SoundExchange Offers Settlement To Webcasters
Billboard is reporting that SoundExchange has made a new settlement offer to webcasters: but it's not the results of negotiation, it's a unilateral offer, and it's ultimately won't work for webcasters like SomaFM.
I'm quoted in the Billboard article saying:
"'We're disappointed with the offer,' says Rusty Hodge, founder of SomaFM. 'It effectively is worse that the previous [one]. Basically SoundExchange has done nothing to comprise with webcasters at all.'"
This hasn't been a negotiation. This has been a series of offers that gets worse each time. The original SWSA passed in 2002 was better than the current offer. The offer made about 18 months ago was the same as the current offer except that there were less strings attached; and because at that point, the offer only applied to SoundExchange member artists.
The current offer is just the same old offer with more restrictions and limitations. There has been no compromise. Every counter-offer webcasters make is met with a less-desirable offer from SoundExchange.
The really big issue for SomaFM is the traffic limits of 5 million monthly aggregate tuning hours. While that number sounds big, in January, we did did about 6.2 million. 5 million monthly tuning hours equates to 6720 average concurrent listeners. And the SoundExchange offer technically applies to US-only listener hours, which is about 50-55% of our listeners, so we're still technically under the limit. But this means that as we grow in the future we're going to hit that cap, and we'll be forced to limit the number of listeners we have.
The big RIAA labels are threatened by independent internet broadcasters and want to make sure that we're constrained to a niche market.
We're very disappointed with this so-called "offer".
The RIAA is still out to kill off independent webcasters like SomaFM.
Labels: copyright, crb, dmca, internet radio, IREA, legal, legislation, rates, riaa, royalties, scw, section 114, small commercial webcasters, small webcasters, soundexchange, swsa
posted by Rusty Hodge [SomaFM] at
Monday, February 09, 2009
5 Comments:
So anything has changed.. It's sad to ear that.
Also, I take the opportunity to ask your opinion on the new administration and if you believe it will have any affect in new regulation.
That is an absolute shame. Is there anything we can do Rusty to prevent this strangulation? The RIAA should be ashamed of itself. What harm has soma ever bestowed upon anyone?
It seems that the RIAA, Recording Academy and MusicFirst think the new administration will be more on their side than the old administration.
Neil Portnow, CEO of the Recording Academy said last night at the Grammys:
“When it comes to protecting a musician's intellectual property and the right to earn a living, The Academy says, "Yes, we can!" And with a new Congress, we will champion the passage of pending legislation to ensure, that just like in every developed country in the world, all music creators are compensated for their performances when played on traditional radio.”
Did you really say "comprise"?
I actually said "Compromise" and I think the reporter made a typo.
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