As negotiations between webcasters and the SoundExchange royalty collection agency continue even on this, the day when payments under the new royalty rates are due, it's worth taking a closer look at what SoundExchange says it wants from webcasters.
There appear to be at least two pieces missing from DiMA's description of the terms of an apparently prematurely-announced deal between webcasters and SoundExchange to cap of minimum per-station fees at $50,000 per year. Simson said SoundExchange would only agree to the cap if webcasters "become much more compliant intheir reporting" and "work on a technologically-feasible solution" tostop people from recording internet radio.
That second bit, although it doesn't use the term explicitly, refers to wrapping streams in DRM. We'll see whether Pandora and other webcasters acquiesce to this in order to be spared the "billion dollar" fee they'd have to pay to continue operating without accepting SoundExchange's terms. It'd be pretty annoying to have to install a special DRM-equipped client for each webcaster you listen to, but worse still if personalized webcasting services were to become extinct.
(As a aside, I don't have data to back this up, but I sincerely doubt that many people are streamripping personalized radio stations. Why bother, when you can just turn on the station again? Besides, there are easier and better ways to download songs, if that's what you want to do.)
(image from gizmodo.uk)
