 RAIN 10/15: Senate Judiciary approves Performance Rights Act ·Oct 15, 12:36 PM COMMITTEE MOVE FOLLOWS HOUSE COUNTERPART APPROVAL OF RADIO ROYALTY BILLThe U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee today approved S. 379, the Performance Rights Act, which would require U.S. radio broadcasters to compensate owners of sound recording copyrights and performers for the music they play. The U.S. House Judiciary in May itself approved the House version of the bill (H.R. 848) for a general vote. While the respective versions of the bill would next go to floor of both chambers for a general vote, broadcasters believe they have sufficient support to defeat it.
The National Association of Broadcasters, which strongly opposes the bill, earlier today released the results of a study it commissioned it says shows the majority of Americans oppose such a bill. FMQB reports, “participants were questioned on their knowledge of the proposed legislation, and were given additional information about the issue from a May 6 article published by The Wall Street Journal.” WHILE U.S. AWAITS SPOTIFY, TWO MORE HIGH-PROFILE SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES WILL SOON LAUNCHEuropean entrepreneurs Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, founders of file-sharing service Kazaa, have created and financed a “secretive” music subscription start-up called Rdio, based in Los Angeles and San Francisco. The company hopes to launch the Rdio service by early 2010 with “seamless access to music from both PCs and cellphones.”
Coming even sooner (by the end of November), however, will be music blogging site MOG’s new “All Access” service. It’ll be a $5/month, “all you can eat” on-demand streaming service for the PC. Mobile device access will run $12 to $15/month. The New York Times describes the service as “a sort of cross between Pandora… Read the New York Times coverage here. TOUCH YOUR MUSIC: HP PUSHES TOUCH SUPPORT FOR NET RADIO, OTHER APPS HP has partnered with Pandora and Rhapsody and released touch-enabled versions of the popular online music applications for HP TouchScreen PCs. The apps are included in a TouchScreen update supporting Microsoft’s Windows 7 multi-touch capability. The touch version of Rhapsody allows users to write the name of an artist on the screen to go directly to the artist’s Rhapsody home page. Read more at CNet here.
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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 |
The results: 60% of respondents “definitely opposed” the royalty, 12% “probably opposed,” and 3% “leaned opposed.” 85% agreed that, “Songs played on the radio help drive music sales, generating record sales annually for performers.” Read more on the survey in 
and music subscription services like Rhapsody. Users can listen to the songs of any artist and build a playlist with only that music. By manipulating a slide bar, users can also gradually add a smattering of tunes by similar artists, in effect customizing their own online radio station. People can then share their playlists from their site on the Mog service.” 
