Online Royalties Fight Continues

A battle over royalty rates for streaming music online is building with a bill before Congress that could change how said royalties are paid. 

The Internet Radio Fairness Act, introduced in September, would reportedly establish a more even playing field as to how payments are calculated by the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board, according to the New York Times. 

 
Pandora Media and other Internet radio services are claiming they pay higher rates then satellite and cable radio outlets such as Sirius XM and MusicChoice.
 
Artists and labels agree it’s a fair-pay issue, just not on how much is considered fair.
 
“This is not just about our present; it is about our future, our ability to make it in the digital age,” Cary Sherman, Recording Industry Association of America exec, told the Times. “Artists and labels and the entire music community need to earn a fair return on the creative works that are the reason companies like Pandora exist.”
 
Pandora officials have challenged the royalty issue before and reached a 2009 agreement for a temporary discount of 40 percent off the royalty board’s rates. That deal expires in 2015.