Pandora, Other Webcasters Reach Royalty Deal
After two year of wrangling, “pure-play webcasters" (those who do not also broadcast over the air or are part of large corporations) have reached a settlement for royalty payments to SoundExchange. Online broadcasters like Pandora, AccuRadio, Digitally Imported and Radioio are all included in the agreement.
(3) And it gives smaller webcasters a chance to grow into these rates -- with a “percentage of revenues" royalty rate for a webcaster's early years (about 14% until they hit $1.25 million in annual revenues, and 25% for about a year thereafter)."
On his RAIN blog, one of the chief industry negotiators, Kurt Hanson of AccuRadio wrote:
“This agreement has three main benefits for those who choose to elect it:
(1) It cuts the CRB per-performance rates for 2007-10 by approximately a third to a half. (2) It establishes per-performance rates for 2011-15 -- with annual increases, to be sure, but not as huge as the kind of annual increases the CRB was coming up with. (And without the risk and expense of participating in another CRB proceeding for that period.)(3) And it gives smaller webcasters a chance to grow into these rates -- with a “percentage of revenues" royalty rate for a webcaster's early years (about 14% until they hit $1.25 million in annual revenues, and 25% for about a year thereafter)."
