Copyright tribunal slaps Pandora with 20 percent rate increase [Updated]

Tim Westergren, founder of Pandora Media, speaks during an interview in October 2015. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg (credit: Bloomberg / Getty Images)

Internet radio services like Pandora will have to pay more to artists and their representative groups, according to a decision released today by the Copyright Royalty (CRB). The basic per-song rates paid by Pandora will go from $ .0014 per song, or 14 cents per 100 songs played, to $ .0017. That’s slightly more than a 20 percent increase.

The $ .0017 rate will remain in effect for all of 2016 and then may increase according to the Consumer Price Index, a common measure of inflation, through 2020. At that point, the CRB will make another rate decision.

Today’s decision resolves a long legal fight in which Pandora was asking to pay a lower rate of $ .0011. SoundExchange, which distributes money to record labels and artists, wanted the rate to nearly double to $ .0025 per stream.

Read 12 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Ars Technica
 
Copyright protection for works of art – free consulting, IP Protection of your software
 
Protection of copyright for any creative works and inventions, patents US. Consulting on all matters of intellectual property rights in the US

Related Posts