SoundExchange Sending Reminders to Broadcasters Who Are Not Paying Royalties for Streaming Music Sound Recordings
By David Oxenford on March 23, 2010
POSTED IN INTERNET RADIO
In recent weeks, SoundExchange has begun to send letters to broadcasters who are streaming their signals on the Internet without paying their SoundExchange royalties. Despite all of the publicity about Internet radio royalties and the controversy about the rates for those royalties, there still seem to be webcasters unfamiliar with their obligations to SoundExchange. As we have written many times, SoundExchange collects royalties for the public performance of the “sound recording”, a song as recorded by a particular artist. Those royalties, which are charged only to digital media companies like Internet radio, satellite radio and digital cable radio, are paid half to the copyright holder in the recording (usually the record company for most popular songs) and half to the performers on the recording. These royalties are paid in addition to the royalties paid to ASCAP, BMI and SESAC for the public performance of the musical work – the underlying musical composition, the words and music of a song – money that is paid to the composers of that musical work. So just paying ASCAP, BMI and SESAC is insufficient to cover your streaming operations when music is being used.
