SAVE LIVE365 BROADCASTERS
NEWSFLASH - Friday, March 2, 2007
The Copyright Royalty Board (CRB a division of the Office of the Librarian of Congress) has announced its decision on Internet Radio Royalty rates, rejecting all of the arguments made by Webcasters and instead adopting the "per play" rate proposal put forth by SoundExchange (a digital music fee collection body created by the RIAA). The new rate of $0.0011 per song PER LISTENER. Means is a small to medium sized Internet Station plays one song, and 100 people are tuned in, the station must pay THAT royalty 100 times. A "performance" is defined as the streaming of one song to one listener; thus a station that has an average audience of 500 listeners racks up 500 "performances" for each song it plays.
The new rates force webcasters to pay for each song streamed to each user, and increase over the next few years & are also retroactive to the beginning of January 2006. This is OUTRAGEOUS!
To small webcasters, this would be a death knell. To all of us on Live365 this will probably mean the end of Internet Radio. Can any of you afford this outrage? The CRB provides 30 days to appeal this decision. The decision they made was handed down on the end of day Friday March 2nd, 2007. To barely remain on the air, Internet Broadcasters in the US with an average of 1,000 Listener Hours per month would have to sell, on average over $1,280 a month in advertising just to pay these Royalties. After paying the $500 per channel fee of course.
Is playing music really worth it if its going to cost us like this? Will being an Internet Radio DJ in the US be worth it? Should we band together and put pressure on Terrestrial radio for getting off easier than us? Pressure the Labels, Artists and Copyright holders that if they want their music heard they have to pay us say...$2 per song per listener, per hour? Do the idiots in Congress really think the people will stand for this? Apparently so!
Webcasters who stream through services like Live365 will be in jeopardy, as such firms' business models probably never envisioned a royalty rate this high. (Live365's royalty obligation for 2006 is running in the range of $350,000 per month, and that's not even addressing the question of the $500 per station mininum!)
http://www.riaaradar.com/ (useful link for net broadcasters
http://www.petitiononline.com/SIR2007r/petition.html
Although Dawn sadly isn't broadcasting at present she fully supports the Live365 broadcasters and would really appreciate your support for them too.This really is looking like the END of net broadcasting.
It is hoped that Dawn will post a personal message to you all here soon. Meanwhile she thanks you all for your kindness and support during 2006 & this year also.
