Webcasting

Major Webcasters to face billions in new fees? The CEOs of the four leading internet radio broadcasters, RealNetworks, Yahoo, Pandora, and Live365, say the new annual $500/channel administrative fee would force their companies alone to pay $1 billion per year to SoundExchange ­ without including actual royalty payments.
by Anne Broache, CNET, June 7, 2007 read more

After having a near-death experience a few weeks ago, webcasters got another dose of good news. Sens. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., introduced a bill that would vacate a recent ruling by the Copyright Royalty Board. The ruling would have increased royalty rates for webcasters by 300 to 1200 percent (according to Savenetradio.org).

This comes after a pair of representatives introduced a similar bill in the House a few weeks back.

Webcasters had complained the new rates would sink many of their operations. The new rates were slated to go into effect on May 15 , but the CRB decided to push the deadline back to July 15 after an outcry from webcasters. read more

That’s the question some in the music industry are pondering after the Copyright Royalty Board denied a motion by webcasters’ yesterday to rehear the new, higher royalty rates the board set for webcasting in March. The three judge panel denied the rehearing on procedural grounds saying the webcasters didn’t present any new evidence that would warrant a new hearing.

Small webcasters have bitterly objected to the new rates saying they would put them out of business. Small webcasters will now have to look to the courts or Congress for relief. In an e-mail message yesterday, Tim Westergren, the founder of Pandora, summed up the situation this way: read more

The first panel today "Radio Waves" featured a lively discussion about Internet and satellite radio issues. Given the recent ruling by the Copyright Royalty Board, webcasting rates dominated the discussion with many small webcasters and a couple large ones (Pandora and Live365) saying they would be forced out of business if some kind of compromise on the new rates is not found. Mark Lam, CEO of Live365 — one of the oldest major webcasters — was particularly passionate saying the new rates would eat up 75 percent of his revenues.

Interesting development in the case of AT&T, Sprint, Verizon and Qwest vs. FreeConference.Com, which we reported on last month (see below). FreeConference says Qwest and Cingular have stopped blocking their calls after an angry outpouring from customers.

FreeConference is a web-based service that allows users to make conference calls with a single long distance call. The telecoms began blocking FreeConference claiming the service was pulling a quick one by exploiting a loophole in telecommunications law. They said multiple people were never intended to be connected on one line. FreeConference officials said what they were doing was perfectly legal, but the telecoms were actually worried about all the business they were losing to the upstart. read more