Amidst White House meetings, bailout negotiations and partisan recriminations, the Webcaster Settlement Act of 2008 was also passed by officials. Contrary to suggestions in the name of the act itself, it does not settle anything concrete. Alternately this bill has provided music labels and webcasters more time to work out a compromise regarding royalty even before squeezing new rates are announced.
All this reminds one of the Congress’s threats last year to pass legislation and overturn huge fees which were required to be paid by webcasters. The webcaster royalty issue generated a lot of smoke and heat then and was thought to be a wayside incident sure to burn itself out. This issue is however going on for a year and a half now.
The Copyright Royalty Board’s high figures are being negotiated by the webcasters and music industry. A rate statutory rate was set by the judges for the music streamed by the webcasters. Webcasters including Tm westergren, the founder of Pandora found this unacceptable as this would send them towards bankruptcy for sure. With the Congress threatening to scrap the CRB rate too, music labels turned back to direct negotiations with the webcasters.
There were agreements related to fee caps and better deals were offered to webcasters who were small. There was no mutually satisfying agreement however on the royalty rate with the big players and Sound Exchange. Sound Exchange represents major labels in royalty collection service. According to the bill passed this week, deadline for negotiations was extended to next February.
