14 DAY TRIAL // I am sure that those of you who are interested in DRM and the like already know what's on with the Copyright Royalty Board. Basically, they are the ones who regulate how much revenue different broadcasters must pay for delivering musical content.
Now, the CRB are not alone and can't act by themselves amidst the industry so they receive various proposals from all sorts of organizations. Everything would be sweet and OK if they hadn't approved SoundExchange's (an entity that collects royalties from digital music broadcasters) request to raise the fees per track.
Hence the whole crap went loose as the quick calculations clearly showed that the small webcasters were about to be put out of business due to a minimal $500 annual fee per broadcasting channel. You'd say that this money isn't too much, but do not fail to think that many webcasters are doing their work almost for free, just for the joy: they are not to be counted as commercial radios as both SoundExchange and CRB did! Let alone the fact that there are a lot of webcasters who offer a multitude of listening options, many of them being counted in as separate channels and thus multiplying the 500 dollars so freaking many times that the fees become huge.
As the CRB ruled on March the 2nd and their ruling was to be appealed, the web-and radio broadcasters are gathering forces to make a stand against this oncoming threat. Many motions have been filed such as to contribute to changing the previous ruling. Until the end of 2005 all broadcasters were due to pay 12% from their total revenues as royalty but the last CRB ruling overrules that specification.
One of the most serious demands is changing the payment basis from actually counting each song to the former method of per-tuning-hour approximation, which, they claim, is more fair and close to the reality. Clear Channel Communications Inc. (America's largest radio company), National Public Radio, Digital Media Association (to name just few of those involved), as well as many more representatives for both large and small broadcasters have joined forces to make a change.
The CRB ruling is thought of as being in some relationship with the recent turmoils in the music industries related to the questioning of DRM future. Funny thing is that the recently-created Merlin association hasn't yet moved a finger and no word has been heard from them...