SoundExchange has posted on its website this afternoon four press releases announcing new settlements of amounts due for Internet radio music royalties.  These settlements were negotiated under the provisions of the Webcaster Settlement Act of 2009.  The announcement lists settlements with two noncommercial groups representing College Broadcasters and noncommercial religious broadcasters, as well as a deal with Sirius XM for their streaming of music.  The fourth deal is with a group to be named later – a little mystery that sounds like something out of a trade of baseball players done right at the trading deadline.  In effect, that is the case here, as yesterday was the final date for deals to be done under the terms of the WSA.  These deals join the Pureplay Webcasters settlement announced earlier this month, as well as the deals with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for NPR affiliates, the NAB for commercial broadcasters, and with microcasters done in February under the terms of the Webcasters Settlement Act of 2008 (links to our description of these deals can be found here).

The press releases do not release detailed terms. For Sirius, the release states that the parties agreed to a per performance rate which is not specified, covering webcasting royalties through 2015.  These rates do not apply to Sirius performances that are done by satellite, which are covered by the Copyright Royalty Board rates recently upheld by the US Court of Appeals.  Instead, these rates only cover the streaming of Sirius programming done over the Internet or to mobile devices using Internet technology.  The Collegiate Broadcasters agreed to a rate that provided the flat $500 fee for the first 159,140 aggregate tuning hours a month set by the CRB decision, and then per performance fees at the NAB rates for all streaming above that amount.  The religious broadcasters deal is less defined, discussing a per performance rate, but not providing any more details of the agreement.  For both noncommercial groups, there are references to reduced recordkeeping requirements for some webcasters, but again, those have not yet been detailed.Continue Reading SoundExchange Announces 4 More Settlements Under Webcaster Settlement Act – Sirius, College and Religious Noncommercial Broadcasters and a Group to be Named Later

The Pureplay Webcasters settlement agreement, which we summarized here, was published in the Federal Register on Friday, starting the 30 day clock running for the election of the deal by existing webcasters.  While this deal offers better per performance rates to large webcasters than offered by the rates established by the Copyright Royalty Board, and higher permissible listening levels to Small Commercial Pureplay webcasters than allowed under the Microcaster deal, this option still is not for everyone.  For larger webcasters, there is a minimum fee of 25% of total revenue, so companies with multiple lines of business will not want to opt into the deal.  For smaller webcasters, the fees are higher than under the Microcaster deal, including a $25,000 minimum yearly fee, and there are per performance rates that are charged when the webcaster offers services that are "syndicated," i.e. played through a website other than that of the webcaster itself.  So electing this deal is right only for larger "small pureplay" webcasters who have revenues over $250,000 (where they will be paying royalties in excess of the $25,000 minimum fee under any deal) and those entities nearing the audience caps of the Microcaster deal.  Nevertheless, for those webcasters who fit within the constraints of the deal, it offers benefits over the other existing options.  The opt-in date set by the deal is August 17, 2009.  The forms to opt into the the Small Pureplay webcasters agreement are here.  The forms for larger Pureplay webcasters are here

Note that this is just one of many options available to webcasters, each tailored to webcasters of specific types.  Noncommercial webcasters associated with NPR or the Corporation for Public Broadcasting have their own deal, where essentially CPB pays the royalties.  See our description of this deal, hereStreaming done by broadcasters, who would not want to take the "pureplay" deal as their broadcast revenues would be subject to the royalties, have their own settlement agreement, which we described here and here, setting out per performance rates different than those arrived at by the CRB.  Small commercial webcasters can elect the "Microcaster" deal, which we described here.  And for those entities that don’t fit under any of these categories, they will have to pay the CRB rates, which we described here and here.  The Radio and Internet Newsletter recently ran a good, basic summary of these alternatives, here.  Note that there still is another two week period where, under the Webcaster Settlement Act of 2009, agreements can be reached with SoundExchange by other webcaster groups to potentially pay rates that are different from any of those agreed to so far.Continue Reading Pureplay Webcasters Settlement Agreement Published In Federal Register – 30 Days for Webcasters to Make a Choice

The US Senate yesterday passed the Webcaster Settlement Act of 2009, following House passage 10 days ago.  Once the Act receives the signature of President Obama, the law will go into effect, and give webcasting groups and the recording industry 30 days to reach a settlement (or settlements) on Internet radio music royalties for the

In January, the Copyright Royalty Board asked for comments as to whether it should require "census reporting" of all sound recordings that are used by a digital service subject to the statutory royalty.  This would replace the current requirement that services need only report on the sound recordings used for two weeks every calender quarter.  Most of the comments that were filed dealt with the difficulties of certain classes of webcasters – particularly small webcasters and certain broadcasters – in keeping full census reports of every song that is played by a service, and how many people heard each song.  In a Notice of Inquiry published in the Federal Register today, the CRB asked for further information about the cost and difficulties of such reporting.  Comments on the Notice are due on May 26, 2009, and replies on June 8.

The real issues, as identified by the CRB, were raised by smaller entities that argued that they do not have the ability to track performances.  Especially problematic are stations that have on-air announcers who pick the music that they want to play in real time, and don’t run their programming through any sort of automation system or music scheduling software.  Live DJs playing music that they want is a hallmark of college radio, but one that creates problems for tracking performances.  How can a DJ’s on-the-fly selection of music be converted to the nice, neat computer spreadsheets required by SoundExchange for the Reports of Use of music played?Continue Reading Copyright Royalty Board Asks for Further Comments on Costs of Census Recordkeeping for Internet Radio Services

While all the details are not out yet, the trade press has been filled with announcements this evening reporting that SoundExchange and the National Association of Broadcasters have reached a deal on Internet Radio Royalties.  This deal will apparently settle the royalty dispute between broadcasters and SoundExchange for royalties covering 2006-2010 which arose from the 2007 Copyright Royalty Board decision, as well as the upcoming proceeding for the royalties for 2011-2015.  According to the press reports, the royalties are slightly reduced from those decided by the CRB for the remainder of the current period, and continue to rise for the period 2011-2015 until they reach $.0025 per performance in 2015.  According to the press release issued by the parties, there was also an agreement between the NAB and the four major labels that would waive the limits on the use of music by broadcasters that are imposed by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

These limits, referred to as the performance complement, set out requirements on how many songs from the same artist or same CD can be played within given time periods which, if not observed, can disqualify a webcast from qualifying for the statutory license.  If a webcaster cannot rely on the statutory license, it would have to negotiate with each copyright holder for the rights to use the music that it plays.  The performance complement imposed requirements including:

  • No preannouncing when a song will play
  • No more than 3 songs in a row by the same artist
  • Not more than 4 songs by same artist in a 3 hour period
  • No more than 2 songs from same CD in a row
  • Identify song, artist and CD title in writing on the website as the song is being played

It will be interesting to see the details of this agreement setting out what aspects of these rules are being waived.Continue Reading SoundExchange and NAB Announce Settlement on Internet Radio Royalties

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin announced that he will be leaving the Commission on Tuesday as the new President is inaugurated, and thus will not be present at the FCC to set any last minute policy for the DTV transition.  In fact, if Martin had decided to stay for the end of the transition, he might well have had to stick around for a while, as there are bills making their way through Congress to delay the February 17 deadline for the transition to digital television.  Senator Rockefeller has introduced a bill that would extend the deadline to June 12, which Senate Republicans blocked last week, though it will reportedly be reintroduced this week.  At the same time, the three remaining Commissioners have all released letters that indicate that there are significant transition problems that need to be resolved before the transition deadline.  While there are those who wonder if the delay will really solve the problems that may exist – the movement is in the direction of a delay.

The letters from the Commissioners are most interesting.  First came a letter from Commissioner McDowell, not directed to Congress, but instead to Chairman Martin, publicly asking for information about the FCC’s DTV phone bank to answer questions from consumers about the transition.  According to the McDowell letter, he was unable to get information about the status of upgrades to the system to handle the expected influx of calls at the end of the transition.  McDowell also complained about calls that were not answered at all, or which had long wait times, when consumers called – wait times that often resulted in connections with a voicemail system.  And he raised questions about the failure of the phonebank to be open on weekends.  It has now been announced that IBM has been hired to man the phonebank, perhaps answering some of the questions Commissioner McDowell raised in his letter.Continue Reading Kevin Martin Departs as Congress Looks at June 12 DTV Transition Deadline – While Remaining Commissioners Write Letters About Transition Problems

This week, after a long period when we saw little in the way of indecency enforcement by the FCC, the Commission issued two orders compelling payment of fines for television programs broadcast in 2003.  The Commission issued a Notice of Apparent Liability (an order proposing a fine) only a few weeks ago asking ABC affiliates to respond to a potential indecency violation in connection with an NYPD Blue episode run in February 2003 (see our description of the proposed fines here and here).  Only a week after the submission of arguments against the proposed fine made by the cited affiliates in a 75 page response to the Notice of Apparent Liability, the FCC issued its order rejecting the arguments against the fines – an unheard of speed in issuing a decision.  Each station involved was fined $27,500.  Then, later in the week, the FCC issued an Order which fined a number of Fox affiliates $7000 each for perceived indecency violations in an episode of the Married By America reality television program, also broadcast in 2003 – following up on a Notice of Apparent Liability issued over two years ago by the FCC.  In one case, an incredibly quick action resulting in a large fine against many stations – in another a smaller fine against far fewer stations.  Why the differences?

The reason for fines coming now was that, in both cases, the 5 year statute of limitations was coming to an end and, if the Commission did not quickly act, it would be precluded from doing so.  In both cases, the Commission determined that it would fine only stations against which complaints were filed.  In the case of Married by America, the Commission had sent a notice of Apparent Liability to 169 stations, but ended up fining only 13 against which actual complaints had been filed.  In contrast, the Commission fined 45 stations for the NYPD Blue episode, even though the "complaints" were in many cases filed months after the program aired on the stations, and even though many of the "complaints" did not even allege that the local viewer had actually seen the program for which the fine was issued.  Instead, many of the complaints were apparently initiated by an on-line campaign urging that the people write the FCC to complain about the program – even if they hadn’t necessarily seen it.  In its decision, the Commission concluded that the fines were appropriate – even without specific allegations that the program was watched by the people who complained.Continue Reading A Tale of Two Indecency Decisions – FCC Issues Fines for Married by America and NYPD Blue