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You are here: MacNN Forums > Community > MacNN Lounge > You want to run an Internet radio station? That'll be $150,000, please.

You want to run an Internet radio station? That'll be $150,000, please.
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Scifience
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Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: Kyoto, Japan
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Mar 3, 2007, 08:18 AM
 
Under the new royalty schedule approved yesterday, apparently a streaming radio station with just 1,000 listeners will be required to pay the RIAA $150,000 a year in royalties. And they'll be required to pay retroactively to the beginning of 2006 if they've already been broadcasting.

Meanwhile regular radio stations don't spend one dime on performance rights.

This seems to me like an attempt to just put independent broadcasters out of business. It is simply not reasonable to expect someone to pay that kind of money.

More info here.
     
Dork.
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Mar 3, 2007, 09:50 AM
 
Looks like legalized extortion to me. How many internet radio stations have kept track of the number of streams of each song they play for the last 14 months?

Here's a question for you: Clearly, some royalty is appropriate in this situation, since you're playing music that other people have written and performed. What do you think is an appropriate royalty to pay for a station with 1,000 listeners? Performance is defined here as streaming a single song to a single listener. Should it be redefined to mean streaming a single song at a specific time to as many listeners as possible? You could quadruple the per-song royalty and still only have to pay about $600/yr for your station with 1,000 listeners. Is that too little?
     
Scifience  (op)
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Mar 3, 2007, 01:07 PM
 
Originally Posted by Dork. View Post
Looks like legalized extortion to me. How many internet radio stations have kept track of the number of streams of each song they play for the last 14 months?
Actually, all the legal ones should have, since they have been required to pay royalties since the late 90s. But the old fees were *way* more reasonable. There was an exemption for webcasters with less than $1,000,000 a year in revenue that required them to only pay an expensive (but still somewhat affordable) flat rate. This last year it was $2000.

Originally Posted by Dork. View Post
Here's a question for you: Clearly, some royalty is appropriate in this situation, since you're playing music that other people have written and performed. What do you think is an appropriate royalty to pay for a station with 1,000 listeners? Performance is defined here as streaming a single song to a single listener. Should it be redefined to mean streaming a single song at a specific time to as many listeners as possible? You could quadruple the per-song royalty and still only have to pay about $600/yr for your station with 1,000 listeners. Is that too little?
I think that no performance royalty is appropriate so long as over-the-air stations aren't required to pay one (they're not). Broadcasters using the Internet shouldn't be charged more than ones broadcasting over-the-air. At the moment, over-the-air stations are charged only for the mechanical rights, which are far more reasonably priced. The mechanical rights can be purchased from a number of organizations, including ASCAP and SESAC.
     
   
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