From Digital Music News: "Over the past few months, SoundExchange has been wrangling over internet radio royalty rates. But the label and artist representative has also been discussing future rate structures with the satellite radio industry. 

"In June of this year, XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio entered proceedings with the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB)... 

"According to recent filings posted by Sirius, a rate proposal of 0.89 % of total satellite subscription revenue was initially floated.  That has now been amended to a rate of $1.20 per copyrighted sound recording for 2007, subject to increases or decreases based on subscriber gains or losses.

"The satellite renegotiation was first sparked in the fall of the last year, at which point SoundExchange pointed to a drawn-out, multi-month process.   The organization also proposed a flat, 10 %-of-revenue payment from the satellite groups, though reports have since pointed to far higher demands. 

"SoundExchange may be empowered by a favorable decision on webcaster rates recently offered by the CRB, a result that has framed a number of post-decision negotiations with internet broadcasters.  'They just asked for something really high and actually got it,' one major label executive noted."

Read the entire article at Digital Music News.

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From Tech.co.uk: "UK internet radio could soon be in big trouble thanks to punitive royalty charges and other innovation-killing fees.

"The situation mirrors internet radio's experience in the States where online radio stations were threatened with huge charges levied by music publishers...

"However in many ways the UK situation is much, much worse. Royalty, performance and other charges are much higher here than in the US and internet radio doesn't have a groundswell of support from the public as it's simply not as well established here...

"The flat-rate per song fees imposed on UK internet radio stations by the music publishers, composers and songwriters' organization, the MCPS-PRS, could account for 35% to 45% of an online station's gross revenue. And that's in addition to charges levied by Phonographic Performance Ltd, which gets money every time a song is played. [Note: According to UK news source PC Plus (here), the PPL, which collects for musicians, has not yet decided how much to charge for Internet radio licensing.]..

"PC Plus has set up an E-Petition [here] on the 10 Downing Street website that calls for the fees to be lowered. Please help out if you can by adding your signature to the petition."

From the New York Times: "It sounds like the setup for a joke: a law firm picks a fight with a legal blogger over the leak of an internal song celebrating —well, itself.

"First, the song: after the law firm Nixon Peabody was named to Fortune magazine’s 2007 list of the best companies to work for, the firm... commissioned a celebratory anthem with an infectious 1980s-style beat and a sing-along chorus, 'Everyone’s a Winner at Nixon Peabody,'...

"The tune first appeared last Thursday on Above the Law, a legal gossip blog run by a former federal prosecutor, David Lat...

"After converting the file into a video, Mr. Lat posted the song on YouTube on Thursday morning — under the heading “Someone Deserves to Be Shot Over This” — and e-mailed Nixon Peabody for comment.

"Initially, he received a statement from the firm saying that the song had been created as a response to the firm’s being ranked 47th on Fortune’s list and was meant for internal use only...

"But shortly afterward, Mr. Lat said, he received a phone call from Allison McClain, a firm spokeswoman, and John R. Gerhard, the firm’s managing director. Mr. Gerhard said that the song had been leaked by a person who was in a fight with the firm,...

"Mr. Gerhard asked Mr. Lat to take down the song, but he refused, saying his playing of it fell under the fair-use provisions of the law... By Friday, YouTube had removed the song, noting that it had received a copyright violation notice.

"Asked to discuss the situation, Nixon Peabody released the following statement: 'This song was put together for a celebration. We were having some fun with it and now some other people are having fun with it. We’re moving on and focusing on being a great place to work and doing great work for our clients.'"

Read the entire article at the New York Times.

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