Internet Radio Loses Royalty Appeal

The judges on the Copyright Royalty Board, the people from the Library of Congress who determine copyright royalty fees, denied a call a for a rehearing on their March decision to up the royalties payed out by internet radio broadcasters.  Independent music sites were backed by giants like Yahoo, NPR and Time Warner in the call for the rehearing, but it seems that alternate giants SoundExchange and the Recording Industry Association of America  - the royalty collections agency and record label guardians, respectively – have come out on top.

Berkman fellow Doc Searls today writes, “What happened here is that the RIAA has decided, with complete agreement from the Copyright Royalty Board, that this is their music, that they control it, and that they are going to set the terms by which it is used. Period. So, unless Congress changes the rules (and remember that they created the Copyright Royalty Board, and that this whole mess goes back to the DMCA, which Congress passed in 1998 and has shown no appetite for changing), Internet radio is going to have to pay these fees, or die.”

The US Court of Appeals may consider a final appeal; otherwise it won’t be long before the royalty hike, retroactive to 2006, hits online music purveyors.

Doc also leads us to Subterranean Homepage Blues, where a thorough tale is told.