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The annual spring RAIN Summit West gathering in Las Vegas last month closed with a discussion of the evergreen topic of music licensing costs and the effects on services. Somewhat encouragingly, the on-stage participants -- representing webcasters, the music industry, rights organizations, and performers -- seemed to agree on more than disagree. The panel, "The Song Plays On," was moderated by attorney and webcasting legal expert David Oxenford.

Attendees heard from artist Patrick Laird, a cellist in the classical/rock outfit Break of Reality. A strong advocate for webcasting, he says his band's experience has led him to believe play (that is, exposure) on Internet radio is far more valuable than the royalties his band earns from that play.

"I'd much rather be played," Laird said. "We've had over 16 million plays in a year on Pandora... we wouldn't get radio play otherwise... but our record sales tripled." He told a story of a promoter finding Break of Reality on line and booking them for a show which paid them more than all their royalties for an entire year.

When the discussion swung to the promotional value of Internet radio versus that of on-demand streaming, Laird (left) said, "Internet radio is what radio has always been, a discovery tool, a way to sell tickets, to fill concerts, to sell music, to get more fans. Internet radio is a better version of radio, it does all those things better. What's important is the growth of the medium. We need to support Internet radio, it's the future of the way people discover music... especially independent artists."

Consultant Ted Cohen, of TAG Strategic, while maintaining that "radio should pay," respects the benefit to artists of being played on services that can now reach "a hundred, two hundred million people." He said, "We're somewhere in the sweet spot -- I don't think the artists and labels are entitled to more... I'm not sure how much less they're entitled to."

This led to panelists considering how services could be even more beneficial to artists. Laird really liked the idea of linking directly to artists' presences on Facebook or YouTube ("that's money right there"), and suggested giving tghe artists themselves an interface to maintain those links.

But SomaFM GM/Program Director Rusty Hodge (right) feels the statutory license is a barrier to some of these methods of promoting new music. He suggested the need for a wider range of licenses, that could, for example, allow for use of music that's currently prohibited by the "performance complement" of the law (such as a rule forbidding play of more than three songs by a single artist in two hours, among others). It "keeps you from doing a lot of creative things," Hodge explained.

Cohen agreed that constraints on webcasters' use of content, even when promoting artists, held back creativity.

Moderator Oxenford then brought up the fact that some services like iHeartRadio and Apple's upcoming service are negotiating directly with copyright owners (and going around the statutory license) to, among other things, avoid the constraints of which Hodge complained. And while services going this route would lose the convenience of a "one-stop" for all their licensing, Cohen said the process of direct licensing has become much easier in recent years: "The goalposts have gotten wider."

Getting back to the statutory license, Oxenford asked if a "percentage-of-revenue" royalty model, such as those employed by publishing performance rights organizations, makes more sense for a young industry like Internet radio (The statutory rate is based on a "per performance" rate, a performance being one song/one listener.).

SoundExchange Senior Counsel, Licensing & Enforcement Brad Prendergast explained "the beauty of a per-performance" royalty is that "every transmission of a track is valued the same -- it's 'delivery mechanism neutral.'" It helps protect the value of the music from an operator that would use a high volume of music but make very little money from the service. (He also reminded the panel that there are indeed some statutory agreements to which SoundExchange is a party that use a percentage of revenue, such as the small webcasters' license).

One recent development the panel brought up was the announced withdrawal of digital rights by some publishers from performance rights organizations (PROs) like BMI and ASCAP. BMI VP/New Media & Strategic Development David Levin (left) explained that publishers are seeing record labels making much more licensing music to services than they are, because the PROs operate under federal regulations that they feel supress the rates they can charge. The publishers tell BMI, Levin said, "Because of the government structure you operate under, we can get a better rate outside of this monopoly, by going direct."

Cohen empathized with the sentiment. "The labels are getting 90% of the revenue, the publishers are getting 10%. That pendulum has to swing a little bit."

We have audio for all of our RAIN Summit West content (including this panel) available via SoundCloud. Look for the links in the right-hand side of kurthanson.com.

In the effort to adopt "responsive design" for its digital platforms, NPR is taking a "mobile first" approach, reports NetNewsCheck.

("Responsive design" aims to optimize content viewing and navigation while minimizing the resizing, panning, and scrolling of pages for a wide range of devices like desktop computers and mobile phones.)

NPR recently unveiled its new mobile website interface for IOS and Android devices. The redesign now offers full versions of each story (instead of abridged content) along with easier links to audio, photos and video.

"It’s easier for us to build a coherent, full experience at the small screen level and let it grow up to the big screen rather than try to create something on a big screen and then figure out what things to take away to make it work on a small screen," said Mark Stencel, NPR digital news editor.

Read more in NetNewsCheck here.

Radionomy has brought on former TuneIn Director of Content Scott Fleischer (pictured) as Premium Content Director (beginning in June). As he did at TuneIn, Fleisher will create broadcaster- and content provider-partnerships for the service. Belgian-based Radionomy provides a webcasting platform for professional and amateur webcasters. Fleischer's career experience includes a stint with this publication.

(Radionomy CEO Alexandre Saboundjian will speak at RAIN Summit Europe tomorrow in Brussels, on the Growing Your Online Audience panel.)

Meanwhile, music streaming service Slacker announced today it has named John Hayase its new Chief Product Officer. Hayase will oversee the development of Slacker’s digital music service across all platforms. Most recently VP/Client Solutions with ElasticPath, his career path includes time at EA and Boeing.

Pandora last week announced media planning and buying integration with the largest media buying software platforms Mediaocean and STRATA.

"This marks the launch of the final stage of Pandora's plans to fully integrate Pandora into media buying platforms," the company's press release reads. May of last year saw the launch of Triton Digital's measurement of Pandora in traditional radio metrics such as AQH and Cume. In March (see RAIN here) Pandora announced that it would make its audience data available in STRATA and Mediaocean's Donovan and Mediabank stewardship systems, enabling radio ad buyers to compare Pandora national and local audience data directly to U.S. radio broadcasters' numbers.

This "final stage," says Pandora, makes it "the first and only digital publisher to integrate the planning, buying and billing phases of the buying process of digital advertising." The new solution "automates the transactional process between media buyers and digital publishers."

"We knew that a substantial portion of the $15 billion radio market is bought through automated systems," Pandora VP of audio sales Doug Sterne told news source AdExchanger. "About 70% of all spot radio is transacted through those systems. So we're trying to duplicate the workflow associated with buying radio. Using Mediaocean and STRATA will allow us to directly tap that pipeline of spending."

Read more in AdExchanger here.

This Thursday RAIN Summits comes to Brussels for the second-annual RAIN Summit Europe event.

There's still limited space available. The RAIN Summit Europe web page has all the information you need: the day's full agenda, the complete list of presenters and panelists, social media links, and links to Amiando and Eventbrite to register. The entire day, including lunch and post-show cocktail party, is still just €99.00.

This year's conference will be equally-split between panel discussions and feature presentations from Europe's Internet radio leaders. The day's final feature presentation will be made by Alain Reyes, COO of NRJ Audio (pictured right).

NRJ Group is the French multimedia ownership group that began with a single Paris radio station and grown to own and license stations in more than 20 countries in and outside Europe. NRJ Audio is the company's new media division and mobile app maker. Reyes will demostrate how the NRJ Group's philosophy on new media plays out on the company's digital platform. 

Two more of Europe's Internet radio experts have recently signed on for the panel on audience measurement, "Every Listener Counts:"

Jean-Luc Halleux (left) is managing director of TouchCast, the Liège, Belgium-based company behind CasterStats. CasterStats delivers real-time and historical audience reporting for Internet radio, television, mobile TV, podcasts, or any streaming media. Late last year U.S. webcaster RadioIO became a CasterStats client, and most recently Swiss TXT, the multimedia center of the Swiss public broadcasting organization, signed on. Halleux is an electronics engineer and owns his own website software company, InternetOfficer SPRL.

Pushkar Kulkarni is UK-based Kantar Media international business development director. Kantar Media specializes in gauging the media image and impact for publishers, advertisers, and PR firms. Halleux and Kulkarni, along with the other panelists (we have more on this panel in RAIN here), will discuss the best ways to measure the online audio audience, and consider standards for measurement, including advertiser concerns.

RAIN Summit Europe is this Thursday at the Hotel Bloom in Brussels.

New record industry research indicates licensed music streaming may be helping, not hurting, their business, including the sales of music downloads -- at least for independent label music.

Indie label global rights agency Merlin has conducted an analysis of 6.5 billion streams, and a worldwide survey of its membership, in which two-thirds of those members report an increase in "a-la-carte" download sales year-on-year. More than 90% of Merlin members say streaming and subscription license revenues also increased -- for a third of them, they more than doubled.

Merlin is the organization that administers performance licenses for many leading independent record labels (like Domino, Beggars, and Merge, representing artists like The Arcade Fire, the xx, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds) -- accounting for 10% of the world's music market.

Merlin's market share for streaming is outperforming the overall digital market, by up to 20%, the organization says. Between 2011 and 2012, 73% of Merlin's study respondents said their overall business revenues grew from 2011 to 2012. Of these, 21% reported overall revenues had increased by more than 50%.

The study included streams from services like Spotify, Deezer, YouTube, and Rhapsody; and download sales from the likes of iTunes, Amazon, eMusic, beatport, and more. Read the study results from Merlin here. 

TechCrunch reports on this too here.