties act. Yours truly was quoted and made to blush!
Here's the story:
INTERNET
Webcasters fight hike in music royalty rates
"The day the music died" has been postponed -- and the delay could be long enough to keep it from arriving at all.
The day, originally Tuesday, May 15, marks the start of dramatically higher rates for music royalties that would silence most Internet radio stations. But the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board, which announced the new rates in March, last week pushed the effective date to Sunday, July 15. Webcasters hope the reprieve will give enough time for Congress to intervene.
Hundreds of Webcasters had planned to make Tuesday a "Day of Silence" as a preview of the royalty impact and as an alert to the 50 million Americans who listen to Web radio each month.
"We thought this was going to be one week before we were bankrupted," said Kurt Hanson, an organizer of the Day of Silence as publisher of the Radio and Internet Newsletter and operator of accuradio.com.
But he was encouraged by a "Hill walk" last week when dozens of Webcasters met congressional staffers to lobby for the Internet Radio Equality Act.
The bipartisan legislation would give Internet radio the same royalty rate as satellite radio -- 7.5 percent of revenue -- and said the Day of Silence was "put off to the right moment."
In its March decision, the Copyright Royalty Board, a three-judge panel of the Library of Congress, had changed the online royalty rate from a percentage of revenue to a per-song, per-listener fee. A different structure from what is used for terrestrial radio or satellite radio, it would have hiked fees from 300 percent to 1,200 percent, Webcasters say.
Terrestrial FM and AM stations pay music royalties that go to songwriters through the agencies the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers; Broadcast Music Inc.; and the Society of European Stage Authors & Composers. Webcasters pay an additional performance fee that goes to record companies through Sound Exchange, an offshoot of the Recording Industry Association of America. Sound Exchange lobbied for the new rates.
The new Internet radio fees, retroactive to the start of last year, would cover small, noncommercial operators, public broadcasters and Internet simulcasts of terrestrial radio in addition to the Web's biggest players.
Spokesman Bob Burford of WKSU FM/89.7 said the public station has three online-only streams that include a 24-hour classical music service and folkalley.com.
"The greatest impact would be on folk music," he said.
For that service alone, he said, WKSU estimated it would owe $48,000 in fees for 2006 and $66,000 for 2007, with higher rates in each year afterward.
Hanson said his 300-channel accuradio. com last year paid 11.5 percent of revenue, or $48,000, in royalties. For 2006, he said, "Under the ruling, we owed $600,000. There's no business that can survive if one of its expenses is 150 percent of revenues."
Even the largest Webcasters, such as Yahoo and AOL, would have to pay 50 percent to 60 percent of revenue, he said.
John Hannibal, a designer of sound and video systems, plays mostly new pop and rock on radiohannibal.com, which has been called "the hippest station in Cleveland." He gives exposure to music not on the playlists of conventional radio stations. He said he pays a $20 monthly fee to run it, makes no money from it and would certainly stop under the new rates. Hannibal recommends listeners go to savenetradio.org for details and to lend support.
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:
tferan@plaind.com, 216-999-6251
Thanks Tom!
