Petteri Pyyny
20 Feb 2002 13:16
After a long series of discussions and negotiations, webcasters and copyright owners couldn't agree to set a royalty rate for webcast and the U.S. government had to set up a panel to decide a royalty rate for them.
Today panel proposed royalty rates for Internet-only webcasters to be set at 0.14 cents per listener per song and 0.7 cents per listerner per song for regular radio rebroadcasts over the Net.
Rates are a compromise between webcasters suggested 0.4 cents per listener per song proposed by copyright owners and 0.15 cents per listener hour proposed by the broadcasters. The panel's decision must be approved by the librarian of Congress in May before it takes effect. The royalty rate is effective retroactively from 1998.