ASCAP Wins 2.5% Rate For Streaming by AOL, RealNetworks, and Yahoo
Page: 2,
Date: 05/16/2008
Full Text:
US court ruled that three top webcasters should pay ASCAP and its members up to $100 million in copyright royalties for streaming music online. AOL, Yahoo, and RealNetworks had been streaming music without an official agreement since 2002 because of a 1941 consent that requires ASCAP to have a blanket license if they could not agree on a performing right tariff. ASCAP sought 3% in music-related revenues, but the webcasters were looking to pay a significantly lower amount. The court ruled a main difference in this case is that webcasters have the ability to offer any song, music video, or playlist to consumers on demand at any time or place, whereas radio or television cannot and only provide selected music at certain times. The court sided with ASCAP's argument and method of calculating royalties, but only lowered the amount from 3% to 2.5%. The ruling, which may be appealed, only covers the year 2006. The payment for the remaining years between 2002 and 2009 is still up in court.
