The Royalty Rumble And Its Aftermath
The good news for Internet Radio fans (myself included): The battle over royalty payments to song copyright holders appears to have been settled.
The bad news? Free listening might remain free only to a certain point.
The Pandora site blog has this explanation from founder Tim Westergren. Essentially, the big webcasters will pay an amount based on either a portion of their revenue (up to 25 percent) or a per performance fee, with smaller players paying based on a percentage of revenue or expenses.
What you will find in Westergren’s blog entry about the agreement is something I expect to become the norm. You will still be able to listen for free, but the free ride will be capped. In Pandora’s case, it will be 40 hours per month.
I expect this to become a standard model across the board, Internet stations capping the amount of free listening time per month, beyond which you will be asked to pitch in a small access fee (in Pandora’s case, it is going to be just 99 cents) or upgrade to a paid premium service in the cases of those sites that offer such a service.
There will still be some casualties on the battlefield, especially among the smaller webcasters, some of which were totally dependent on not having to fork over a significant recurring royalties payment. Hopefully, your favorite station will not be among those going silent.
