 RAIN 5/14: Radio royalty talk raises the issue of how webcasting is treated differently ·May 14, 11:55 AM PARITY, STANDARDS ISSUES FOR NET RADIO SURFACE IN PERFORMANCE RIGHTS ACT HEARINGDuring yesterday’s House Judiciary Committee hearing on broadcast radio royalties, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) made the point “that, in a bill that means to address the perceived inequality in royalties, a small webcaster with $100,000 in revenues would be paying $10,000 in royalties — 20 times what is proposed for the small broadcaster. And the small broadcaster who would pay $5000 for revenues up to $1.25 million in revenue would be paying 1/30th of the amount paid by a small webcaster making that same amount of revenue.” So industry attorney and royalties expert David Oxenford writes in his Broadcast Law Blog.
RAIN reported yesterday here on a petition signed by more than 300 webcasters and delivered to House Judiciary chairman and Performance Rights Act proponent John Conyers (D-MI) that made these exact points. The petition requests an amendment to the PRA to extend small broadcaster protections to small webcasters. The bill passed committee yesterday with no Internet radio-related amendments addressing this inequality. It was also revealed yesterday — again, keeping in mind that the Performance Rights Act Oxenford points out the original bill called for the “willing buyer willing seller” standard — the standard used to set Internet radio royalties. This standard has no allowance for considering fairness or industry disruption. It simply calls for experts to base the royalty on what they think a hypothetical open market would set. Long-story-short: the “willing buyer willing seller” standard tends to favor copyright owners far more than 801(b)(1). This switch in the PRA to 801(b)(1) leaves Internet radio as the only medium for which statutory royalties are based on “willing buyer willing seller.” [For a deeper understanding of the 801(b)(1) standard, scroll down to the subheading “Enter Digital” in Kurt’s essay here. For more on “willing buyer willing seller,” follow the same link and see the subheading “Enter the DMCA.”] Oxenford has lots more on the Judiciary passage of the Peformance Rights Act, including royalty rate reductions and delays in the effective date for different classes of broadcasters, at his Broadcast Law Blog here. RAIN’s coverage of yesterday’s Judiciary markup and the webcaster parity petition is here. MUSICTECH SUMMIT MAKES SPECIAL ADMISSION OFFER TO WEBCASTERS“In the spirit of facilitating dialog between webcasters and SoundExchange,” SanFran Music Tech organizer Brian Zisk is offering complimentary admission for a limited number of Webcasters to attend the event.
As we wrote yesterday, (see yesterday’s piece here) RAIN publisher Kurt Hanson will moderate the webcasting panel at the event. Webcasters interested in attending should register using the discount code ‘sxwebcaster’ for complimentary admission. The offer is limited to 1 or 2 representatives of any webcaster that pays SoundExchange royalties. The event is Monday at the Hotel Kabuki in San Francisco. The complete conference schedule is here. Register and see a partial list of attendees here. HEAR 2.0 READERS VOTE FOR TOP 10 RADIO TWITTER FEEDSBased on votes from readers, industry analyst Mark Ramsey has published a list of the Top Ten “must-follow” radio-related Twitter feeds. Ramsey writes, “A ‘must-follow’ for me is one which can help broadcasters professionally, whether or not it’s about radio specifically.” He opened the nominations to his readers at the end of March.Radio megapersonality Ryan Seacrest’s feed was the top If you’d like to follow RAIN on Twitter and get instant notifications when we publish each day’s issue of RAIN (and get a “Twitter-sized” preview of the issue), simply click “Follow” on our Twitter page at twitter.com/raintwitter). Read more in Mark Ramsey’s “Hear 2.0” and see his entire Top Ten here. share: del.icio.us.  Reddit  Digg  Yahoo  Wink  Windows  Google  Newsvine 
CommentCommenting is closed for this article.  Other stories RAIN has upgraded (and moved)! RAIN 9/13: RAIN Summit Chicago takes place today! RAIN 9/12: First Summit in RAIN's hometown takes place tomorrow RAIN 9/9: Summer holidays, "doldrums" impact July Webcast Metrics, but audience up over last year RAIN 9/8: Clear Channel launches new customizable iHeartRadio beta; RAIN goes hands-on RAIN 9/7: Meet more speakers you'll hear at RAIN Summit Chicago in less than a week RAIN 9/6: Clear Channel taps The Echo Nest to take on Pandora RAIN 9/2: RAIN reviews Spotify's radio-like product Artist Radio RAIN 9/1: UK online radio aggregator Radioplayer campaigns b'dcasters to create "all radio" ratings RAIN 8/31: Execs from Merlin, Triton Digital, jacAPPS and more to appear at RAIN Summit Chicago |
would address the perceived inequality of sound recording copyright when used by by broadcasters — that the Performance Rights Act would call for the Copyright Royalty Board to base its royalty rate determination using the “801(b)(1)” standard. That’s the same standard used for satellite and cable radio and which is based on fairness and minimizing disruption to the industry. (Actually, this “minimizing disruption to the industry” criterion, according to Oxenford, has been dropped from the standard as it’s applied to the 
vote-getter. “With more than 900,000 followers and counting, Ryan and his team have perfected the art of Twitter for Talent. Whether it’s an insider perspective on radio or Idol, backstage photos and tidbits, or teases about what’s upcoming, Ryan et. al. do a great job of connecting with their fans,” comments Ramsey. Twitter feeds from Social Media 411 (
As you may know, the notifications can even be sent as text messages to your phone! You can still get our daily issue preview via e-mail (if you don’t receive it and would like to, look for the form near the bottom of the right-hand column with the olive-colored tab).
