On December 16, a relatively obscure U.S. administrative body issued rules with broad implications for online music. Every five years, the Copyright Royalty Board, or CRB, determines the rates that non-interactive services like Pandora and iHeartRadio will pay to stream sound recordings online. The details are dizzyingy complex, but this time around the bigger Internet radio companies generally cheered the ruling, while SoundExchange, the organization set up to distribute these royalties to artists and copyright holders, expressed disappointment. One set of stakeholders, though, raised existential alarm about the new terms: small, independent webcasters. […]
Wednesday, January 27, 2016
