A lot of visitors to our internet radio broadcast are asking the question of why we are limited by the RIAA and SoundExchange (the royalty collecting division of the Recording Industry Association of America).

The Copyright Royalty Board, a group overseeing statutory licensing for US-based internet radio stations has declared that in order for an internet based radio station to broadcast RIAA protected artists, the station is responsible for paying certain fees to SoundExchange.

The rates are based on “performances” of a song. A “performance” is defined as one song being streamed to a single listener. In other words, a station with 100 listeners is charged for 100 performances of each song it broadcasts. As of 2010 the going rate per performance is $0.0016.

Take into consideration that this is all on top of the other potential fees to broadcast BMI, ASCAP and/or SESAC artists, which are paid separately (though, at much more reasonable cost). Then there is the host and equipment costs. It all adds up very quickly.

Just a quick note on copyrights; there are TWO copyrights to keep in mind. First there is the "musical" work which is basically the written form of the song. Second there is the "sound recording" work which is the performance itself by the artist.

Now...the annual fee. SoundExchange offers a slight discount for "non-commercial" streams, such as BlabberJesusRadio.com. However, we would need to register as such with the Internal Revenue Service (tax-exempt under code 501). The following come right form the SoundExchange website:

"Webcasters who opt into the agreed rates and terms will be required to pay a $500 annual minimum fee per channel or station for usage up to 159,140 aggregated tuning hours per channel or station monthly. Any usage above that cap will accrue a “per performance” rate for each track played."

There is also a $25 filing fee with the submission of a Notice of Use to the Copyright Royalty Board on an annual basis.

If you average out that there are 30 days per months, multiplied by 24 hours, you get 720 Hours total. Now, if you divide it all up, that means we are allowed a maximum of 221 listeners per hour. If we go over this (not very likely at the moment) then we start paying the extra mentioned above.

There are a LOT of pro's and con's to the whole situation that us DJ's have privately discussed in brutal detail over the last two months that I have been a part of the team.

The main thing to keep in mind here is that $500 is just the start of it. The other fees could easily double that amount and we really don't want to be forced into a "share-a-thon" situation where we have to beg you poor lads and lassies into donating your hard earned cash just so you can hear a couple of Tooth & Nail/Solid State artists mixed into the play lists.

I personally am not comfortable asking anybody to donate, especially during this global recession we are in at the moment. Nor do I hold the status of a "ranking member" at BJR to do such a thing. I am just a Christian Metal fan who was lucky enough to spin some compact discs for you six hours a week!

Well, there you have the long and skinny of it. Hopefully this cleared things up a bit for everybody?

Thanks Garrison! Seems like more Industry Garbage to me. The Industry trying to control something that over the next decade they will not a be able to anyway! I predict by 2020 most if not all radio will be broadcast over the internet or by satellite. The old model of radio is dying the same death as newspapers, magazines, and the recording industry it's self.

I recently got a new SUV and it came with free Satellite radio for a year. It is great, all songs with very limited talking and no advertisting! Why would I ever go back to local radio where the stupid commericials kill any joy I get from listening to the music?!

My biggest complaint so far is no good Christian Rock Radio, no that too will change over time! ( My Pipe Dream is I would Love see something like Blabberjesusradio lead the way! )

Oh, definitely! I would also love nothing more than to see a future where "Contemporary Christian Hits" isn't the only Christian Faith based station to chose from! It would be awesome to see Christian oriented "Rock", "Metal" and "Urban" (Hip-Hop, R&B and etc) broadcasting over high definition satellite!

As of the moment, BlabberJesusRadio.com is more of a "hobbyist" operation (that is how it was explained to me). I personally would love nothing more than to see our station go further than that and see the tuning hours that the big boys see (such as ChristianRock.net). This is not my station and I cannot answer for the others.

Again, our largest stumbling block in our current situation would be acquiring the donations needed to operate at that higher level of service. As I said above, listener supported stations are extremely difficult to maintain due to the constant need to come out even in the books at the end of each month. Let us be honest here...how many of you would be ready, willing and able to make a tax-deductible donation to our station each month? We would need $50 per month JUST to expand our playlists...I suppose that if all of our active listeners pitched in that would be easy enough? But, we can't rely on "maybes" or else if worse came to worse, us DJ's would be paying the bill and most of us are not in the position to do that (two of us are disabled and living on fixed income, for example).

^^ I have that same vision as well, I think it would be fantastic to have a satellite-based stream of a variety of Christian rock & metal so that listeners on the XM/Sirius feed could tune into & get exposure to a lot of great music.

From a donation standpoint, it would be a model much like Radio-U and TVU out of Columbus, OH. We'd probably have to rely on occasional donations, then supplement w/ a yearly "telethon" type of thing where each DJ would ask for donations during their broadcasts, and a special message would be recorded to solicit donations during the random feed. That's what I see happening, anyway

In this new decade, things are gonna change BIG.

The recording industry is nearing it's death very quickly due to the downloading. No longer do you have to go buy records. Just enter what you want in the search bar, and some blog somewhere has the album in a zip file ready for your listening pleasure in a matter of minutes, or even seconds. This is way different than it was back in the 90s, where you would just sit around with a boombox tuned to your favorite station and blank cassettes you got from the dollar store just waiting for them to play your favorite song so you can hit the record button (anyone remember those days, where even though you stole a song, you still bought the CD/cassette later on? ).

In this decade, CDs will probably die and be replaced with some other format, possibly a physical one.

The slowing in record sales will probably kill all pop music since it basically lives off of million-dollar sales (which it cannot live without since most pop songs/albums that get big fizzle out within months, if not weeks), possibly also killing music channels such as MTV and VH1.

I don't see the underground being affected much, if any, since we don't really do this for money, but for the passion of playing music.

As for the RIAA, they will probably die this decade also. The fact that they are charging largely unknown internet radio stations fees to play certain artists shows to me that they are pretty much desperate for some cash.

RIAA = Really Idiotic Audio Authoritarians.

One small correction Garrison.

If we want to not pay the extra rates, we can only take in an average of 18 listeners during the entire year. That's the highest number we can deal with without going over.

We would fall under the "Alternative Rate Structure" for "Non-Commerical Webcasters".

Defined as: Non-interactive and new subscription digital audio transmission services providing audio programming consisting, in whole or in part, of performances of sound recordings, including retransmission of broadcast signals.

Click Here To View In Its Entirety

Take note that the $500 annual fee covers 159,140 aggregated tuning hours per channel or station MONTHLY (as opposed to annually with the Standard Rate Structure).

Webcasters who opt into the agreed rates and terms will be required to pay a $500 annual minimum fee per channel or station for usage up to 159,140 aggregated tuning hours per channel or station monthly. Any usage above that cap will accrue a “per performance” rate for each track played.

eternalmystery wrote:

The fact that they are charging largely unknown internet radio stations fees to play certain artists shows to me that they are pretty much desperate for some cash.

RIAA = Really Idiotic Audio Authoritarians.

Well Said! why are these clowns targeting small internet based radio stations, who have limited audiences to begin with??

Screw the RIAA.

There. I said it.

We were talking about all this in my Music Business class last semester. I think the internet stuff like myspace and the stations that are streaming without paying any fees (as well as those random pages you go to and a song starts playing) are going to fall into the hands of the PROs. They are WAY too powerful for anyone else to take over. And it's still the wild west out there, so it might take awhile.

I don't think the industry is dying though. Yes, illegal downloading is hurting it, but the companies are the richest they have ever been. So.... it can't be as bad as people are making it out to be. It's hurting the people without a lable the most, the ones who aren't getting the advances.

But I do think things are going to MAJORLY change soon.

Now THAT is an interesting topic! We should start a new thread on that..."how do you think the music industry is changing and where will it be 5, 10, 20 years from today"?!

Let's do it!