College Broadcasters Inc. (CBI) has announced that it has reached a settlement with SoundExchange in regards to the fees paid by student webcasters. According to a press release from CBI, this tentative settlement will “freeze royalty payments for the next five years. It would also continue to allow student webcasters to continue to file proxy […]
The Copyright Office’s Library of Congress has launched a new Notice of Inquiry on the “effectiveness of existing methods of licensing music,” an issue dear to the heart of pretty much everybody invested in any kind of music distribution system, from AM/FM radio to Sirius XM to iTunes. “The Office will use the information it […]
Fighting off as-yet-undiagnosed intermittent internet issues I still managed to watch a good portion of several Monday sessions from the Future of Music Summit in Washington, DC. While I cannot report substantially on any one session, I can give my overall impressions of the day. It seems like there were three major recurring themes: 1. […]
By now everybody knows that Pandora has prevailed, at least for the moment, in its legal effort to win the right to stream all content from the ASCAP repertory. The Southern District of New York has ruled that efforts to limit what Pandora can play violated a consent decree between the online streamer and the […]
Last week I had a conversation about radio and musicians with Casey Rae, Executive Director of the Future of Music Coalition. He told me “Commercial radio has made it difficult for artists to have access to the airwaves, no matter how talented. Radio is still a big resource. This is why the musician community rallied […]
Why, you may be wondering, did Pandora buy “Hits 102.7 FM” in Rapid City, South Dakota? Just out of curiosity, I checked the station’s website. Here’s the bio for Hits 102.7 deejay Christy Russell: “Hey it’s Mike talking about Christy Afternoons on HITS 102.7! I have waited for about a year for Christy to put in […]
Back in August, SoundExchange, the non-profit that distributes performance royalties to artists who have received digital airplay, issued a remarkable announcement. Over 50,000 artists and bands had yet to claim their royalty checks, the outfit noted. To clear the books, SoundExchange created a searchable database of groups that it thinks still haven’t registered to get […]
This is certainly an indicator of strong growth for internet radio and streaming services. Music royalties agency SoundExchange announced Tuesday that it ended the year collecting $292 million in royalty payments, up 17% from 2010. These royalties are paid by internet, satellite and cable TV music-only services for the right to play sound recordings, and […]
I am reading Representative Lamar Smith’s (R-TX) proposed Stop Online Piracy Act, and it scares the heck out of me. Like the oft-criticized Protect IP Act making its way through the Senate, the House bill is ostensibly designed to stop pirate content sites by allowing the U.S. Attorney General to get a court order forcing […]
Catch up on stories you might have missed from the past week in radio. Dirty Money Talk radio’s biggest names are paid millions of dollars to “use a script, outline or set of talking points,” according to a new report. The Heritage Foundation pays roughly $2m for Rush Limbaugh and $1.3 for Sean Hannity. Glenn […]
