Music Websites Online With New Royalty Deal

Garrison Lykam — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 00:00:30 +0000

The backs of business models supporting online music sites like Pandora and AccuRadio were able to straighten up as royalty payments to SoundExchange were agreed upon by artists and labels after 2-years of dark cloud debate. There’s still the 30-day period during which webcasters can opt-to-adopt the new deal or either resort to the Copyright Royalty Board rates or go through further elongated negotiations with each artist and label. Given the labor and lack of appeal of the latter and the death blow regard for the former, the collective sigh of relief on the part of the webcasters is good indication that the month-long moratorium is merely a formality.

If you’re an active “free” listener on Pandora be prepared to be hit with a $.99 fee to go beyond 40-hours which will give you access through the remainder of the month.

Here’s a simplified look at how the per song/listener rates shake out:

Proposed CRB per song/listener rate: $0.19 by 2010

Under new deal:

Large webcasters ($1.25 M/year): $0.14 by 2015

Subscriber services: capped at $0.25 by 2015

If you’re used to listening to music online, it’s safe to say your service will be there for you for a while. Maybe this period of relief will enable Pandora to focus on alternatives to its required Amazon Advantage Program fee to artists for getting their music heard.

GARRISON’S BLOG » webcasters

Music Websites Online With New Royalty Deal