Petteri Pyyny
11 Nov 2003 15:39
International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, which represents most of the world's local music industry lobby groups and collection agencies, including RIAA, announced today that they have developed a so-called "global" webcasting license for Net radio stations.
Previously, at least in theory, if a Net radio station wanted to broadcast to multiple countries, it had to obtain licensing agreement from each individual country. Not that anyone actually did that -- you can listen American or European webcasts from anywhere and normally the webcasters simply ignore the licenses outside their own region. But the very few big players who have wanted to actually physically operate in all of those countries as well, had the legal situation somewhat painful as each country used to have (and still has) their own licensing requirements, etc.
The new initiative for global, one-stop licensing agreement through IFPI is expected to be approved by more than 30 countries' local collection and licensing agencies, including most of the European and American countries agencies.
But there's still a catch: the fee structure wont change and each webcaster would still have to pay licensing fees for the music to each individual country they wish to stream to (again, in theory -- in real life, to all countries where they have an actual physical presence), based on that country's licensing body's fee structure.
Webcasters have long argued that excessive licensing makes running Net radio uncompetitive against the traditional radio stations that in some countries, such as United States, don't pay anything at all to record labels.
Source: Reuters