reporting requirements for internet radio

The Copyright Royalty Board has ordered that most digital music services provide "census reporting" of all songs played by their service, along with other information including the number of listeners who heard each song each time it was played.  The decision, published in the Federal Register today, is a follow up to the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking about which we wrote here, proposing this new permanent rule to replace the interim requirements that required that digital music services provide that information for two weeks each quarter.  The only exception to the new obligation was for "small broadcasters" – i.e. those broadcasters who are only obligated to pay the minimum $500 annual royalty. These small broadcasters will continue to report on the songs that they play for only two weeks each quarter.

The new general rule requiring census reporting applies to all digital music services that pay royalties to SoundExchange for the public performance of sound recordings. However, the obligations set out in this general rule do not replace different rules that may be contained in settlement agreements entered into between services and SoundExchange.  Settlements with recordkeeping exemptions include the broadcaster settlement (summarized here), which give stations the ability to exclude some of their tuning hours from the census reporting requirements that were included in that settlement, and the noncommercial settlement agreements summarized here.  The CRB decision also excludes those services where per performance reporting is not possible (such as satellite radio services where there is no easy way to count performances). Continue Reading Copyright Royalty Board Requires Census Reporting for All Webcasters Except for Small Broadcasters

We reported on the settlement under the Webcaster Settlement Act between the NAB and SoundExchange on Internet Radio Royalties. As provided in the Webcaster Settlement Act, that settlement has now been published in the Federal Register, and thus it is available for broadcasters who are streaming their signal on the Internet, or who are streaming other programming on the Internet, to claim coverage under that settlement. To do so, broadcasters who are already streaming must file a notice of Intent to Rely on this settlement, available here, with SoundExchange, by April 2, 2009 – thirty days after the Federal Register publication occurred. Broadcasters who are not now streaming, but who start in the future, must file the election notice within 30 days of the start of their streaming, or they will be bound by the rates established by the Copyright Royalty Board in their 2007 decision (see our post here). The publication sets out several other details of the settlement, set forth below.

The rates: The rates, which represent some savings under the CRB rate for the years between 2007 and 2011, are set forth below.  These rates are "per performance", meaning that the rate is paid on a per song, per listener basis.  If you play 10 songs in an hour, and each song is heard by 10 people, you have 100 performances.  There are companies that provide services to track and report on performances.  See our post, here, for details.  There are also limited exceptions to the full "per performance" reporting, summarized below.  The rates under this agreement are as follows:

 

2006 ……………………………….. $0.0008

2007 ……………………………….. 0.0011

2008 ……………………………….. 0.0014

2009 ……………………………….. 0.0015

2010 ……………………………….. 0.0016

2011 ……………………………….. 0.0017

2012 ……………………………….. 0.0020

2013 ……………………………….. 0.0022

2014 ……………………………….. 0.0023

   2015 ……………………………….. 0.0025Continue Reading Details of the Broadcaster SoundExchange Settlement on Webcasting Royalties