SoundExchange strikes deal with internet webcasters
US royalties collection body SoundExchange has finally reached a deal with online webcasters over the royalty rates they pay for streaming music.
In a nutshell, all webcasters must pay an annual minimum fee of $25,000, while small webcasters (those with less than $1.25 million in annual revenues) will pay 12-14% of it to SoundExchange for the rights. Meanwhile, bigger webcasters will pay either 25% of their revenues, or a per-song fee starting at 0.08 cents for songs streamed in 2006, rising to 0.14 cents in 2015 – whichever is the greater.
Pandora boss Tim Westergren points out that the rates are still higher than any other form of radio in the US, but nevertheless hails the deal. “Pandora is finally on safe ground with a long-term agreement for survivable royalty rates.”
However, the company says it will now limit listening on the free version of its service to 40 hours a month as a result, although users will be able to pay $0.99 a month to extend this again to unlimited.
Tags: Pandora, soundexchange
July 8th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
What does this do to NPR radio stations and guys like Martin in the Morning, and Radio Deluxe?
July 21st, 2009 at 12:49 am
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