Fred Wilhelm started a discussion about the CRB record keeping rules.  The complete article on the CRB record keeping is in the recent P2Pnet.

Well, I wanted to add my piece to this so I responded to Fred from the perpective of our customers, the web-casters.

Backbone Networks, as an internet radio aggregator, has an additional concern regarding web-casters. This concern would be true if the rumored standard ISP charge for music is implemented. Web-casters would still have to pay a performance royalty for streaming music to listeners with the ISPs that had implemented the charge. This is music for which the listener already has a right to hear. In other words, the streaming royalty would constitute a double payment.

For listeners of web-casters on ISP services that pay the license fee Backbone would like to see the streaming royalty rates waived however the reporting requirement remain. This would eliminate the double payment while at the same time providing the information back to SoundExchange to enable appropriate allocation to the artists.

Webcasters provide a service to their listeners, they program their shows to highlight new music and other programming that keeps their audience engaged. As such they are helping listeners find new music, i.e. some of the 7500 artists you reference. Anyone who has listened to Radio Paradise, Soma FM, BaGEL Radio, AccuRadio, Pandora or one of the IBS-SRN college radio stations know that these web-casters add significant value to their listener communities.

While we believe that the current royalty rates are way too high and are slowing the adoption of internet radio, this solution would at least help lower the cost web-casters bear for streaming to listeners on those ISPs. This may even help the web-casters that provide the added value of progamming interesting playlists for their listeners to continue to operate.

Separately we have a few additional broader concerns for web-casters. These are:

– The worldwide nature of the internet enables a worldwide audience. However, the complexity to report in the US is multiplied dramatically as the stream crosses borders. This friction in the system is a drag to the overall health of the music industry and internet radio.

– The royalty rates are tied to a particular transmission medium yet the listeners do not make such a distinction. We would support “broadcast neutrality” for the rates and ask that the rates be normalized between terrestrial, satellite and internet transmission. What we find most strange about the rates is that they are highest for internet transmission yet those streams are the most valuable because of the information and statistics that are associated with them.

I bring up this point because as an internet aggregator we would only support providing additional reporting to SX in exchange for reduced rates. Further, the more information provided the lower the rate should be. This data is extremely valuable and should not come for free. To me I think that the full requested information associated with each play is about equal to the current royalty rate.

We are all for finding workable solutions that promote artists while enabling web-casters to operate in a profitable manner and not all web-casters agree with our position but we believe that it is directionally correct and fair to the artists and web-casters.