With a possible re-hearing by the Copyright Royalty Board looming large, SoundExchange, which represented record labels during the hearing, called the original decision, which threatens the future of webcasting, "fair."
In addition, they claimed that the original hearings were sufficient for the judges to have come to a sound conclusion, counter to claims by DiMa, which represents webcasters, that the process favored the record labels' expert, among other objections.
John Simson, executive director of SoundExchange, said,
"Webcasters have a number of opportunities to maximize revenue with acaptive audience attracted by music created by artists through bannerads, pop-ups, video pre-rolls, audio commercials and other avenues ofrevenue generation. While we want internet radio to succeed, it is onlyfair that artists be compensated for the value of their work, whichforms the basis of their business...
"Recent claims by a few webcasters that the process was unfairsimply reveal that their complaints are not really about process, butrather about results. Webcasters like AOL, Clear Channel, and otherswant to impose low rates on artists, rather than accept fair marketrates as the law requires. They may disagree with the ruling, but theyshould be forthcoming about the integrity of the process."
The thing is, webcast consumers don't want to be restricted to AOL and Clear Channel -- and especially not to the far more ad-laden versions of those that would be necessary for those companies to webcast under the new rates.
