DiMA is In the Webcasting Royalty Fightand Canadian's Get a New Copyright Ruling

I haven't blogged much about copyright royalty problems, but I assure you I haven't forgotten the debate...

Billboard notes that DiMA has joined in the fight against the CRB decision with a webcaster royalty rate challenge

Add the Digital Media Assn. (DiMA) to the parties challenging the Copyright Royalty Board's (CRB) decision setting webcaster rates for streaming sound recordings. The trade group today (March 19) filed a motion for a re-hearing with the CRB.

National Public Radio also asked the CRB for a rehearing earlier today.

"We do not believe that the Copyright Royalty Board intended to shut down the vast majority of legitimate online radio services immediately when it issued its decision, yet that is the sober reality facing many services," DiMA executive director Jonathan Potter said in a statement. "We hope that the judges will re-hear these three issues as they will have a particularly negative and immediate impact on our industry."

Billboard also points out that The Canadian Government recently made a landmark music royalty ruling

The Canadian government has made its first ruling calling for mandatory payments to rights holders for the use of music on the Internet.

In a landmark move that sets a standard for royalties owed to songwriters, Canada's federal agency, the Canadian Copyright Board, ruled that in the case of permanent downloads, 7.9 percent of the price of a song must go back to copyright holders.

For downloads that require a web subscription, and for on-demand streaming music, the rates are 5.9 and 4.6 percent of the cost of a month's subscription, respectively.

The Canadian Copyright Board announced its ruling on the proposed tariff by CMMRA/SODRAC Inc. (CSI) for the use of any form of music on the Internet on March 16.

The ruling felt short of what CSI had originally proposed. It had asked for a royalty rate of 15 percent of the price of a song, or 10 cents (US 17 cents) per song, whichever is greater. For subscription-based downloads, it had asked for a fee of $1 (US $1.17) a month or 10 percent of the subscription cost.

Will have more to day about this later, but for now I am off to lecture writing...

Technorati Tags: webcastroyalties, crb, CanadianCopyrightBoard, copyright, royalties, webcasting, NPR, DIMA

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