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royalties.. who pays for them?


James

Do you pay royalties?  

11 members have voted

  1. 1. Do you pay royalties?



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Of course I pay royalties. But then I operate out of the USA and have little choice in the matter - if I care to remain on the air, that is.

 

I certainly don't mind that the artists get compensated for the awesome music they produce. It would be inconsiderate to not compensate them. What I feel is massively unfair is paying way more than terrestrial radio or satellite radio to do the exact same thing! And I certainly am frustrated by legislative bodies that seem hell bent on destroying the entire USA-based internet radio industry!

 

djMot

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  • 2 weeks later...
TGR pays, we started with Loudcity, but are now using SWcast.net Loudcity was costing us 34 bucks a month and we weren't coming close to the 5k TLH so there was no reason for all the coverage, SWcast offers a 2k TLH and with the add-ons for the personal html page and what not like LC it comes to 14 bucks a month, much easier to pay when you have a station that doesn't make an income.
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  • 4 weeks later...

In the UK, there are two licensing bodies, and Internet stations have to pay them both. You have the MCPS-PRS Alliance who collect royalties for the artists and publishers (this is a blanket license and is charged at a flat fee pre year up to a certain number of "tune-ins"). The station I run pays the MCPS-PRS license fee, I think it's about £80 per quarter.

 

The other is the PPL who collect on behalf of the record labels (recording copyright) and these charge per track per listener I think so you have to submit detailed reports. As the station I run plays more underground music, we are able to get around this by approaching record lables directly and getting permission from them. With underground forms of music, most labels are happy to get promotion from smaller stations as they don't get it from larger stations.

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  • 2 months later...

I use loudcity - love their service.

 

If you're in the US and you don't pay royalties... reconsider. A friend of mine operated a small station... never got more than 15-20 listeners - he was not licensed or paying royalties.... Soundexchange slapped him with a $25,000USD lawsuit and won. He's now paying that off. For me? I don't have 25k in my back pocket to freely give out.

________

 

Lou

 

Bigloo Christian Radio

http://www/biglooradio.com/

 

digiSTREAM SHOUTcast Hosting

http://www.digistream.info/

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I use loudcity - love their service.

 

If you're in the US and you don't pay royalties... reconsider. A friend of mine operated a small station... never got more than 15-20 listeners - he was not licensed or paying royalties.... Soundexchange slapped him with a $25,000USD lawsuit and won. He's now paying that off. For me? I don't have 25k in my back pocket to freely give out.

________

 

Lou

 

Bigloo Christian Radio

http://www/biglooradio.com/

 

digiSTREAM SHOUTcast Hosting

http://www.digistream.info/

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We originally were operating on Live365 and part of our contract was that Royalty Payments were paid out of our monthly payments (which were considerable then) when the CRB decision came down and we learned we would have to pay $86,000 for our 60,000+ TLH...Live365 got stuck with that (guess they never figured on this happening) as a result, to continue operating on Live365 we would have to have sold over $8,000 a month in adverising just to play music to the same number of listeners. And Live365 changed the rules on us as a Premium Channel and inserted their ad's into our streams. That broke the camels back!

 

So we opted to do like many US companies did and move our operations (servers) overseas. We now broadcast out of France. We also paid annually a sum of $2,000 for Composer/Producer royalties just like AM/FM radio does in the US to BMI/SESAC and ASCAP. Our income was less than $2,000 a year! As I see it, what we do is no different than Terrestrial Radio with the possible exception that we dont edit ourselves (as we have no oversite by the FCC) and we dont sell advertising like they do! This is a hobby but we get no breaks whatsoever!

 

If that makes us a "Pirate" station so be it. We did what many companies in the US did when it became impossible to operate in the US. We moved ala NAFTA. Until such time as a truly fair and equitable royatly rate is re-established the CRB, RIAA and the Labels can kiss my partially Irish behind! You cant get blood from a stone!

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We originally were operating on Live365 and part of our contract was that Royalty Payments were paid out of our monthly payments (which were considerable then) when the CRB decision came down and we learned we would have to pay $86,000 for our 60,000+ TLH...Live365 got stuck with that (guess they never figured on this happening) as a result, to continue operating on Live365 we would have to have sold over $8,000 a month in adverising just to play music to the same number of listeners. And Live365 changed the rules on us as a Premium Channel and inserted their ad's into our streams. That broke the camels back!

 

So we opted to do like many US companies did and move our operations (servers) overseas. We now broadcast out of France. We also paid annually a sum of $2,000 for Composer/Producer royalties just like AM/FM radio does in the US to BMI/SESAC and ASCAP. Our income was less than $2,000 a year! As I see it, what we do is no different than Terrestrial Radio with the possible exception that we dont edit ourselves (as we have no oversite by the FCC) and we dont sell advertising like they do! This is a hobby but we get no breaks whatsoever!

 

If that makes us a "Pirate" station so be it. We did what many companies in the US did when it became impossible to operate in the US. We moved ala NAFTA. Until such time as a truly fair and equitable royatly rate is re-established the CRB, RIAA and the Labels can kiss my partially Irish behind! You cant get blood from a stone!

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